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The Behavioural Identification Form (BIF), based on the action identification theory, is designed to assess individual differences in personal agency levels. This instrument, created by Vallacher and Wegner, involves 25 questions with multiple choices ranging from low-level identities to high-level identities. It is known that cognitive processing in information differs in individuals which can contribute to different levels of construal. BIF has come out to be a tool to measure such differences on different levels.

Theoretical approach
In daily life, it varies in how people describe different types of behaviours. For instance, someone might describe making a Facebook post as “sharing personal life,” while another person might describe it as “adding information to Facebook page.” Yet others might describe this behaviour as “communicating with friends”. It is believed that people differ in the overall action competence from each other which means types of construal of different behaviours distinguish between high-level agents and low-level agents. Low-level identities may think about their acts in terms of the details of the action or means of achieving the action with conscious attention. Low-level construal emphasizes how to undertake an action. High-level identities, in contrast, tend to think about their actions in inclusive terms that contain the motives behind the action and larger meanings of the action. High-level construal emphasizes why an action is performed. Hence, the BIF has been used to evaluate construal level as an individual difference measure or dependent measure, specifically within cognition research and power research, as well as marketing research.

• Construal Level Theory
Trope and Liberman proposed in the construal level theory that events may be viewed of high-level construal associated with distant and abstract terms or low-level construal associated with near and concrete terms. The BIF was developed to catch such differences. Construal level theory describes that how psychological distance relate with the extent to which individuals think about actions, events and objects in abstract or concrete style.

According to construal level theory, individuals tend to think of an object overall in a more abstract way if it is more distant from them, while they have a greater propensity to think of an object overall more concretely if it is closer to them. It works as the same way for mental construal in high level and low level. High-level construal means that individuals think more abstractly. Individuals who are engaged in high-level construal focus on extracting main features of the objects or events and adapt a way of thinking in a bigger picture. At the high level, individuals pay less attention on details. To the contrary, low-level construal is related with psychological proximity which means that individuals think more concretely. When individuals are thinking on this level, they are more likely to focus on greater detail, share more attention on peripheral, minor features of the objects and care less about the central gist of the event. For example, if one would describe the children’s activity as “having fun,” one were thinking in high-level manner. Whereas, if one were thinking in low-level manner, more emphasis was placed on more specific and immediate details like the colour of the toy or the appearance of the children.

Description (Development & Validity)
Each item of BIF presents an identity of act followed by two alternative choices which imply the level of personal agency, one is lower-level identity and the other one is higher-level identity. 20 participants who took part in a pilot study were asked to generate as many descriptions of the alternative identities for each of the 60 activities as they could in limited time. The BIF was constructed with the most frequently used higher-level and lower-level description for each act identity. Initially, 60 items were included in the BIF and it was conducted to a sample of 274 students. Derived from the analysis of their responses, a cut-off item-total correlations of .27 were used to reduce the BIF scale to 25 items with item-total correlations ranging from .28 to .48. Results from various samples showed that BIF proved its internal consistency in the level of action identification compared to other measures.

Method
This scale is used to identify personal preferences of individuals for how a few different behaviours should be described. There are two response choices in lower-level construal or higher-level construal for each of the 25 items to describe a given situation. The task for the participants is to choose the one that best describe how they think about the behaviour. When participants select an high-level alternative, one score is assigned to them. The total scores are summed to generate a single index to indicate the level of construal, as higher scores higher level of construal. The version of 25 items are presented below.

•BIF Scale
(* Higher level alternative.)

1. Making a list

a. Getting organized*

b. Writing things down

2. Reading

a. Following lines of print

b. Gaining knowledge*

3. Joining the Army

a. Helping the Nation's defense*

b. Signing up

4. Washing clothes

a. Removing odors from clothes*

b. Putting clothes into the machine

5. Picking an apple

a. Getting something to eat*

b. Pulling an apple off a branch

6. Chopping down a tree

a. Wielding an axe

b. Getting firewood*

7. Measuring a room for carpeting

a. Getting ready to remodel*

b. Using a yard stick

8. Cleaning the house

a. Showing one's cleanliness*

b. Vacuuming the floor

9. Painting a room

a. Applying brush strokes

b. Making the room look fresh*

10. Paying the rent

a. Maintaining a place to live*

b. Writing a check

11. Caring for houseplants

a. Watering plants

b. Making the room look nice*

12. Locking a door

a. Putting a key in the lock

b. Securing the house*

13. Voting

a. Influencing the election*

b. Marking a ballot

14. Climbing a tree

a. Getting a good view*

b. Holding on to branches

15. Filling out a personality test

a. Answering questions

b. Revealing what you're like*

16. Toothbrushing

a. Preventing tooth decay*

b. Moving a brush around in one's mouth

17. Taking a test

a. Answering questions

b. Showing one's knowledge*

18. Greeting someone

a. Saying hello

b. Showing friendliness*

19. Resisting temptation

a. Saying "no"

b. Showing moral courage*

20. Eating

a. Getting nutrition*

b. Chewing and swallowing

21. Growing a garden

a. Planting seeds

b. Getting fresh vegetables*

22. Traveling by car

a. Following a map

b. Seeing countryside*

23. Having a cavity filled

a. Protecting your teeth*

b. Going to the dentist

24. Talking to a child

a. Teaching a child something*

b. Using simple words

25. Pushing a doorbell

a. Moving a finger

b. Seeing if someone's home*