Fifty years of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale: An update and review

The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) is a 30 item self-report instrument designed to assess the personality/behavioral construct of impulsiveness. Originally developed as part of a larger attempt to relate anxiety and impulsiveness to psychomotor efficiency, the BIS is arguably the most commonly administered self-report measure for the assessment of impulsiveness in both research and clinical settings. Over the last 50 years the BIS has significantly influenced the way that impulsivity is conceptualized in psychology and psychiatry. On its golden anniversary we thought it important to update the literature in relation to this influential psychometric instrument. The goal of this paper is threefold: (1) describe the history and development of the BIS-11; (2) present new data supporting the psychometric properties of the subscales; and to (3) review the clinical and personality literature that has reported on the BIS-11 subscales.