Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale – Chinese Version

Description

According to James and Rosenberg, self-esteem is a relatively stable evaluation of an individual toward themselves, expressing an attitude of affirmation or negation about oneself, indicating the extent to which individuals believe they are capable, important, successful, and valuable. The connotation includes three points: ① Reflection on one’s own value; ② Relatively stable over a period but can slowly change influenced by personal life experiences; ③ The self-judgment standards are affected by the gap between the real self and the ideal self. Self-esteem plays a very important role in individual development. As an endogenous protective factor of an individual, self-esteem is closely related to the positive development of adolescents and the development of social and psychological disorders. Research shows that, on one hand, self-esteem serves as an important internal psychological resource for adolescents, promoting positive development. It is positively correlated with adolescents’ mental health, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and creativity. On the other hand, it is negatively correlated with adolescents’ anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and aggression.

Authors and Contact Email

Information not available

Purpose

The purpose of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) is to understand how individuals perceive themselves.

Test Year

2019

Administration Method and Scoring

A convenience sampling method was used from May to June 2019 in 303 schools across 31 provinces (municipalities, and autonomous regions), testing 55,105 enrolled students (junior high schools: n=20,323; senior high schools/vocational schools: n=15,671; college/university: n=14,410; missing values: n=29). The sampling was organized by class teachers or psychological teachers using standardized procedures, allowing students to complete the tests online or on paper during extracurricular time. Under the guidance of Liu Hongyun, it was determined that when the missing data rate is below 10%, the differences in using any missing value handling method are not significant. In this study, the missing data rate for each item was below 5%, so the Expectation-Maximization (EM) method was used to fill in the missing values. A total of 47,887 valid subjects were obtained, yielding an effective rate of 86.90%. Among them, 21,267 were male, 26,496 were female, with 124 missing gender information. Ages ranged from 13 to 22 years, with an average age of (17±3) years; 19,361 were junior high school students, 15,275 were senior high school students, and 13,251 were college students (merging vocational and senior high school as senior high school and junior college and university as college). There were 22,324 students from urban areas, 7,613 from county towns, and 17,615 from townships, with 335 missing residential information. There were 8,602 students from high family socio-economic status, 3,844 from low socio-economic status, and 35,441 from medium socio-economic status (based on existing research, the indicators of family socio-economic status were defined by participants whose parental occupation and education level were above/below one standard deviation of the national mean).

Reliability and Validity

Information not available

Factors and Subscales

Reference to the normal curve distribution and general practices of other psychological tests, participants were classified into five levels (A, B, C, D, E) based on their RSES scores. Level C includes the middle 67% of the population, while levels B and D include 14% above and below level C, respectively, and levels A and E include 5% at each end. The boundaries and meanings of each level are shown in the table (not provided).

Keywords

Self-esteem, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, adolescents, psychological health

Items in Chinese

1. 我感到我是一个有价值的人，至少与其他人在同一水平。
2. 我感到我有许多好的品质。
3. 归根结底，我倾向于觉得自己是一个失败者。
4. 我能像大多数人一样把事情做好。
5. 我感到自己值得豪的地方不多。
6. 我对自己持肯定态度。
7. 总的来说，我对自己是满意的。
8. 我希望我能为自己赢得更多尊重。
9. 我确实时常感到毫无用处。
10. 我时常认为自己一无是处。

Items in English

1. I feel that I am a valuable person, at least on the same level as others.
2. I feel that I have many good qualities.
3. Ultimately, I tend to feel like a failure.
4. I can do things as well as most people.
5. I don’t feel I have much to be proud of.
6. I have a positive attitude toward myself.
7. Overall, I am satisfied with myself.
8. I wish I could be more respected by others.
9. I often feel worthless.
10. I often think I am no good at all.

References

马丽杰. 青少年自尊对不同人际关系的影响[D]. 陕西师范大学.
闫艳, 谢笑春, 盖笑松,等. 中国大中学生的罗森伯格自尊量表测评结果[J]. 中国心理卫生杂志.