The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, A Very Useful Tool
Self-esteem is closely related to the subjective assessment we make of ourselves. Thus, a healthy self-esteem will always generate great well-being, while at its lowest levels it can install us in a depressed mood.
That is why it is so important to take care of it and evaluate it, since it does not remain fixed, but always varies. One of the tools that we can find in psychology that will help us achieve this goal is the Rosenberg self-esteem scale.
This scale is short, fast, reliable and has great validity, so much so that it is one of the most widely used instruments to assess the self-concept that someone has by psychologists. It is also frequently used when you want to measure this variable in the context of some research.
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Its Implementation
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is named after its creator, Morris Rosenberg, a professor and doctor of sociology who dedicated several years of his life to the study of self-esteem and self-concept. He presented the initial proposal of the scale in his book Society and the adolescent’s self-image ( Society and the adolescent self – esteem ).
The Morris Rosenberg scale consists of 10 statements that revolve around how much or how little the person values themselves, as well as how satisfied they are with themselves. The first 5 statements are formulated in a positive way, the remaining 5 in a negative way.
Each of the positive statements is scored from 0 (I totally disagree) to 3 (I totally agree), while the negative statements are scored inversely, 3 implies being totally disagree and 0 totally agreeing .
Let’s see what these claims are:
- I feel that I am a person worthy of appreciation, at least as much as others.
- I feel like I have positive qualities.
- In general, I am inclined to think that I am a failure.
- I am capable of doing things as well as most others.
- I feel like I don’t have much to be proud of.
- I adopt a positive attitude towards myself.
- Overall, I am satisfied with myself.
- I would like to have more respect for myself.
- Sometimes I feel worthless.
- Sometimes I think I’m useless.
The affirmations both positive (1,2,4,6,7) and negative (3,5,8,9,10) are mixed and the result of their score allows us to get an idea of what the state of the self-esteem of the person who responds. In this way, a score lower than 15 would indicate a very low self-esteem, suggesting it as an aspect to work on.
Between 15 and 25 points we would have a healthy self-esteem that falls within the parameters of what is considered “balanced.” A score greater than 25 would speak of a strong and solid person. In this sense, such a high score could also tell us about problems in the analysis of reality or about people who are too complacent with themselves. The ideal score would be between 15 and 25 points.
The most relevant findings of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, although originally intended for adolescents only, was later adapted for adults. This made it possible to evaluate entire populations and even different cultures, which led to very interesting findings.
One of these findings revealed that people living in individualistic societies, for example the United States, feel very competent but less satisfied with themselves. The same does not happen in places like Japan, where a collectivism is manifested in which satisfaction with oneself is higher, although the feeling of competition declines considerably.
In addition, the scale revealed that extroverts and more emotionally stable have higher self-esteem, while introverts and emotionally unstable would tend to have poor self-esteem.
Despite all these discoveries, the Rosenberg self-esteem scale revealed that generally all people, be they men or women, young or old, tend to evaluate themselves in a positive way. Although we wonder if this is so because many people are ashamed to admit their defects, what makes them feel bad, or because they are not able to recognize it.
The Rosenberg scale survives to this day to solve a common difficulty in psychology, that of measuring certain variables that influence our behavior, our thoughts and our emotions. Its formulation and its survival reminds us how important it is to monitor our self-esteem, take care of it and always try to find it at a level that contributes to us, and not that it subtracts us. A healthy self-esteem is one of the pillars of well-being and at the same time the key to feeling happy and comfortable in the various areas of our life.
Do you dare to take this scale and discover how much you value yourself?
Images courtesy of Kathrin Honesta
