Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)

1. Abstract

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) is universally recognized as the gold standard self-report psychometric instrument for measuring global self-worth and individual self-acceptance. Developed originally by sociologist Morris Rosenberg in 1965 to evaluate the social and psychological correlates of self-esteem among adolescent populations, the scale has since undergone exhaustive cross-cultural, developmental, and psychometric validation. Comprising exactly 10 balanced items—five keyed positively and five reverse-scored to mitigate acquiescence response bias—the instrument utilizes a four-point Likert-type response format ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 4 (“Strongly Agree”), or alternatively 0 to 3. Scores range from 0 to 30 (or 10 to 40), where higher composite values represent higher levels of global self-worth. Although originally formulated as a unidimensional Guttman scale, subsequent structural investigations employing exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis have debated whether the observed dimensionality reflects a single general trait, a substantive two-dimensional structure differentiating self-competence (instrumental efficacy) from self-liking (intrinsic relational value), or a method artifact generated by the directional wording of items. Psychometrically, the RSES exhibits robust internal consistency across diverse global samples (with Cronbach’s alpha typically ranging between .77 and .90), exceptional test-retest reliability across short- and medium-term intervals ($r = .82$ to $.88$), and high Guttman reproducibility coefficients ($ge .92$). Cross-national studies spanning over 50 nations have reaffirmed its measurement invariance and diagnostic utility. This article presents an exhaustive, academically rigorous review of the RSES, exploring its theoretical underpinnings in symbolic interactionism, factor analytic debates, clinical and empirical applications, normative adult parameters, and complete administrative protocols.

2. Keywords

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, RSES, Global Self-Esteem, Self-Worth, Self-Competence, Self-Liking, Psychometrics, Factor Structure, Acquiescence Bias, Method Artifacts, Cross-Cultural Invariance, Social Psychology

3. Authors

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was designed and introduced by Dr. Morris Rosenberg (1922–1992), an eminent American sociologist and social psychologist whose pioneering scholarship fundamentally shaped contemporary social scientific investigations into the self-concept. Rosenberg received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1953 under the intellectual influence of prominent sociologists such as Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton.

During the design of the RSES in the early 1960s, Rosenberg was serving as a research sociologist in the Laboratory of Socio-environmental Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Later, he joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he remained a distinguished professor until his death. Rosenberg published the scale in his seminal 1965 monograph, Society and the Adolescent’s Self-Image, published by Princeton University Press. Throughout his career, Rosenberg served as the Chair of the Social Psychology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and published extensively on social stratification, socialization, depressive symptomatology, reflected appraisals, and identity formation.

4. Purpose

The primary objective of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is to provide a brief, psychometrically sound, and easily administered assessment of an individual’s overall sense of global self-worth. In designing the instrument, Rosenberg intended to capture how individuals evaluate themselves as an totality, deliberately avoiding narrow, domain-specific assessments such as academic capability, physical attractiveness, or athletic prowess. The scale was conceptualized to differentiate between individuals who respect themselves and consider themselves worthy persons from those who suffer from persistent self-dissatisfaction, feelings of inferiority, and pervasive self-contempt.

In clinical practice, the RSES is frequently deployed within intake evaluations, psychotherapy outcome monitoring, and psychiatric diagnostic assessments. Decades of clinical literature establish that impaired self-esteem is an invariant transdiagnostic vulnerability factor across major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, eating pathology, substance use disorders, and borderline personality organization. Tracking shifts in RSES scores allows clinicians to evaluate the reconstructive efficacy of cognitive-behavioral interventions (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and psychodynamic therapies aimed at resolving core maladaptive schemas of defectiveness and unlovability. Because the instrument takes less than two minutes to complete, it functions seamlessly within high-volume clinical settings, primary care screenings, and longitudinal mental health surveys.

