SIPOAS (Styles in Perception of Affect Scale) as a tool in research

SIPOAS (Styles in Perception of Affect Scale) is a simple, self-administered, pencil-and-paper measure that assesses preferred response to the body-sensation ("somat-awareness") components of emotion ("how aware are you of your feelings?"). This quality has generally been considered to be bipolar in nature: it was assumed that individuals are aware of their 'feelings' or they tend to block this awareness.

Our study with over 1000 subjects, using 31 validating factors, shows that awareness of body sensations as contributors to emotion and behavior is actually tri-polar rather than bipolar:

BB (Based on Body) reflects an effortless, integrated awareness of the fine nuances of body sensation that precede or accompany the awareness of emotion.

EE (Emphasis on Evaluation) reflects a style in which great effort is made to understand what is happening to oneself, often from the viewpoint of an outside observer, or in terms of imagined ideals or expectations. When used to excess, it has a ruminative, non-productive quality

LL (Looking to Logic) interposes logic between feelings and response, to control or avoid the potential discomfort or ambiguity of emotions.

The three styles probably influence much of life:

• perceptions of ourselves and others
• problem solving styles
• preferences
• social and family interactions
• creativity
• attitudes to work, play and study.

using SIPOAS to enhance your research

SIPOAS is a simple, self-administered, pencil-and-paper measure. To help us broaden our understand-ing, we offer SIPOAS for use in your research at a nominal fee, and will give you our full assistance in designing and developing your own research study.

With SIPOAS you may be able to

• develop additional applications
• discover new ways to look at the familiar
• add relevance and significance to your findings
• discover new aspects of your construct
• add new dimensions to your study

You may wish to explore how a knowledge of the subject's SIPOAS style can affect your research. Tell us about your study and we will gladly offer suggestions and other help. Here are a few ideas to start you off:

clinical: differential diagnosis, prognosis; interaction with medication; response to treatment methods; denial, resistance

cognitive: coping styles, speed/accuracy of perceptual evaluation

counseling: career, interpersonal skills; counselor's personal style

family: marital compatibility, parenting styles, family interactions

gender: inter-gender differences; attitudes of/toward others

genetics: heritability, twin studies

health: attitudes to disease; resistance to/recovery from injury/dis-ease [can training in Style BB enhance health and healing?]

industrial/organizational: perceived control, initiative, managerial style, independent thinking/action, adherence to safety rules

legal and forensic: juror bias, juror perception of witnesses; violence proneness, anti-social behavior [will training in Style BB diminish recidivism?]

personality psychology: anxiety, defensiveness; development with age; intelligence, intro/extraversion, locus of control, neuroticism, self esteem, empathy, vigilance, depression, assertiveness

psychoneuroimmunology: SIPOAS styles and immunology [will training in Style BB enhance health and healing?]; special application for research in cancer and HIV/AIDS

psychotherapy: assessment, choice of treatment approaches, outcome predictions, expected response to variation in life events and in therapeutic relationship

sexuality: preferences, attitudes, values, functioning and dysfunction

social psychology: control needs/responses, group attitude, helping behavior, obedience, perception, self-consciousness, self-evaluation, self-focusing

substance abuse: SIPOAS styles and susceptibility [can training in Style BB enhance rehabilitation?]

Six questions in search of new answers:

• How do SIPOAS styles correlate with established measures of personality traits, and how do they differ?
• How are SIPOAS styles acquired?
• How does SIPOAS style change with age, circumstances, therapies?
• Can SIPOAS styles (specifically BB) be learned? Can they be taught? Which psycho-logical aspects (if any) will change with change in SIPOAS styles?
• How can we interpret the high correlation of EE with the construct "neuroticism"?
• Given the high correlation of youth with a primary aspect of EE (attempting to understand the self by assuming the viewpoint of others), how reliable are research studies that depend on college-age subjects?

Other applications

"Emotional Intelligence": SIPOAS appears to measure a major component of "Emotional Intelligence."

Interpersonal: The "tensions" that appear to develop between those who score high in any of the three styles and any others, may prove to be a significant variable affecting interpersonal relationships.

Health, immunity, and healing: The most exciting application of SIPOAS may be in the study of immunity, health and healing. It is conjectured that the preferred style in attending to the fine nuances of change in bodily sensations can also predict resistance to disease and injury, and the speed and quality of recovery. We have started to develop a new pencil-and-paper measure, Sickness and You: Attitudes About Health ("say-AAH"), a variant on the SIPOAS format that is designed specifically to explore Somat Awareness component as a contributor to health and recovery. We are eager to collaborate on this project with researchers and graduate students.