The 15-item Appearance-based Rejection Sensitivity Scale (Appearance-RS Scale; Park, 2007) measures the degree to which individuals anxiously expect rejection from others based on their physical appearance. The scale presents 15 ambiguous scenarios in which individuals indicate (a) how anxiously concerned they would be about their appearance in each situation, and (b) their expectations of being rejected in each situation based on their appearance. There is also a brief, 10-item version of the Appearance-RS Scale and a 10-item version of the scale for use with adolescents. The Appearance-RS Scale can be administered online and/or in-person to adults and adolescents and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the Appearance-RS Scale and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. The Appearance-RS Scale has been shown to have a one-factor structure and shows acceptable internal reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and unique predictive validity. The chapter then provides the Appearance-RS Scale items, instructions for administering the scale to participants, the item response scale, scoring procedure, and translations available. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are also provided.

The 20-item Appearance Schema Activation Word-Stem Completion Task provides an implicit measure of appearance processing. The Appearance Schema Activation Word-Stem Completion Task can be administered online or in-person to adolescents and adults of any gender. It is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the Appearance Schema Activation Word-Stem Completion Task within the media effects literature and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the Appearance Schema Activation Word-Stem Completion Task has been found to be reactive to external contingencies. Inter-rater reliability and convergent validity support its use. Next, this chapter provides the Appearance Schema Activation Word-Stem Completion Task in full, with items, instructions for administration, and scoring procedure. Adaptations and logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

Who am I? Where am I going? These are two of the most fundamental questions facing young people during the transition to adulthood. However, these two questions cannot be dissociated: identity resolution is incomplete without a sense of purpose, but finding a purpose in life is difficult without a growing sense of personal identity. Thus, purpose and identity can be seen as dialogic components in the transition to adulthood; they are the two legs young people need to move, in coordination but not necessarily in simultaneity, for personal development and positive life trajectories.

This chapter explores purpose as a resource for identity development in emerging adulthood, and identity achievement as a catalyst for a stronger sense of purpose in life. It is structured in four parts. First, we will introduce the concept of identity exploration and resolution. Second, we will review the literature on purpose in life and its association with well-being and mental health. Third, we will discuss the relationship between identity and purpose, through the lens of commitment, as a bridging element between both constructs. Finally, we close with a conclusion on the need to provide young people with a set of skills and resources to help them navigate the transition to adulthood, understood as the acquisition of a strong identity and sense of purpose.

This chapter examines employment testing bias and fairness in Japan. Japan’s hiring practices are shaped by its historical ethnic homogeneity, employer discretion, and a legal framework emphasizing procedural fairness over outcome equity. Anti-discrimination laws protect women, older workers, and people with disabilities, but issues concerning nationality, race, and minority groups such as the Ainu and Dowa have historically received less attention. Regulatory bodies, including the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, issue guidelines to ensure fair hiring practices, but these lack effective enforcement. Legal remedies for discriminatory hiring are rare due to the high burden of proof and limited application of disparate impact doctrine. Traditional aptitude and psychological tests remain central in employment selection, with the increasing emergence of artificial intelligence-based hiring practices raising new fairness concerns. In response, some employers are adopting blind procedures, including anonymized resumes. As globalization and labor shortages intensify, Japan’s employment practices face increasing pressure to evolve toward greater inclusion and equity.

The 15-item Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS; McCreary & Sasses, 2000) is a widely used, non-clinical measure of people’s desire to be more muscular and the actions they take to achieve that. The DMS can be administered online or in-person to adolescents or adults and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the DMS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have shown that the DMS has a single-factor structure for both men and women, as well as a 2-factor structure for men. There is mixed evidence for structural invariance. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the DMS. Next, this chapter provides the DMS items in their entirety, instructions for administering the DMS to participants, the item response scale, and the scoring procedures. There are no abbreviated forms; however, links to many known translations are provided. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

Globally and in African settings, the arts have been integrated into health promotion, disease prevention, illness management and policy development. This integration has occurred in a number of ways. The arts have been used to explore local experiences and understandings of health, to fashion health education messages, to provide therapy for a range of conditions and to evaluate, validate and disseminate health research findings.

The 24-item Male Body Attitudes Scale (MBAS; Tylka et al., 2005) assesses body (muscularity, body fat, height) dissatisfaction with male-identifying individuals, as these three forms of dissatisfaction have been identified as important to men within qualitative research. The MBAS can be administered online or in-person to male-identifying adolescents and adults and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the MBAS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the MBAS has been shown to have a 3-factor structure in exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, with muscularity dissatisfaction, body fat dissatisfaction, and height dissatisfaction being the three factors. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the MBAS. Next, this chapter provides the MBAS items in their entirety, instructions for administering it to participants, item response scale, and scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are available for readers.

At the time of writing, there is widespread concern about rising rates of mental distress and ill-health, particularly in some groups. This concern increased rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic, with some commentators predicting huge increases in mental ill-health. Subsequent economic crises in many countries, rising inequalities, the looming climate catastrophe, and growing political instability, polarisation, and conflict, both within and between countries, further compound these concerns. Questions abound about the nature and extent of a mental health crisis across populations, social groups, and time; about the causes of increasing rates, e.g. about the complex interplay of societal, interpersonal, individual, and biological processes; and about what should or can be done to address the challenge of rising rates, at policy, community, and service levels. These types of questions – of the distribution and causes of mental distress and ill-health in populations and of how to respond and intervene – are precisely the questions epidemiology, the science of population health, is concerned with. These questions are fundamental to our understandings of and responses to mental distress and ill-health.

