The 12-item Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale Modified for Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD-YBOCS; Phillips et al., 1997) is a widely used, semi-structured, clinician or rater-administered measure of a person’s current severity of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). To emphasize, the BDD-YBOCS is a severity measure and not a screening or diagnostic measure of BDD, and it should be used only in individuals who have already been diagnosed with BDD. The BDD-YBOCS has been the primary outcome measure in most treatment studies of BDD and is also used in clinical settings. It can be administered online or in-person to children, adolescents, and adults and is free to use, although a fee may be charged for more than a certain number of free uses. This chapter first discusses the development of the BDD-YBOCS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. It has three factors: a core symptoms factor (BDD diagnostic criteria), a resistance-control factor (for thoughts/preoccupation), and a repetitive behaviors factor. Internal consistency, interrater reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity support the use of the BDD-YBOCS. It is sensitive to change as a result of clinical intervention. This chapter directs readers for how to obtain the full list of items. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

Arts-mediated HIV/AIDS education received significant funding from Ghana’s donor partners and global health institutions during the first two decades of the pandemic. Yet these interventions had a mixed impact. On the one hand, there was – and continues to be – near universal awareness of HIV/AIDS, including risk factors and health outcomes. On the other hand, low condom use and persistent stigma suggest that knowledge has not translated into sexual health protective behaviours and psychosocial support. In Chapter 4, I examine how the arts were incorporated into HIV/AIDS interventions, focusing on the use of mass media campaigns to raise awareness and educate, and on ‘folk media’ to educate and empower communities. I discuss a study that applied a narrative approach to examine local knowledge and lived experience, the findings of which illustrate important contrasts between community and indigenous healing system responses to HIV/AIDS and official health service responses. I will conclude with reflections on what these insights yield for developing more robust arts-based HIV interventions in the future.

The Curvy Ideals Internalization Scale (CII; Walker et al., 2022) is an 11-item self-report measure developed to assess internalization of a thick or curvy body type. The CII can be administered online or in-person and is free to use for research purposes, and has been validated among White, Black, and Black/White Biracial women. The chapter first discusses the development of the CII and then provides evidence of its psychometric properties. More specifically, the CII has been identified to have a three-factor structure, with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity support the CII’s use. The chapter provides the CII items in their entirety, instructions for administering and scoring the measure, and the item response scale. Logistics of use (e.g., copyright, permissions, and contact information) are provided for readers.

The Body Mass Index-Based Figure Rating Scale for Chinese Adolescents (C-BMI-FRS; Yu et al., 2022) provides a brief way to assess the body dissatisfaction of Chinese adolescents via calculating the discrepancy between their chosen actual and ideal body silhouettes. Height, weight, sex, and age data was calculated from a large sample of Chinese adolescents and a professional artist drew four equal height silhouettes for each sex (girls, boys) based on these data. The four silhouettes, which represented BMI values at the 20th, 40th, 60th, and 80th percentiles, were placed above a horizontal bar with 25 grids. Respondents choose the number (1-25) that represents the figure that they actually have and the figure they ideally would like to have. Their chosen ideal figure is then subtracted from their chosen actual figure. The figures and logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

The 20-item Fit Ideal Internalization Test (FIIT; Uhlmann et al., 2020) assesses girls’ and women’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that represent manifestations of three interrelated fit ideal internalization domains: personal idealization of the fit ideal, overvaluing of the fit ideal, and striving for a lean and toned female body shape. The FIIT operationalizes the fit ideal as a distinct set of ideals, values, and desires that differ from those associated with either the thin body ideal or the muscular body ideal. The FIIT can be administered online or in-person to female-identifying adolescent and adults and is free to use. This chapter first discusses the development of the FIIT and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the FIIT has a 3-factor structure within exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses: Fit Idealization (8 items), Fit Overvaluation (8 items), and Fit Behavioral Drive (4 items). Evidence has been found for a higher-order factor. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the FIIT. Next, this chapter provides the FIIT items in their entirety, instructions for administration and scoring, and the item response scale. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are available for readers.

Belgium follows global standards in psychological assessments, and great attention is paid to issues concerning bias and fairness by legal authorities, test developers, and researchers. Anti-discrimination laws cover around nineteen protected grounds and align with European Union directives, but hiring discrimination persists. This chapter illustrates the tension between the law, test developers and researchers who promote proper test use, and practitioners who continue to rely on tools that can perpetuate bias, such as unstructured interviews and intuition-based decision-making. Despite comprehensive anti-discrimination regulations and affirmative action measures such as gender quotas, there are no legal requirements for the use of valid selection procedures in Belgium. Balancing validity and diversity is emphasized more in the public sector than the private sector. Although professional bodies offer guidelines for appropriate test use, they mainly target clinical settings rather than employment settings.

