Reliability and Psychometric Validity of the Bengali Version of Paranormal and Supernatural Beliefs Scale (PSBS)

BACKGROUND: The Paranormal and Supernatural Beliefs Scale (PSBS) was constructed in 2021, to determine psychological beliefs, cognitive ability, thinking style and executive functions in populations. It’s availability only in the English language posed a linguistic barrier to India. AIM: To establish reliability and validity of the Bengali version of PSBS. METHOD: PSBS was translated by bilingual experts, followed by forward and backward translation processes. Final version was used. Seventy-eight volunteers, versed in both English and Bengali languages were included. The original English version of the scale was first applied, 14 days after which the Bengali translation was applied. RESULT: Mean score of the original English version was 13.97 (±6.84) and that of the Bengali version was 13.78 (±6.76), showing significant correlation (0.001 level) with a Spearman’s rho of 0.900. The Bengali version of PSBS has a high degree of internal consistency as demonstrated by a Cronbach’s-alpha of 0.838. The scale has significant concurrent validity and acceptable split-half reliability. A principal components analysis with varimax rotation was performed on the PSBS responses of the participants, which yielded four factors with an eigen value greater than one, representing 69.56% of the total variance. PSBS was found to be easily understandable and capable of adequately evaluating and measuring various aspects of paranormal and supernatural beliefs. CONCLUSION: The Bengali adaptation of PSBS is a valid and reliable instrument to assess beliefs in supernatural and paranormal phenomena in the literate Bengali-speaking population of India.