Psychometric appraisal of the scale for interpersonal behavior (SIB) in France

The present study was carried out in France to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Scale for Interpersonal Behavior (SIB), a multidimensional measure of difficulty and distress in assertiveness that was originally de veloped in The Netherlands. This appraisal was conducted with a clinical-sa mple (N = 166) and a general population sample (N = 150). The clinical seri es comprised 115 patients with social phobia and 51 patients with personali ty disorder, 28 of whom were of the avoidant type. Support was found for in ternal consistency and test-retest reliability of the French SIB.;Compared to:controls, both social phobics and patients with an avoidant personality disorder had significantly lower mean scores on all performance scales and significantly higher ones on:all distress scales, with the social phobics o ccupying a position in between. Findings in relation to convergent and dive rgent validity were quite satisfactory. Sensitivity of the French SIE for d etecting change was demonstrated in a subgroup of the clinical Ss who had u ndergone 15 sessions of cognitive;behavioral group therapy for underasserti veness. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.