In academic and behavioral research, the RSES serves as a foundational baseline and mediator across thousands of empirical studies. Sociologists employ the scale to investigate how structural inequalities, discrimination, socioeconomic status, and systemic marginalization affect identity and subjective well-being. Developmental psychologists monitor normative trajectories of self-regard from early adolescence into late adulthood, charting how transitions such as pubertal onset, educational attainment, employment entry, and retirement reshape the self-concept. In industrial-organizational psychology, researchers leverage the scale to study burnout, leadership performance, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Furthermore, contemporary research has utilized the RSES to examine the boundaries of healthy self-regard. While mid-20th-century paradigms presumed that higher self-esteem was universally beneficial, subsequent critical evaluations (e.g., Baumeister et al., 2003; Crocker & Park, 2004) demonstrated that excessively inflated self-esteem can correlate with defensive narcissism, interpersonal antagonism, entitlement, and destructive responses to ego threats. As a consequence, researchers frequently contrast RSES scores with assessments of implicit self-esteem or contingent self-esteem to distinguish secure, authentic self-acceptance from fragile, defensive self-aggrandizement.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the RSES is global self-esteem, which Morris Rosenberg defined as a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the self. Rosenberg emphasized that self-esteem is fundamentally evaluative and affective: it represents the degree to which an individual believes they are “good enough.” High self-esteem, within Rosenberg’s formulation, does not connote feelings of superiority, grandiosity, or contempt for others; rather, it reflects genuine self-respect, recognized personal worth, and an absence of self-rejection. Conversely, low self-esteem signifies self-deprecating attitudes, pervasive feelings of uselessness, shame, and perceived personal failure.

Although constructed as a unitary measure, psychometric analyses across diverse adult and adolescent cohorts have established that the construct comprises two highly correlated yet conceptually distinguishable sub-dimensions (Tafarodi & Swann, 1995, 2001; Schmitt & Allik, 2005; Sinclair et al., 2010):

• Self-Competence (SC): This dimension represents an individual’s evaluation of their instrumental efficacy, competence, ability, and personal agency. It is anchored in an individual’s confidence that they can accomplish goals, exert control over their life circumstances, and perform tasks as successfully as others. Within the RSES, self-competence is captured by items such as Item 4 (“I am able to do things as well as most other people”) and Item 9 (“All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure,” reverse scored). Self-competence reflects personal empowerment and mastery.
• Self-Liking (SL): This dimension captures an individual’s intrinsic sense of social worth, moral goodness, and acceptability as a person. Unlike competence, which depends heavily on performance, achievement, and comparative success, self-liking represents an affective self-valuation rooted in social belonging, moral self-worth, and internalized relational security. It is tapped directly by items such as Item 1 (“On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”), Item 7 (“I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others”), and Item 8 (“I wish I could have more respect for myself,” reverse scored).

The differentiation between self-competence and self-liking has yielded profound psychodiagnostic insights. As Sinclair et al. (2010) demonstrated, subtracting self-liking from self-competence ($SC – SL$) generates an intra-individual discrepancy index. Individuals exhibiting elevated self-competence alongside suppressed self-liking often present clinically with perfectionism, workaholism, and achievement-contingent self-worth, masking deep underlying feelings of social rejection and unworthiness. Conversely, elevated self-liking paired with diminished self-competence may point toward externalized defensive posturing or deficits in executive self-regulation.

Crucially, global self-esteem must be distinguished from domain-specific self-concepts (e.g., perceived academic competence, physical appearance self-concept). While domain-specific evaluations fluctuate rapidly with situational feedback (such as receiving a low exam grade), global self-esteem serves as a central affective anchor. Furthermore, contemporary social psychologists distinguish trait self-esteem—the stable baseline captured by the RSES—from state self-esteem, which fluctuates across hours or days in response to transient interpersonal rejection, performance success, or affective dysregulation.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is rooted in symbolic interactionism and phenomenological self-theory. Rosenberg’s model was profoundly influenced by foundational sociological and psychological theorists, most notably George Herbert Mead (1934) and Charles Horton Cooley (1902), as well as William James (1890).

