A very good question! We were looking for it too but it seems to do not exist.  The authors simple selected some of the items  (15?). Theoretically one can make a random selection,  since all of the questions are measuring the same construct. Practically you have to explain why did you do it? The only reason for selection which I see , is the manipulation with data. BIF is a pretty hard test - I tried it 3 times and each time it did not work out. Although it should. A selection  of items might help to make the results better. But, it is a wrong way, I think.

Did you try to contact the authors directly? Let me know if you have any answer...

Best, 

Eugene 

Study 1 of the following paper uses a 10-item version. It probably does not count as an "official shortened version" but that's the closest I am aware of.

Article Cognition From on High and Down Low: Verticality and Construal Level

Dear Li Yang

You ask if anyone knows the shortened official version of Behavioral Identification Form (BIF).

 I only know its official complete version. As you know, BIF contains 25 items and was designed to assess individual differences in action identification level. It distinguishes between two types of construals of different behaviors. Low-level construals emphasize how to do the action, the means of achieving the action, and the details of the action. High-level construals emphasize why the action is performed, the motives behind the action, and the meanings of the action. Why not have, among others, middle-level construals? Is it not too little to think only of two levels of action identification?

Given that all of the 25 items are assessing the same construct, you can only use those items (10? 12? 15?) who think are more psychologically relevant to assess one’s capacity to explain and construe action. I don’t know if this works. You can ask the authors if they have a shortened official version of the BIF questionnaire/scale.

Note also that statistically relevant findings are not necessarily psychological relevant findings.

 In what follows, I present an answer to your question that is different from the one you would certainly expect, but that it is related  -- I think -- to levels of one’s agency or ability to understand and construe his/her actions, development, knowledge, and learning.

 Let me starting by saying that many questions in Research Gate Forum ask for scales/questionnaires to measure this, that, and so forth. As a developmental psychologist, I am not much in favor of scales of any type. First, they are generally supposed to measure an emotional, cognitive, social, moral construct, ability, or competence, which is not the case. Note, for example, than in a psychological scale, be it a Likert-scale or a non-Likert scale, a given score, 20, for example, can be generally got through different ways of answering to the several items of the scale at hand. Second, this shows us that such scales do not necessarily measure what they are supposed to measure. I think that, contrary to what happens in Physics, for example, in Psychology we never attain a true level of measure but only a level of assessment, evaluation, and the like. Third, to speak about measure in psychology gives us an idea of rigor that is more an illusion of rigor than true rigor. Fourth, the illusion of rigor that underlies much psychological writing and publishing is greatly responsible for what P. Meehl (1978) called, in his seminal article published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the “slow progress of soft psychology”. This Meehl’s observation makes me think of Wittgenstein’s astute remark that in psychology there are experimental methods, but conceptual confusion (see his Philosophical Investigations). Fifth, contrary to developmental tasks, such as the Piagetian tasks, scales and questionnaires are referred to a continuous and quantitative norm – that is, the individual’s performance in such scales, tests, or questionnaires  is generally compared, for example, to that of older, younger, or the same age, gender or  ethnicity  individuals as the individual being tested -- not to a discontinuous, qualitative criterion, that is, such performance is not compared to that of other individuals, but rather compared with other qualitative forms of such performance. WISC’s test is a typical example of a scale referred to a norm. When the individual’s performance in Piagetian developmental tasks is classified as sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational we are referring to a developmental criterion, not to a psychometric norm. Note also that when performing in a scale/questionnaire, and the like, individuals are not asked to justify their answers, which hinders our understanding of the psychological processes underlying those answers. In this vein, it might be beneficial in terms of psychological processes if, when choosing a given item in BIF, respondents were asked to justify their choice of the focal item. I know of no study that has appealed (and categorized in terms of hierarchical levels of action identification)   individuals’ justifications when they respond to the items of BIF. Why don’t you try to do this? Finally, as far as I know, it is difficult to relate a significant psychological finding, hypothesis, theory, and the like, to a given scale, questionnaire, and the like. Freud’s original theory of sexuality, Skinner’s seminal theory of learning, and Piaget’s innovative approach to one’s cognitive and moral development are only three examples in which progress in psychology had nothing to do with psychological scales, questionnaires, and so forth.

 All that said, why not try to assess – not to measure -- levels of personal agency and action identification by appealing also to Piagetian or like-Piagetian tasks?  Note that you speak about levels of personal agency, construal, and hence, construction.  To my knowledge, there is no one who does not accept that Piaget espoused a constructivist -- not a constructionist – approach to one’s action identification, development and education. Contrary to the postmodern constructionist claim that all knowledge and value is socially constructed, Piaget’s constructivist account assumes that individuals all construct essentially the same understanding of knowledge and value as a result of their actions upon objects and their interactions with other individuals. In a nutshell, for Piaget, to know an object is to act on it and understand the process of its transformation while we acting upon it.

 If I understand it well, Piaget’s four types of intelligence (sensorimotor or practical intelligence, preoperational intelligence, concrete operational intelligence, and formal operational intelligence) represent, respectively, different and more complex levels of personal agency, action identification, and construction. As you certainly know, these four types of intelligence are associated, respectively, with Piaget’s sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage.  

