The experience of embodiment scale: Development and psychometric evaluation

The construct of embodiment captures a broad range of experiences of living in the body. The present program of research involved developing and evaluating a fully structured measure of the experience of embodiment construct, the Experience of Embodiment Scale (EES), via four independent samples of women. Study 1 (N = 92) provided initial support for the internal consistency and convergent validity of the EES. Study 2 (N = 412) involved factor analyses of the EES, leading to the emergence of 6 factors, reflecting different aspects of the experience of embodiment. Further, this study supported the internal consistency of the EES and its subscales, as well as its construct and discriminant validity. As expected, the EES correlated with measures of body- and self-esteem, body connection, sexual assertiveness, among other measures, and did not correlate with the Perfectionism Personal Standards Scale. Study 3 (N = 348) confirmed the factor structure of the scale from Study 2. Study 4 (N = 76) demonstrated that EES scores were stable over a 3-week period. The EES can be used by researchers and clinicians interested in capturing individuals’ range of experiences of living in their bodies, both positive and negative.