I am looking for a brief and widely accepted measure for self-esteem. I would like to be able to determine intrinsic self-esteem forces rather than extrinsic benchmarks for a "successful" person with this measure.
Self-esteem and self-efficacy are separate constructs and can be quite independent from one another, as often witnessed in clinical practice. RSES is the gold standard for measuring self-esteem. On the other hand, I agree, it's worth measuring both. For general self-efficacy you could use Schwarzer's & Jerusalem's Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, it can be modified for specific areas (see link or just Google it).
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/health/selfscal.htm
Austin, probably the most commonly used measure of self-esteem is the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, a 10 item measure with a long history and well-documented reliability. I am not sure about the intrinsic vs. extrinsic distiction; however, one article has argued for a 5-item "self-enhancement" dimension and a 5-item "self-deprecation" dimension (Assessment of Self-Esteem Among Individuals with Severe Mental Illness Sang Kyoung Kahng PhD & Carol Mowbray PhD Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment (http ://www .tandfonline .com /loi/w hum 20 ).
Hope this helps.
Austin, I'd be very cautious about using the Rosenberg self-esteem scale. It's a 10-item scale that measures global self-worth , but it is uni-dimensional.
Self-esteem is not a unitary concept, and global measures cannot accurately measure the different domains in which people may have high or low self-esteem.
Susan, I agree, but the article I cited does argue for two dimensions, despite its limitation to a specific population. Perhaps you could suggest an alternative measure for Austin?
Rae: There are more than 2 dimensions to self-esteem. And, to be quite honest, I think that the concept of self-esteem gets improperly overused as a "cause" for far too many supposed individual and social ills. I think that self-efficacy is a better measure if it can tap into a variety of domains such as interpersonal self-efficacy, occupational self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy, etc.
Self-esteem and self-efficacy are separate constructs and can be quite independent from one another, as often witnessed in clinical practice. RSES is the gold standard for measuring self-esteem. On the other hand, I agree, it's worth measuring both. For general self-efficacy you could use Schwarzer's & Jerusalem's Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, it can be modified for specific areas (see link or just Google it).
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/health/selfscal.htm
Nugent, W. R. & Thomas, J. W. (1993). Validation of the self-esteem rating scale. Research on Social Work Practice, 3, 191-207. Self-Esteem Rating Scale. Also found in Fischer, J. & Corcoran, K. (eds.) (2007). Measure for clinical practice and research: A sourcebook (4th ed.) (Vol. 2). New York City, NY: Oxford University Press.
The Rosenberg is certainly the most widely used measure of self-esteem.
The question of whether it is a unidimensional and bi-dimensional (positive and negative self esteem) is interesting. Two recent studies among large samples of the general population suggest that it is indeed a unidimensional measure of self-esteem but there exists two "method factors" that need to be controlled for to achieve a reliable unidimensional model. You can find these two papers here:
Marsh, H. W., Scalas, L. F., & Nagengast, B. (2010). Longitudinal tests of competing factor structures for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: Traits, ephemeral artifacts, and stable response styles. Psychological Assessment, 22, 366–381.
Hyland, P., Boduszek, D., Dhingra, K., Shevlin, M., & Egan, A. (2014). A bifactor approach to modelling the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 66, 199-192.
Interestingly, a separate study within a criminal population found that the Rosenberg was appropriately represented as a bi-dimensional structure:
Boduszek, D., Hyland, P., Dhingra, K., & Mallett, J. (2013). The factor structure and composite reliability of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale among ex-prisoners. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 877-881.
You are on safe ground using the Rosenberg scale, however the answer as to how to appropriately score the scale may depend on the specifics of your chosen sample.
Rosenberg Self-esteem scale is the widely used and valid measure for assessing one's level of self-esteem.
Rosenberg Self-esteem scale, no doubt, is the widely used and valid measure for assessing one's level of self-esteem.
Dear Austin,
With regards to Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, you may find a paper addressind psychometric issue on my ResearchGate account. (First author: Aluja).