At the sensorimotor stage (from birth to age 2 approximately), children relate to others and the world through senses and movement and are capable of what Piaget called practical intelligence. For example, at the end of this stage they can look for a desired object that vanished from their vision because it was hidden under several covers (i.e., object permanence). However minimal it may be, to look for a vanished and hidden object implies personal agency and power, action identification, and construction on the part of the child, namely that objects continue to exist even when s/he is not seeing them. Thus, for these children “out of the vision”, does not mean “out the mind”, which, again, implies an active agent, construction, and action identification.  

.At the preoperational stage (from ages 2 to 7 roughly), children are capable of mental actions, for example, playing with a doll as if it were a dog (i.e., pretend or symbolic play), but not capable, for instance, of understanding that a rose is a rose but also a rose and a flower at the same time. No doubt, such understanding involves a more complex level of personal agency, action identification, and construction than that involved, for example, in the non-verbal activities which are at issue in practical intelligence. Note that, contrary to “roses”, flowers are not given directly as observable, but they have to be inferred and constructed, and hence involve more personal agency, action identification, and mental activity than that involved in the child’s saying that a rose cannot be, at the same time, a rose and a flower. This means that at this stage children are not yet capable of what Piaget called operations, or actions which are mental, reversible, and governed by rules of transformation. For instance, children are not yet able to understand that in a set of 10 flowers, 8 being  roses and 2 daffodils, there are more flowers than roses because daffodils are flowers too (i.e., class-inclusion), or that the operation of adding,  2 + 8 = 10, can be nullified through its inverse operation of subtracting, 10 - 8 = 2 (i.e., number conservation). As preoperational children are figurative or perception-oriented, when asked in this class-inclusion task if there are more flowers or more roses, they answer that there are more roses than flowers because there are a lot of roses and only a few daffodils. As roses and daffodils can be seen, this not being the case of the abstract class “flowers,” preoperational children compare roses to daffodils, not roses to flowers. This also shows how important it is to know of children justifications when they solve cognitive, moral, or even action identification tasks. When this is not the case, we risk not attaining a deep understanding of individuals’ behavior, be it related with action identification or not.                                      

 At the concrete operational stage (from ages 7 to 12 on average), the child is capable of operating or thinking logically, but always with basis on concrete or material things that can be subject, for example,  to seriation, class-inclusion, conservation, transitivity, and so forth. No doubt, to be able to understand the very nature of Piagetian concrete operations – i.e., actions which are mental, reversible and governed by rules of transformation (e.g., the arithmetical operation of multiplication, 2 X 6 = 12, is annulled  one when performs its symmetrical arithmetical operation of division, 12/6 = 2) involves a higher degree of construction, personal agency and action identification than that involved in the young child’s inability to understand the very nature of Piagetian concrete operations. As operational children are operative and reason-oriented, when asked, in the above mentioned class-inclusion task, if there are more flowers or more roses, they answer that there are more flowers than roses because daffodils are flowers too. Contrary to preoperational children, operational individuals are able to construct, for example, the “abstract” concept of flowers, as opposed to the “concrete” concept of roses. Note that the latter is given directly as an observable, whereas the former implies, in different degrees, inferential and constructed psychological processes involved, for example when one transforms a given object into another one or anticipates the result of a certain action and operation. In short, a Piagetian concrete operational answer involves more personal agency, action identification, cognitive energy, and the like, than that involved in a Piagetian non-operational answer.   

At the formal operational stage (from ages 12 or 13 to 16, on average), individuals are capable of abstract reasoning; for example, they can understand that, “If p, then q; Not p is the case Therefore, nothing can be concluded about q.”  As formal operations are operations upon (concrete) operations, then, even by definition, Piagetian formal operational actions, operations, and answers represent a higher level of mental activity, personal agency and construction, and action identification and understanding than that involved in Piagetian concrete operational operations, answers, and actions.  

All that said, I wonder whether it would be possible to identify, describe and explain one’s answers to the several items of the Behavioral Identification Form in terms, not of two levels of action identification and understanding, but, for example, in terms of the four like-Piagetian stages or levels of acting, thinking, understanding, and the like. Of course, this would imply, among other things, that contrary to what it uses to be the case, individuals were asked to justify why in each pair of items they choose, for example, the alternative “a” instead of the alternative “b”, or vice-versa.

 As development is a long, complex process of successive differentiations and integrations, I wonder whether two levels (i.e., a low level and a high level) of action identification and personal agency are levels enough to describe and explain the intricacies probably involved in such identification.

It is alleged that C.S. Pierce once remarked that progress in a science is related to, say, “irritating” questions and doubts, that is, questions and doubts whose response lead us to see in a new, creative way a certain state of affairs in any science whatever.  

I would be more than happy if my considerations above could help you to challenge not only the way BIF is generally applied to individuals and also the two levels of action identification it allows. The challenge would be still be greater if you were able to appeal to a kind of Piagetian clinical interview, not to BIF, to identify, describe, and explain several levels of one’s action identification, personal agency, and the like.

 Best regards.   .