From Cooley’s concept of the “looking-glass self,” Rosenberg adopted the premise that an individual’s evaluation of the self is primarily a social product derived from reflected appraisals. Individuals internalize how they perceive significant others (parents, teachers, peers, and society at large) perceive and evaluate them. If an adolescent consistently perceives that authority figures and peers view them as capable and worthy, those social cues are synthesized into positive self-regard. Item 7 (“I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others”) embodies this reflected comparison, operationalizing self-worth as perceived equal standing within one’s social ecosystem.

Concurrently, Rosenberg incorporated William James’s classic conceptualization of self-esteem as the mathematical ratio of an individual’s “pretensions” (aspirations and expectations) to their “successes.” James asserted that self-esteem is not determined solely by objective achievements, but by whether those achievements fulfill the internal standards an individual considers personally central. Rosenberg posited that global self-esteem operates as a hierarchical, psychologically organized system. Specific abilities or shortcomings do not impact global self-esteem uniformly; rather, their impact is mediated by psychological centralities. A person who values musical artistry will suffer little self-esteem loss from athletic failure, whereas failure in a domain deeply tied to their identity can severely erode their sense of global worth. The RSES captures this overarching synthesis by asking for respondents’ gestalt self-appraisals without forcing them into predefined domain weightings.

In addition, Rosenberg situated his framework within social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954). Individuals continually assess their social, behavioral, and moral standing relative to reference groups. Items like Item 4 (“I am able to do things as well as most other people”) demonstrate that self-evaluations are anchored against perceived population norms. High self-esteem, therefore, requires a baseline perception of normative adequacy rather than subjective supremacy.

In contemporary social cognitive paradigms, the RSES is also understood through the lens of Sociometer Theory (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). According to this evolutionary framework, self-esteem acts as an internal psychological gauge that continuously monitors the social environment for cues of social inclusion versus social exclusion or ostracism. When social rejection occurs or is anticipated, the sociometer drops, manifesting as lower self-esteem and triggering distress that motivates reparative relational behaviors. The RSES provides a stable metric of the chronic, long-term state of an individual’s sociometer.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale has been tested extensively across clinical, non-clinical, developmental, and cross-cultural cohorts over nearly six decades.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity for the RSES is demonstrated by strong, consistent correlations with theoretically aligned psychological constructs. The scale demonstrates robust positive correlations with optimism ($r = .55$ to $.65$), self-efficacy ($r = .50$ to $.62$), life satisfaction ($r = .58$ to $.68$), resilience, and subjective well-being. Conversely, the RSES exhibits strong, persistent inverse correlations with measures of psychological distress, including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) ($r = -.55$ to $-.70$), trait anxiety ($r = -.50$ to $-.65$), social introversion, loneliness, and neuroticism ($r = -.45$ to $-.60$). In a landmark cross-national investigation across 53 nations comprising 16,998 participants, Schmitt and Allik (2005) confirmed that RSES scores correlated predictably with Big Five personality dimensions: highly positively with Extraversion and Emotional Stability (low Neuroticism), moderately with Conscientiousness, and mildly with Agreeableness and Openness.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The RSES demonstrates high predictive validity across diverse life outcomes. Longitudinal studies show that low baseline RSES scores predict future depressive episodes, suicidal ideation, anxiety disorders, and heightened vulnerability to interpersonal conflict (Greenberg et al., 1992; Lightsey et al., 2006). In psychiatric populations, Torrey et al. (2000) demonstrated that RSES scores prospectively predicted clinical recovery, treatment adherence, and vocational rehabilitation outcomes among patients with severe mental illness. Furthermore, in non-clinical cohorts, high baseline self-esteem predicts occupational persistence, goal attainment, and coping adaptability when facing adverse events, although it does not inherently guarantee superior objective academic or occupational capability when IQ and socioeconomic variables are held constant (Baumeister et al., 2003).

