Living in the Moment: Reflections on the Momentary Impulsivity Scale

Impulsivity is defined as the “tendency to act spontaneously and without deliberation”, and is generally studied at the trait level in people rather than on a behavioural, in the moment basis. Generally, the studies in which impulsive behaviour is examined in a specific situation take place in a laboratory space, lessening the ecological validity of the observations collected.

Wanting to investigate impulsive behaviour in a real-world setting, Rachel Tomko and colleagues undertook a study in 2014 assessing the frequency and nature of real world impulsive acts via the Momentary Impulsivity Scale. The authors chose items for the scale from the pre-existing Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11) and the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality (SIDP-IV) that examined the momentary aspects of impulsivity. The authors made sure to choose items that reflected both behavioral and internal aspects of impulsivity to ensure that their scale did not consist only of specific impulsive behaviours. Sample items from the scale include, “I said things without thinking” and “I acted on impulse, rather than caring what might happen”. The scale was administered to clinical subjects with Borderline Personality Disorder (who are assumed to score high in impulsivity) or to those with a depressive disorder. Subjects with a depressive disorder were chosen as a clinical control to ensure that differences in impulsivity observed were not due solely to factors related to having any mental illness, such as negative affect. The participants were given an electronic diary to use for 28 days which prompted them six times per day with questions about their mood, behavior, and environment, as related to impulsivity. After the 28 days, the subjects were also issued two traditional, retrospective measures of impulsivity: the Barratt Impulsivity Scale, and the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale. As expected, the Borderline Personality Disorder Group showed significantly higher scores than the depressive disorder group and the new Momentary Impulsivity Scale moderately correlated with the retrospective measures.

While reading the study I found myself pondering the benefits of a similar scale being used, not to assess impulsivity, but to train clients to be less impulsive. It seemed to me that the self-monitoring and awareness encouraged by the prompts given by the electronic diary could over time allow someone to curb their impulsive behaviours, particularly if a component was added where subjects were asked to reflect on their behavior and think about what they could have done differently the next time. I think it would be interesting and worthwhile to conduct a study examining the frequency of impulsive behaviours over a two-month training period using an adapted momentary impulsivity tool. Such a study would help determine if simply becoming more cognizant and reflective of the behaviours decreases their occurrence.

Tomko, R. L., Solhan, M. B., Carpenter, R. W., Brown, W. C., Jahng, S., Wood, P. K., & Trull, T. J. (2014). Measuring impulsivity in daily life: the momentary impulsivity scale. Psychological Assessment, 26, 2, 339–49.

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