The Symbiotic Bond Questionnaire – theoretical background and psychometric qualities

Abstract

Background The article describes the Symbiotic Bond Questionnaire (SBQ) – the theoretical background as well as its psychometric characteristics and psychological correlates. The items were created on the basis of the definition of symbiotic personality (Johnson, 1994a). Participants and procedure For these initial survey development and cross-validation studies, the factor structure and psychometric properties of the SBQ were examined. To assess the SBQ’s reliability, the researchers conducted an exploratory factor analysis using a sample of 568 people. The analysis indicated that the Symbiotic Bond Questionnaire consists of 28 items that form four factors: Suppressing, Merging, Cognitive oversensitiveness, and Emotional sensitiveness. Results The symbiotic bond is associated with attachment styles (Suppressing and Cognitive oversensitiveness positively with insecure attachment, and Merging and Emotional sensitiveness positively with secure attachment), empathy (Suppressing and Cognitive oversensitiveness positively with personal distress, and Emotional sensitiveness positively with taking care of others and taking their point of view), differentiation of self (correlations indicate poor functioning of a person in terms of emotional and cognitive autonomy), interdependent-relational self (more relational people are more inclined to merging and emotional sensitiveness) and goal-oriented activity (suppressing is negatively associated with strategic and with life enrichment orientation, and positively with avoidant orientation, while Cognitive oversensitiveness is associated with avoidant orientation and emotional sensitiveness with life enrichment orientation). Conclusions The measure is sufficiently reliable and valid. Implications and directions for future research on the measurement are considered.