Towards a cross-cultural assessment of binge-watching: Psychometric evaluation of the “watching TV series motives” and “binge-watching engagement and symptoms” questionnaires across nine languages

Maèva Flayelle, Jesús Castro-calvo, Claus Vögele, Robert Astur, Rafael Ballester-arnal, Gaëlle Challet-bouju, Matthias Brand, Georgina Cárdenas, Gaëtan Devos, Hussien Elkholy, Marie Grall-bronnec, Richard J.e. James, Martha Jiménez-martínez, Yasser Khazaal, Saeideh Valizadeh-haghi, Daniel King, Yueheng Liu, Christine Lochner, Sabine Steins-loeber, Jiang LongMarc N. Potenza, Shahabedin Rahmatizadeh, Adriano Schimmenti, Dan J. Stein, István Tóth-király, Richard Tunney, Yingying Wang, Zu Wei Zhai, Pierre Maurage, Joël Billieux

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In view of the growing interest regarding binge-watching (i.e., watching multiple episodes of television (TV) series in a single sitting) research, two measures were developed and validated to assess binge-watching involvement (“Binge-Watching Engagement and Symptoms Questionnaire”, BWESQ) and related motivations (“Watching TV Series Motives Questionnaire”, WTSMQ). To promote international and cross-cultural binge-watching research, the present article reports on the validation of these questionnaires in nine languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Hungarian, Persian, Arabic, Chinese). Both questionnaires were disseminated, together with additional self-report measures of happiness, psychopathological symptoms, impulsivity and problematic internet use among TV series viewers from a college/university student population (N = 12,616) in 17 countries. Confirmatory factor, measurement invariance and correlational analyses were conducted to establish structural and construct validity. The two questionnaires had good psychometric properties and fit in each language. Equivalence across languages and gender was supported, while construct validity was evidenced by similar patterns of associations with complementary measures of happiness, psychopathological symptoms, impulsivity and problematic internet use. The results support the psychometric validity and utility of the BWESQ and WTSMQ for conducting cross-cultural research on binge-watching.

Original languageEnglish
Article number106410
JournalComputers in Human Behavior
Volume111
Early online date16 May 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2020

Bibliographical note

© 2020, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

  • Binge-watching
  • Confirmatory factor analysis
  • Cross-cultural
  • Measurement invariance
  • Questionnaires
  • TV series

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