I begin Chapter 3 with Mr Wise and Mr Foolish Go to Town, an ill-conceived colonial-era educational film on syphilis prevention dispatched from the Colonial Office in London to the Gold Coast Governor’s office in Accra in 1944. This project, along with other arts-based interventions, was embedded in the colonial medicine system, which, in turn, was shaped by the ‘psychic life of the colonial encounter’ (Fanon, 1963). I contrast these colonial case studies with contemporary global health cases. I argue that the psychological and political dynamics underpinning encounters between global health actors and local communities (and experts) create a “psychic life of the global health encounter”. When intervention models are imported wholesale, without cultural grounding and with unexamined prejudices, a range of problems emerge, including the imposition of methods and policies that, at best, do not work and, at worst, can cause symbolic and material harm. However, just as Ghanaian communities resisted health communication interventions linked to colonial medical violence, they continue to resist present-day global (arts-based) health interventions perceived to be harmful.

Envisioning the experience and study of purpose as timeless pursuits, this chapter is used to imagine five transformative trajectories likely to guide purpose scholarship in the years ahead.

These trajectories aim to deepen understanding of purpose across cultural landscapes, against a backdrop of emerging technologies, and amid profound societal changes. They also strive to illuminate innovative solutions for helping more people feel purposeful while unifying diverse intellectual perspectives on purpose that can be leveraged to that end. To close out this volume with these trajectories is to hope they serve as beacons for researchers, practitioners, and lay readers alike, respectful of where purpose inquiry has been, is currently, and is likely heading.

The human brain follows a clear and reliable timeline of development. Various stages of development are key to specific functions. Decision-making, due to its complexity, cannot be pinpointed to one age in development or a critical period, it undergoes several key stages through the lifespan. In the prenatal stage, myelination is important for cognitively demanding tasks like decision-making. In the newborn stage, the baby is constantly forming new synapses, increasing connectivity. During childhood most children develop the ability to use logic in decisions. Adolescence is a critical period for synaptic pruning, improving efficiency. The prefrontal cortex is considered fully mature in adulthood, around the age of 25.

A paradox of the current era is that people living in advanced economies commonly struggle with finding a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives despite the unprecedented political, economic, and medical advances that have given them more freedom and opportunity to pursue long-term goals of their own choosing. How do we explain this affluence–purpose paradox – why aren’t more people taking advantage of the unprecedented benefits of modernity to choose and pursue meaningful and fulfilling goals? This chapter provides a broad-strokes review of possible explanations for this enigma and then focuses on the sociological concept of anomie, namely the deficits and conflictual nature of societal norms in modern societies. This sociological concept is framed in terms of contrasts between current identity societies and premodern role societies. This contrast is illustrated with a focus on the transition to adulthood, a critical period during which people now need to individually cope with the normative deficits of modernity as they form adult identities. The chapter concludes by pointing to policy directions for how identity societies can compensate for the normative deficits of modernity, thereby supporting people to take advantage of the affluence that modernity affords.

The Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (BIAAQ; Sandoz et al., 2013) is a 12-item measure of body image flexibility. Body image flexibility involves full awareness and openness to the experience of embodiment (e.g., body image thoughts, feelings, perceptions, sensations, etc.) in any one moment in such a way as to allow for engagement in valued action. The BIAAQ can be administered to adults or adolescents in person or online. This chapter discusses the development of the BIAAQ and provides evidence for its reliability and validity. More specifically, the majority of studies evaluating the psychometric properties of the BIAAQ have found the instrument to be composed of a single-factor. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, split-half reliability, convergent validity, and incremental validity support the use of the BIAAQ. This chapter provides the BIAAQ items in their entirety, instructions for administering the scale to participants and the scoring procedure. Abbreviated and translated versions are also summarized. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

The 15-item Muscularity-Oriented Eating Test (MOET; Murray et al., 2019) assesses attitudes and behaviors associated with the pursuit of muscularity, such as the rigid monitoring of dietary intake, rigid adherence to dietary rules, regulation of protein intake, propensity for eating more or less to influence muscularity, and the overevaluation of muscularity-oriented eating. The MOET can be administered online or in-person to adolescents and adults and is free to use. This chapter first discusses the development of the MOET and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. Findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis consistently suggest that the MOET is a unidimensional measure in a broad array of demographic and cultural settings. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the MOET. Next, this chapter provides the MOET items in their entirety, instructions for administering the MOET to participants, item response scale, and scoring procedure. Links to known translations are provided. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

In Chapter 9, I return to the three narrative strands of Selling Healing through a synthesis of cross-cutting themes emerging from the case studies. I explore the possibilities of operationalising the Akan concept of Sankofa for indigenising health communication models. Sankofa means ‘to retrieve’. The concept is captured in the proverb: “Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyiri” / “It is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind” (Appiah et al., 2001). It is also represented visually, in gold weights, wood sculptures and textile designs, by a bird that moves forward while turning its head back. Sankofa has become an organising interdisciplinary principle for developing a decolonial and indigenising approach to identity, agency and social change for continental and diaspora African communities. I define Sankofa from a social psychological perspective, as a creative practice of the imagination and memory.

Ikigai is a Japanese word coined by the multilingual psychiatrist Dr. Kamiya, which roughly translates as “purpose in life.” Ikigai has attracted attention in health research and practice due to its association with positive health outcomes. Another Eastern-influenced construct that has gained increasing focus in health research and practice is self-compassion. Self-compassion involves being kind toward oneself during difficult times, mindfully balancing negative emotions, and recognizing that suffering is part of the shared human experience. Empirical studies report that self-compassion is strongly associated with mental well-being and purpose in life. This chapter examines ikigai and self-compassion and discusses key similarities and differences that exist between the two constructs. Similarities include their foundations in Eastern philosophy, their contribution to eudaimonia-type happiness, and their role in alleviating suffering. Differences between them highlight a lack of scientific evaluation of ikigai, including no standardized definition or measurement, and limited research on mental health outcomes. Self-compassion research can be advanced by identifying components of the standard self-compassion program.

The 37-item Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, Version 2 (MAIA-2; Mehling et al., 2018) assesses body awareness; that is, the ability to notice sensory signals originating from inside the body that provide information about its physiological states, processes, and actions. The MAIA-2 can be administered online or in-person to adults, including to clinical populations such as people with chronic pain, eating disorders, and depression (the 32-item MAIA-Youth should be used for children and adolescents). The MAIA-2 is free to use, and no written permission is required to use it for scholarly and non-commercial purposes. This chapter first describes the development of the MAIA-2, and then provides evidence of its psychometric properties. More specifically, the MAIA-2 was initially purported to have an 8-factor structure within exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. However, fit indices for the 8-factor model have been less-than-ideal in numerous studies, and more recently authors have found acceptable model fits when examining bi-factor models and a higher-order models, suggesting that the MAIA-2 items and scales, respectively, also load onto a general factor, with the exception of the Not-Distracting and Not-Worrying items, which may correlate with this factor. MAIA-2 scores are scalar invariant across men and women, and composite reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity largely support the use of the MAIA-2. Next, this chapter provides directions to the MAIA-2 items and instructions for administration, and the item response scale and scoring procedure. An overview of available translations and abbreviations is provided. Finally, permissions, copyright, and contact information are provided for readers.

Religious beliefs are a profound source of motivation and purpose for many people. This is especially true of fundamentalists of different faiths, who strive to strictly adhere to what they believe to be scriptural guidance for how to live their lives. However, given the high rates of religious illiteracy across American citizens, belief in a religion does not necessarily indicate knowledge of the contents of one’s religious teachings. Perhaps as a consequence, people belonging to the same religion, and the clergy who guide them, have used different aspects of the scriptures to express divergent viewpoints (for and against slavery, homophobia, violence, etc.). The complexity of religious scriptures and interpretations across history has meant that members of religions who have sought to follow the righteous path have, at times, been taught that expressing bias against certain groups is the virtuous thing to do. As such, religion has been used to justify strategic beliefs (based on power and political motives) which then become fused with religious identity in private beliefs and public discourse. This chapter addresses how the noble purpose associated with being a virtuous person can be reclaimed from the forces that exploit the power of religion to create division and discord. We call on people to educate themselves about the content and context of various religious scriptures, to value diversity and avoid bias, and to cultivate spiritual and intellectual humility.

The 14-item Muscularity Bias Internalization Scale (MBIS; He et al., 2022) assesses muscularity bias internalization or internalized muscularity stigma, which refers to the extent to which an individual endorses muscularity-based stereotypes and makes negative self-evaluations due to muscularity. The MBIS can be administered online and in-person to adults and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the MBIS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, within exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the MBIS has been found to have a three-factor structure in Chinese men but a two-factor structure in Chinese women. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the MBIS. Next, this chapter provides the MBIS items, instructions for administering the MBIS to participants, the item response scale, and the scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.