Best regards,
JP
In what follows you will find an actual implementation of the Self-esteem scale, in terms of psychometrics, in action:
Foudoulaki E., & Tolis D. (2010), An expert system for vocational guidance, Proc. Career EU 2010, pp. 121-130, University of Cyprus, Limassol, 24 May 2010.
I suggest the Inferiority scale of the Eysenck Personality Profiler which is available as a separate from the publishers (Cymeon Ltd).
Rosenberg is the best tool but if there is something that you are looking for which cannot be measured by this tool, then we can develop an inventory for this purpose.
In addition to measures of positive/negative dimensions of self-esteem, there are also other tools such as the Social Self-Esteem inventory by Lawson, which measures self-esteem as it pertains to social efficacy in particular.
Rosenberg's scale is very good. It is being used in many countries and it has shown evidences of validity in many different languages. We have been using it in Brazil with very good results. We also did recently a cross cultural study with Brazilians and Americans. Our results show that the scale is unidimensional. You can indeed extract two factors but the one factor solution is the best one.
maybe Implicit Association Tests (IATs) could be interesting, see e.g.,
http://scholar.utc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=jafh
I am interested at reading a paper establishing the validity of IAT self-esteem measure against strong criteria such as depression ...
Psychol Assess. 2015 Jun;27(2):621-35. doi: 10.1037/pas0000073. Epub 2015 Jan 12.
On the factor structure of the Rosenberg (1965) General Self-Esteem Scale.
Alessandri G1, Vecchione M1, Eisenberg N2, Łaguna M3.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2014 Mar;45(1):113-21. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2013.09.007. Epub 2013 Sep 27.
Implicit and explicit self-esteem and their reciprocal relationship with symptoms of depression and social anxiety: a longitudinal study in adolescents.
Conclusion of this paper:
RESULTS:
Explicit self-esteem at baseline was associated with symptoms of MDD and SAD at follow-up. Symptomatology at baseline was not associated with explicit self-esteem at follow-up. Implicit self-esteem was not associated with symptoms of MDD or SAD in either direction.
That is interesting Jean-Pierre, Thank you for the summary. I am feeling like there is a link between self-esteem, self-efficacy, and social capital, but the link, and way to measure it escapes me. Ideas?
On self-esteem and self-efficacy, see Tim Judge's papers leading to core self evaluation concept and core self evaluation scale. This concept and tbis scale may interest you. Best. JP
Thank you. And yes I do have access. This is excellent. I think this may be what I am looking for.
In my team we have adapted CSE, it works quite well. It's likely a good option. Best, JP.
See: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Shaw5/publication/234021500_The_Organizational_Socialization_Process_Review_and_Development_of_a_Social_Capital_Model/links/5498d58e0cf2c5a7e342c6e3.pdf
Article The Organizational Socialization Process: Review and Develop...
Hello, I found this topic very inspiring. Maybe, by any chance, there are still ones that are interested in self-esteem issues and could help me out. I was wondering if there there some ways to measure self-esteem among children or indigenous population (who are illiterate)? Best regards, MK
Prof. Austin McNeill Brown ..
Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES), developed by sociologist Dr. Morris Rosenberg
This response is very late in the game. The Internal vs External Locus of Control scale has been measuring belief in self efficacy vs victim of circumstances and has a large # of studies across a variety of outcome variables since the 1960's. Julian Rotter et.al
It was standardized on H.S. juniors & seniors. No lower age limit was part of the original scale validity & reliability estimates to my knowledge. I would suggest you contact Rosenberg or colleagues.
Kenneth Wilson - Rosenberg is no longer alive. I've tried Google for someone to contact but without a starting point I'm not getting anywhere. I did read this though:
"The scale was developed based on the data of 5,024 adolescents from American schools (Rosenberg, 1965)."
In other places it specifically talks about 'high schoolers' so I'll assume it was designed for 15+.
Abena Baiden - Did you search the University of Maryland? That's where Rosenberg taught. https://socy.umd.edu/about-us/rosenberg-self-esteem-scale
Good luck!
Kori
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