Discriminant Validity

The RSES has successfully maintained discriminant validity when evaluated against adjacent constructs such as narcissism. While global self-esteem as measured by the RSES correlates positively with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), structural equation models confirm they diverge fundamentally: self-esteem correlates negatively with aggression, Machiavellianism, and antisocial exploitativeness, whereas grandiose narcissism correlates positively with these traits. The scale also clearly discriminates trait self-esteem from transient positive affect, demonstrating that while negative emotional states temporarily color self-ratings, the RSES reflects an underlying, durable personality core.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale has been established across clinical and non-clinical populations, varying age cohorts, and diverse linguistic adaptations.

Internal Consistency

Internal consistency estimates for the RSES are consistently high. Across extensive meta-analytic reviews and large-scale validations, Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients routinely range between .77 and .90. In their comprehensive cross-cultural survey of 53 nations, Schmitt and Allik (2005) reported an overall mean internal consistency coefficient of $lpha = .81$, with national samples rarely falling below the .75 threshold (e.g., ranging from .70 in the Democratic Republic of Congo to .89 in Israel and the United Kingdom). In a normative United States sample of 503 adults across diverse socioeconomic, ethnic, and age strata, Sinclair et al. (2010) reported a Cronbach’s alpha of .91 for the overall scale, with subscale alphas of .84 for Self-Competence and .83 for Self-Liking. McDonald’s omega ($\omega$) values regularly mirror or exceed these figures, confirming that the 10 items possess high internal coherence.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability assessments demonstrate that the RSES reliably captures trait-level self-evaluations over time. In Rosenberg’s original 1965 adolescent cohort, a two-week test-retest reliability coefficient of $r = .85$ was observed. Subsequent investigations across collegiate and adult populations have established test-retest correlations between $r = .82$ and $.88$ over two-week to one-month intervals (Sinclair et al., 2010). Longitudinal testing across multi-year spans reveals stability coefficients ranging from .50 to .70 across seven-year follow-ups, reflecting both the persistent trait foundation of global self-esteem and its developmental responsiveness to major life transitions.

Guttman Scalability

When scored as a Guttman scale—Rosenberg’s original psychometric methodology—the RSES exhibits exceptional unidimensional scalability. Rosenberg (1965) reported a Guttman coefficient of reproducibility of .92 and a coefficient of scalability of .72, easily exceeding the conventional psychometric standards of .90 and .60, respectively. These metrics demonstrate that the RSES items conform to a cumulative, ordered continuum of self-evaluative severity.

9. Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale represents one of the most thoroughly analyzed methodological debates in psychometrics.

The Unidimensional vs. Two-Factor Debate

Rosenberg originally formulated the RSES as a strictly unidimensional instrument reflecting a single underlying construct of global self-worth. However, when researchers subjected the 10-item correlation matrix to exploratory factor analysis (EFA), two distinct, highly correlated factors regularly emerged. These factors split precisely along the wording of the items: Factor 1 clustered the five positively phrased items (Items 1, 3, 4, 7, and 10), while Factor 2 clustered the five negatively phrased, reverse-scored items (Items 2, 5, 6, 8, and 9).

Two rival theoretical camps emerged to explain this bifurcation:

1. The Substantive Two-Dimensional Model: Proposed by researchers like Tafarodi and Swann (1995), who argued that the two factors represent distinct psychological constructs: Self-Competence and Self-Liking. They asserted that positive items predominantly reflect agency and mastery, whereas negative items capture feelings of deficiency and relational unlikability.
2. The Method Effect / Response Style Model: Championed by Marsh (1996), Tomás and Oliver (1999), and Greenberger et al. (2003), this position argues that the two-factor split is a methodological artifact caused by method effects associated with reverse-worded items (such as acquiescence bias, reading difficulty, or careless responding), rather than true psychological multidimensionality.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Method Models

To resolve this debate, psychometricians have applied advanced Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling, comparing several competing structural topologies:

• Model 1: Strict Unidimensional Model. All 10 items load onto a single global self-esteem factor. This model routinely demonstrates marginal or poor fit (e.g., $\chi^2 / df > 5.0$, $\text{CFI} < .90$, $\text{RMSEA} > .08$).
• Model 2: Correlated Two-Factor Model. Items load onto separate Self-Competence and Self-Liking factors. Fit improves markedly ($\text{CFI} > .94$, $\text{RMSEA} \approx .06$), but the two latent factors correlate exceptionally highly ($r > .80$ to $.90$), raising questions about their distinctness.
• Model 3: Bifactor / Correlated Traits-Correlated Methods (CTCM) Model. A primary general factor representing Global Self-Esteem loads across all 10 items, accompanied by orthogonal (or correlated) method factors loading specifically on the negatively worded items (or both positive and negative sets).

Empirical evidence across diverse cross-cultural datasets overwhelmingly favors the bifactor model with method factors for negatively phrased items (Schmitt & Allik, 2005; Marsh, 1996). Standardized factor loadings on the general global self-esteem factor remain robust (consistently ranging from .55 to .85 across all 10 items), while the method factor absorbs systematic variance introduced by negative item wording. Fit indices for the bifactor method model are exceptional: Comparative Fit Index ($ ext{CFI}$) values typically exceed .97, the Tucker-Lewis Index ($ ext{TLI}$) exceeds .96, and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($ ext{RMSEA}$) drops below .045. Consequently, psychometric consensus holds that the RSES is essentially unidimensional at the conceptual trait level, but psychometrically multidimensional due to systematic method variance.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration parameters, structural design, and scoring rules for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)
• Instrument Type: Self-report psychometric questionnaire
• Construct Assessed: Global Self-Esteem (overall affective evaluation of self-worth and self-acceptance)
• Item Count: Exactly 10 items (balanced design: 5 positively phrased, 5 negatively phrased)
• Target Population: Adolescents (ages 12+) and adults across all age cohorts
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 3 minutes
• Response Format: 4-point Likert scale:
  • Standard Academic Coding: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree, 4 = Strongly Agree
  • Alternative Research Coding: 0 = Strongly Disagree, 1 = Disagree, 2 = Agree, 3 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Protocol and Directionality:
  • Positively Phrased Items (Direct Scoring): Items 1, 3, 4, 7, and 10.
    Scored: Strongly Disagree = 0 (or 1), Disagree = 1 (or 2), Agree = 2 (or 3), Strongly Agree = 3 (or 4).
  • Negatively Phrased Items (Reverse Scoring): Items 2, 5, 6, 8, and 9.
    Must be inverted prior to aggregation: Strongly Disagree = 3 (or 4), Disagree = 2 (or 3), Agree = 1 (or 2), Strongly Agree = 0 (or 1).
  • Composite Score Calculation: Sum all 10 items following reverse-scoring. Scores range from 0 to 30 (for 0–3 coding) or from 10 to 40 (for 1–4 coding).
• Subscale Computations (Optional Diagnostic Derivations):
  • Self-Competence (SC): Sum of items evaluating capability and failure avoidance (commonly operationalized as Items 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, or specific factor-derived items; Sinclair et al., 2010 uses the sum of the first five items).
  • Self-Liking (SL): Sum of items evaluating intrinsic worth and self-respect (Items 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10; or the second five items in split configurations).
  • Competence-Liking Discrepancy Index ($SC – SL$): Evaluates internal balance between capability self-evaluation and intrinsic self-acceptance.
• Normative Reference Values (Adult Population; Sinclair et al., 2010; $N = 503$, Mean Age = 44.7):
  • Total Score (0–30 scale): Mean ($M$) = 22.62, Standard Deviation ($SD$) = 5.80
  • Self-Competence Subscale: $M = 12.01$, $SD = 2.82$
  • Self-Liking Subscale: $M = 10.62$, $SD = 3.35$
  • Discrepancy Score ($SC – SL$): Mean Difference = 1.39, $SD = 2.15$
  • Clinical Thresholds (0–30 scale): