COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale

1. Abstract

The COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale (Ahn & Noh, 2023) is an empirically validated 25-item psychometric instrument developed to evaluate pandemic-induced distress across both individual psychological and collective cultural dimensions within collectivistic societies. Emerging in response to the notable theoretical and empirical constraints of conventional psychological inventories—which primarily framed pandemic distress through individualistic, Western clinical symptom checklists such as generalized anxiety, somatic fear, and major depression—the scale operationalizes the multifaceted construct termed “COVID-blues.” Built upon the foundation of the behavioral immune system and the pathogen prevalence hypothesis, this measure recognizes that psychological vulnerability in tightly knit, collectivistic cultural matrices manifests through complex group dynamics, mutual surveillance, normative compliance, and social friction alongside internalized emotional suffering.

Extensive exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a robust four-dimensional oblique factor structure consisting of: (a) Individual Loneliness (10 items), capturing interpersonal alienation, relational disconnection, and the subjective dissolution of social belonging; (b) Fear (4 items), addressing acute health-related anxiety, physiological reactivity, and mortality terror associated with viral contagion; (c) Social Anger (7 items), assessing intense moral indignation, aggressive sanctioning urges, and punitive hostility directed toward community members who transgress pandemic mitigation and quarantine protocols; and (d) Socioeconomic Consequences (4 items), quantifying existential occupational insecurity, severe income disruption, and long-term career instability precipitated by extensive non-pharmaceutical interventions. The instrument employs a 7-point Likert-type response format administered electronically to adult community populations.

Psychometric evaluations conducted among South Korean adults (aged 18 to 85+) demonstrated exceptional psychometric integrity. The total scale exhibited outstanding internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .93), with subscale composite reliability (CR) values exceeding .90 across all four domains. Convergent validity was robustly confirmed, with average variance extracted (AVE) estimates consistently surpassing .62. Discriminant validity was fully verified via the Fornell–Larcker criterion, wherein each factor’s AVE exceeded the squared inter-construct correlations. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) established full configural, metric, scalar, and residual invariance across demographic subgroups. Overall, the COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale provides public health researchers, epidemiologists, cross-cultural psychologists, and mental health clinicians with an indispensable tool for deciphering the structural, affective, and sociocultural sequelae of modern biological crises.

2. Keywords

Collectivistic Society, COVID-19, COVID-Blues Social Syndrome, COVID-Related Stress, Fear, Individual Loneliness, Social Anger, Socioeconomic Consequences, Behavioral Immune System, Pathogen Prevalence Hypothesis, Psychometrics, Measurement Invariance

3. Authors

The scale was conceptualized, developed, and empirically validated by prominent communication and health media researchers at Hallym University, Republic of Korea:

• Changhyun Ahn, Ph.D. — Research Fellow, Health and New Media Research Institute, Hallym University, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea. Dr. Ahn specializes in health communication, digital media effects, risk perception, and collective emotional dynamics during acute socio-environmental crises.
• Ghee Young Noh, Ph.D. (Corresponding Author) — Professor, Media School, Hallym University, 1, Hallymdaehak-gil, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do 24252, Republic of Korea. Email: [email protected]. ORCID: 0000-0002-4446-4726. Dr. Noh’s academic research program focuses on behavioral change communication, media psychology, interactive health technology assessment, and psychometric measurement modeling in East Asian populations.

4. Purpose

The paramount purpose of the COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale is to bridge a pervasive epistemological and methodological gap in disaster mental health: the widespread failure of standard psychiatric inventories to account for cultural collectivistic realities during communicable disease outbreaks. During the global spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), public health authorities worldwide instituted unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), including state-mandated lockdowns, strict quarantine protocols, physical distancing rules, contact tracing, and mask mandates. While these measures were vital for physical disease containment, they exerted profound, multifaceted psychological tolls that manifested unequally across distinct cultural ecologies.

In Western and individualistic societies, pandemic distress was overwhelmingly characterized in research literature through the lens of individualized psychiatric conditions, primarily major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and acute post-traumatic stress. In contrast, in collectivistic East Asian contexts—such as South Korea—the psychological response to viral threats, colloquially termed “COVID-blues” (Corona Blue), emerged not merely as private clinical melancholy, but as a holistic, multifaceted “social syndrome.” This syndrome integrated individual affective suffering with profound collective friction, heightened socio-normative pressure, horizontal surveillance, moralized social outrage against rule violators, and acute socioeconomic precarity.