The Muscle Silhouette Measure (MSM) and Fat Silhouette Measure (FSM) are pictorial scales that assess perceptions of male body image (Frederick et al., 2007). They each contain eight images, with the MSM progressing from non-muscular to very muscular, and the FSM very low body fat to very high body fat. Consistent with self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987), these measures assess men’s perceptions of their current bodies and their ideal bodies, and the discrepancy between these perceptions. It has also been used to assess women’s perceptions of the most attractive male body type and to code representations of muscularity level in popular magazines. The MSM and FSM can be administered to adolescents and/or adults and is free to use. This chapter describes the development and psychometrics of the MSM and FSM. The images were drawn by an artist based on photos of men in the Atlas of Men (Sheldon et al., 1954). Test-retest reliability was high for reports of current and ideal body. It was high for the MSM and moderate for the FSM for the self-ideal discrepancy. The chapter provides the images, response scale, and scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

The 7-item Body Image Disturbance Questionnaire (BIDQ; Cash et al., 2004) assesses three facets of negative body image: body dissatisfaction, body distress (or dysphoria), and body dysfunction (or impairment). Five of the seven items have an open-ended follow-up question that allows participants to clarify their responses, which is useful in clinical contexts and mixed methods research. The BIDQ can be administered online or in-person to adolescents or adults; it is free to use. This chapter first discusses the development of the BIDQ and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the BIDQ has been found to have a unidimensional factor structure. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity support the use of the BIDQ. Next, this chapter provides all BIDQ items along with their individualized response scales, instructions for administering the BIDQ to participants, and the scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as how to obtain the scale, permissions, copyright, and contact information are provided for readers.

The Body Image Shame Scale (BISS; Duarte et al., 2015) is a measure of internal and external shame focused specifically on body image. Internal shame includes negative self-evaluations and desires to hide or conceal the body. External shame includes an individual’s perceptions that others criticize and think negatively about their appearance and avoidance of social situations in which others may judge their physical appearance. The BISS has a 14-item adult version and a 9-item adolescent version. Both versions can be administered online or in-person and is free to use. This chapter first discusses the development of the BISS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the BISS has a 2-factor structure (internal body shame, external body shame) within exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses along with a higher-order body shame factor. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the BISS. Next, this chapter provides the BISS items (both adolescent and adult versions) in their entirety, instructions for administration and scoring, and the item response scale. Links to known translations are included. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are available for readers.

The 18-item Social Media Appearance Preoccupation Scale (SMAPS) has three subscales that measure social comparison (6 items), self-presentation (7 items), and general activity (5 items) related to appearance when engaging in visual online content, especially using social media. The subscales can form a total score or be used to focus on one or more of the three subscales of online appearance preoccupation, which allows for a shorter measure. The SMAPS was designed with five issues in mind: 1) image sharing activity, 2) investment and self-presentation, 3) social comparison, 4) active versus passive social media use, and 5) negative responses to social media. The SMAPS can be administered online or in-person and has been included in research with adolescents and young adults. The SMAPS is free to use. This chapter begins with a discussion of the development of the SMAPS from item generation to psychometric analyses, which is followed by sections with psychometric information, including the factor structure and invariance, and evidence of reliability and validity. Additional sections cover administration and scoring, the response scale, the items in their entirety, instructions for administration and scoring, and permissions, copyright and contact information are provided.

The 14-item Self-Objectification Beliefs and Behaviors Scale (SOBBS; Lindner & Tantleff-Dunn, 2017) assesses the extent to which individuals view themselves from the perspective of a sexually objectifying observer and treat their body as capable of representing their identity. The SOBBS can be administered online or in-person to adolescents and adults and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the SOBBS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the Self-Objectification Beliefs and Behaviors Scale has been found to have a two-factor structure within exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with evidence of measurement invariance across gender and between binary transgender and non-binary individuals. Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity support the use of the SOBBS. Next, this chapter provides the SOBBS items in their entirety, instructions for administering the SOBBS to participants, the item response scale, and the scoring procedure. Known translations in Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese are provided. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.

The 11-item Body Image Ideals Questionnaire (BIQ; Cash & Szymanski, 1995) approaches the assessment of evaluative body image by considering both appearance evaluation and importance within its structure. Each item has two parts: first respondents evaluate an aspect of their body (appearance, functionality) and then rate how important that specific aspect is to them. The BIQ can be administered online or in-person to adolescents or adults; it is free to use. This chapter first discusses the development of the BIQ and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the BIQ has been found to have a 2-factor structure: Discrepancy (from body ideal) and Importance (of ideal to body image). Internal consistency reliability and convergent validity support the use of the BIQ, and the BIQ is responsive to therapeutic intervention. Next, this chapter provides all items and the response scales for both Discrepancy and Importance, instructions for administering the BIQ to participants, and scoring procedures. Logistics of use, such as how to obtain the scale, permissions, copyright, and contact information are provided for readers.