Prior instruments—such as the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (Ahorsu et al., 2020) or unidimensional loneliness metrics (Luchetti et al., 2020)—captured fragmented, decontextualized slices of this distress. They neglected how collectivistic values amplify the social costs of disease avoidance. In collectivism, individual behavior is seen as inextricably bound to communal wellbeing, meaning that personal infection brings intense social stigmatization, familial shame, and community reproach. Concurrently, citizens become hyper-vigilant inspectors of one another’s adherence to social distancing and hygiene mandates, fueling systemic public anger and interpersonal hostility.

Therefore, Ahn and Noh (2023) engineered this 25-item scale to provide researchers, sociologists, behavioral epidemiologists, and policymakers with a culturally congruent, psychometrically rigorous instrument capable of simultaneously evaluating:

• The severe intrapsychic toll of physical distancing, manifest as subjective emotional and relational isolation (Individual Loneliness);
• The autonomic and somatic dread of pathogenic infection and mortality (Fear);
• The punitive, moralistic social animosity directed at uncooperative citizens who fail to observe institutional public health orders (Social Anger); and
• The profound systemic disruption to personal livelihoods, business solvency, and career progression (Socioeconomic Consequences).

In clinical and public health practice, the tool identifies vulnerable populations requiring targeted community-level psychosocial support, assists public health officials in designing culturally attuned risk communication campaigns that mitigate intergroup hostility, and enables cross-cultural researchers to conduct rigorous comparative analyses regarding how cultural syndromes shape human adaptation to biological disasters.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct of “COVID-blues” as a social syndrome reflects a complex, multi-tiered psychological reaction pattern combining intrapsychic despair, somatic threat sensitivity, normative moral hostility, and socio-material precarity. Rather than operating as an isolated psychiatric diagnosis, it represents an ecologically embedded syndrome comprising four distinct, correlated latent dimensions:

1. Individual Loneliness (IL)

Individual loneliness represents the subjective, distressing cognitive-affective state resulting from a perceived quantitative and qualitative discrepancy between desired and actual interpersonal relationships during quarantine conditions. Comprising 10 items adapted and expanded from foundational loneliness paradigms (such as the UCLA Loneliness Scale and Luchetti et al., 2020), this dimension captures profound feelings of social isolation, emotional alienation, abandonment, and the subjective sense of not being “in tune” with the social environment. In collectivistic settings where identity, emotional security, and daily functioning are traditionally anchored in dense social networks, shared communal spaces, and group harmony, prolonged physical distancing severed essential relational ties. This subscale reflects not merely physical solitude, but the painful affective realization that one lacks meaningful companionship, emotional understanding, and dependable interpersonal support during a national emergency.

2. Fear (FE)

Fear operationalizes the evolutionary, autonomic, and somatic alarm system triggered by the continuous threat of contracting a potentially lethal, highly transmissible virus. Consisting of 4 items adapted from the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (Ahorsu et al., 2020), this dimension measures existential mortality salience, acute psychological dread, and the physiological manifestations of pathogen-induced panic. Specific indicators assess sleep disturbance driven by viral rumination, cardiovascular acceleration (heart racing) upon contemplating personal infection, and intense nervous anxiety elicited by digital media exposure and continuous news consumption. Unlike chronic, diffuse anxiety, this subscale captures concrete, acute threat appraisal centered on physical vulnerability and biological mortality.

3. Social Anger (SA)

Social anger represents the distinct cultural-normative dimension of the COVID-blues syndrome, comprising 7 items that capture moral outrage, punitive aggression, and profound interpersonal hostility directed at members of society who disregard infection control guidelines. Rooted in the pathogen prevalence hypothesis and cultural tight-looseness theory, this dimension measures the aggressive defensive responses of collectivistic group members against those whose non-compliance threatens group survival. The items quantify extreme affective and behavioral impulses, including intense fury when encountering unmasked individuals, strong moral convictions that violators deserve severe legal punishment, viewing rule-breakers as existential threats to social order or “terrorists” endangering collective safety, and visceral impulses to publicly correct or verbally curse individuals who defy distancing tiers. This dimension documents how biological self-defense mechanisms can manifest as intense horizontal social friction, mutual surveillance, and inter-citizen antagonism.

4. Socioeconomic Consequences (SC)

Socioeconomic consequences encompass 4 items designed to capture the profound material distress, occupational disruption, and existential economic insecurity brought about by institutional pandemic containment policies. Recognizing that pandemic distress cannot be separated from its economic context, this dimension gauges individual anxiety concerning business closures, acute revenue termination, career interruption, long-term unemployment, and general destabilization of economic survival. In urbanized economies, physical containment strategies immediately jeopardize small business owners, daily wage earners, and precarious corporate employees. This subscale measures the subjective psychological burden of material precarity, quantifying the pervasive dread that the socioeconomic consequences of containment may inflict deeper, more permanent life harm than the virus itself.

6. Theoretical Framework

The COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale is theoretically grounded in the convergence of evolutionary biology, social psychology, and cultural epidemiology, primarily integrating the Pathogen Prevalence Hypothesis, the theory of the Behavioral Immune System, and the social psychology of Collectivism vs. Individualism.

The Pathogen Prevalence Hypothesis and Cultural Evolution

The pathogen prevalence hypothesis, formulated by evolutionary psychologists (e.g., Murray, Schaller, & Fincher), posits that historical and ecological exposure to infectious diseases served as a primary evolutionary selection pressure shaping human social organization, cultural values, and cognitive mechanisms. Across geographical regions with high historical pathogen burdens, human societies systematically evolved collectivistic cultural norms characterized by:

• Strong group cohesion and strict boundaries separating ingroup from outgroup members;
• Rigid behavioral conformity and traditionalism to ensure adherence to hygiene, food preparation, and social containment practices; and
• Low tolerance for social deviance, accompanied by severe informal and formal sanctions against norm transgressors.

Under this theoretical framework, collectivistic social architectures function as macro-level anti-pathogen defense systems. When an acute biological threat such as SARS-CoV-2 re-emerges, these dormant evolutionary-cultural adaptations are rapidly activated. Consequently, individual psychological reactions in collectivistic contexts cannot remain restricted to intrapsychic depression or clinical phobias; they naturally manifest as intense pressures for group compliance, mutual monitoring, and aggressive intolerance toward non-conforming behaviors that risk introducing pathogens into the communal ecosystem.

The Behavioral Immune System (BIS)

Complementing the macro-level pathogen prevalence hypothesis, the concept of the Behavioral Immune System (BIS) describes an evolved psychological apparatus comprising sensory, emotional, and cognitive mechanisms designed to proactively detect pathogen presence, trigger pathogen-avoidance emotions (such as disgust, anxiety, and fear), and activate behavioral adaptations that minimize transmission risk. However, the BIS is fundamentally conservative, operating on a “smoke-detector principle” that prioritizes false positives over false negatives. In social species, the BIS extends beyond individual physical hygiene to evaluate social behaviors. Individuals who flout containment protocols (e.g., refusing to wear protective masks or congregating in crowded venues) are immediately categorized by the BIS not merely as impolite citizens, but as biological hazards. This evolutionary trigger transforms what might otherwise be mild annoyance into visceral disgust, moral outrage, and punitive aggression—providing the theoretical foundation for the Social Anger dimension of the scale.

Cultural Tightness and Social Norm Enforcement

The scale also draws heavily upon Michele Gelfand’s theory of Cultural Tightness-Looseness. Collectivistic societies such as South Korea are characterized by high “tightness”—possessing pervasive, clearly defined social norms and strong institutional and interpersonal sanctions against deviance. During historical ecological threats (wars, famines, and pestilence), tight societies developed centralized coordination and mutual social surveillance to ensure survival. When confronted with COVID-19, this cultural substrate enabled rapid, highly compliant public responses. However, its psychological shadow was the intensification of “social blues”—where the collective mandate for mutual surveillance, fear of public exposure via digital contact tracing, and the anger generated against recalcitrant individuals induced severe, population-wide social distress.

7. Validity

The psychometric validation of the COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale was rigorously executed by Ahn and Noh (2023) using contemporary multivariate methodologies to verify construct, convergent, and discriminant validity, as well as cross-group invariance.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct and convergent validity were established through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and parameter estimation. Convergent validity assesses the extent to which the observed indicators of a specific latent construct share a high proportion of common variance. In this validation study:

• All standardized factor loadings for the 25 retained items across their respective latent dimensions were statistically significant at p < .001, demonstrating robust indicator reliability.
• The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each of the four latent factors was systematically calculated. All factor AVE values substantially exceeded the widely recognized psychometric threshold of .50 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981): specifically, every latent dimension exhibited an AVE value consistently above .62.
• These robust AVE figures confirm that more than 62% of the variance captured by each set of indicators was directly accounted for by the underlying latent construct rather than measurement error, providing indisputable evidence of strong convergent validity.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity evaluates whether the operationalized dimensions are genuinely distinct theoretical constructs rather than reflections of a single undifferentiated affective distress factor. Ahn and Noh (2023) utilized the rigorous Fornell–Larcker criterion, which dictates that the AVE of each latent factor must exceed the squared correlation coefficients (φ²) between that factor and any other latent factor in the structural model.

• The empirical data confirmed that the AVE value for each of the four dimensions (IL, FE, SA, SC) was demonstrably higher than the squared inter-factor correlations across all pair-wise comparisons.
• This statistical confirmation established that while Individual Loneliness, Fear, Social Anger, and Socioeconomic Consequences are meaningfully correlated aspects of the overarching COVID-blues social syndrome, each factor captures unique, non-redundant psychological and behavioral variance.

Measurement Invariance Across Subpopulations

To confirm that the 25-item instrument measures the identical psychological constructs with equal calibration across diverse demographic segments, Ahn and Noh (2023) executed extensive Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA). The testing sequence systematically established four hierarchical levels of measurement invariance:

• Configural Invariance: Verified that the baseline four-factor pattern held invariant across gender and age cohorts without structural modification.
• Metric (Weak) Invariance: Successfully constrained factor loadings to equality across groups, proving that the scale’s items carry identical psychological meaning and metric units across different demographic populations.
• Scalar (Strong) Invariance: Constrained item intercepts to equality across groups, demonstrating that mean differences in latent factor scores genuinely reflect true group differences rather than cultural or measurement response bias.
• Residual (Strict) Invariance: Constrained item residual variances to equality across groups, verifying that measurement error was uniformly distributed across cohorts.

The achievement of full residual invariance firmly establishes the COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale as a fair, unbiased assessment tool suitable for comparative demographic and epidemiological investigations.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale was comprehensively evaluated through internal consistency analyses, incorporating both traditional coefficients and structural equation modeling parameters.

Internal Consistency and Composite Reliability

In classical test theory, Cronbach’s alpha (α) provides an index of the interrelatedness among items within an instrument. For the complete 25-item scale, Ahn and Noh (2023) reported an overall Cronbach’s alpha of .93, reflecting exceptional overall internal consistency and minimal measurement error.

Recognizing the well-documented psychometric limitations of Cronbach’s alpha—specifically its reliance on the assumption of tau-equivalence (equal factor loadings across all items) and its tendency to underestimate reliability in multi-faceted scales—the authors also calculated Composite Reliability (CR) within a confirmatory structural equation framework. The results demonstrated:

• Every latent factor achieved a Composite Reliability value exceeding .90 (CR > .90).
• Individual Loneliness, Fear, Social Anger, and Socioeconomic Consequences each independently demonstrated high true-score variance relative to error variance.
• These elevated CR statistics satisfy even the most stringent criteria for diagnostic and research applications (where CR ≥ .80 is considered excellent).

Measurement Stability

The absence of significant item-total correlation drop-offs when testing subscales indicated that all retained items contributed substantially to the measurement precision of their assigned domains. Furthermore, the high composite reliability coupled with AVE values > .62 confirms that random measurement error accounts for less than 10% of construct variance across all subscales, confirming the scale’s stability across electronic survey deployments.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the COVID-blues Social Syndrome Scale was rigorously determined through a two-stage analytic progression involving Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Item generation initially produced a broader pool of prospective items derived from comprehensive literature reviews and adapted instruments (including Ahorsu et al., 2020; Luchetti et al., 2020). The initial item pool was subjected to iterative psychometric screening. During preliminary EFA:

• A total of four items were eliminated from the initial pool due to psychometric deficiencies, specifically low primary factor loadings (< .40) or complex cross-loadings across multiple dimensions.
• The remaining 25 items were subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with orthogonal varimax rotation.
• The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity confirmed the exceptional suitability of the correlation matrix for factorization.
• The PCA decisively extracted four distinct factors with eigenvalues substantially greater than unity. The lowest eigenvalue among the extracted factors was 1.78, with the four factors collectively accounting for an impressive 77.12% of the total cumulative variance.
• All retained items exhibited strong primary factor loadings onto their designated theoretical dimensions without confounding cross-loadings.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm the four-factor structural model on the empirical dataset, Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted using maximum likelihood estimation. The four-factor oblique model exhibited excellent global and local fit indices:

• Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio (χ²/df): 10.81 (p < .001). While significant due to the large sample size characteristic of online community samples, relative fit indices confirmed model robustness.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .93, comfortably surpassing the conventional benchmark of ≥ .90 for acceptable fit.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .92, indicating strong incremental fit over the baseline null model.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .08, falling within the acceptable threshold for complex social psychometric models.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .06, well below the stringent .08 cutoff, denoting negligible residual correlation.

Psychometric / Fit Index	Empirical Value	Standard Psychometric Criterion	Interpretation
Total Explained Variance (PCA)	77.12%	≥ 60.0%	Outstanding construct explanation
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha (α)	.93	≥ .80	Exceptional internal consistency
Composite Reliability (CR) per factor	> .90	≥ .70	Exemplary structural reliability
Average Variance Extracted (AVE)	> .62	≥ .50	Robust convergent validity
Comparative Fit Index (CFI)	.93	≥ .90	Good model fit
Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI)	.92	≥ .90	Good incremental fit
RMSEA	.08	≤ .08	Acceptable approximation error
SRMR	.06	≤ .08	Minimal residual variance

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

Below are the structural specifications, administration protocols, and operational properties of the instrument:

• Test Type: Original Psychological Inventory / Multi-dimensional Self-Report Questionnaire.
• Target Population: General adult community population (human males and females aged 18 years and older), spanning young adulthood (18–29), thirties (30–39), middle age (40–64), older adults (65–84), and very old adults (85+).
• Administration Format: Self-administered electronic survey (computer-assisted web interviewing or mobile questionnaire). Administration duration is approximately 6 to 10 minutes.
• Total Item Count: 25 items across four distinct subscales:
  • Individual Loneliness (IL): 10 items (IL1–IL10)
  • Fear (FE): 4 items (FE1–FE4)
  • Social Anger (SA): 7 items (SA1, SA2, SA3, SA4, SA5, SA7, SA9)
  • Socioeconomic Consequences (SC): 4 items (SC1–SC4)
• Response Scale and Rating Anchors: Items are rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale. The anchors vary depending on the item, ranging from:
  • 1 = Not at all to 7 = Very much, or
  • 1 = I do not feel this at all to 7 = I feel this very strongly.
• Scoring and Computational Procedures:
  • All 25 items are positively phrased relative to the underlying construct; there are no reverse-coded items.
  • Subscale Scores: Calculated by computing the arithmetic mean or the sum of all item ratings within each respective subscale dimension:
    • Individual Loneliness (IL): Sum score ranges from 10 to 70 (Mean score: 1.00 to 7.00). Higher scores denote severe relational isolation and social disconnection.
    • Fear (FE): Sum score ranges from 4 to 28 (Mean score: 1.00 to 7.00). Higher scores signify acute somatic terror and pathogenic threat anxiety.
    • Social Anger (SA): Sum score ranges from 7 to 49 (Mean score: 1.00 to 7.00). Higher scores indicate intense moralistic hostility and aggressive sanctioning inclinations toward health rule transgressors.
    • Socioeconomic Consequences (SC): Sum score ranges from 4 to 28 (Mean score: 1.00 to 7.00). Higher scores reflect critical economic insecurity, job loss fears, and livelihood precarity.
  • Composite Overall COVID-Blues Score: May be derived by summing all 25 items (ranging from 25 to 175) or averaging across all items (1.00 to 7.00), where elevated composite scores represent higher overall COVID-blues social syndrome severity. In multivariate modeling, preserving the four discrete latent subscale scores is strongly recommended.
• Language: Originally developed and validated in Korean; adapted English translations available for cross-cultural research applications.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 2023.
• Copyright and Proprietary Status: Copyright © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC and the Authors (Changhyun Ahn & Ghee Young Noh). Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Health Communication.
• Usage Fee: Free for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical purposes, and non-profit public health monitoring.
• Permissions and Inquiries: Researchers wishing to reproduce, translate, or adapt the scale for commercial applications or proprietary clinical software should request formal permission from Taylor & Francis or contact the corresponding author, Prof. Ghee Young Noh, Media School, Hallym University, Republic of Korea (Email: [email protected]).

12. References

• Ahn, C., & Noh, G. Y. (2023). Development and validation of Korean ‘COVID-blues’ Social Syndrome Scale. Journal of Health Communication, 28(12), 846–855. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2023.2279668
• Ahorsu, D. K., Lin, C. Y., Imani, V., Saffari, M., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2020). The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Development and initial validation. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19(5), 1537–1545. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00270-8
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., … & Yamaguchi, S. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332(6033), 1100–1104. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1197754
• Luchetti, M., Lee, J. H., Aschwanden, D., Sesker, A., Strickhouser, J. E., Terracciano, A., & Sutin, A. R. (2020). The trajectory of loneliness in response to COVID-19. American Psychologist, 75(7), 897–908. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000690
• Murray, D. R., & Schaller, M. (2016). The behavioral immune system: Implications for social cognition, social interaction, and intergroup relations. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 75–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2015.09.002
• Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2011). The behavioral immune system (and why it matters). Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(2), 99–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411402596

13. Items of the Scale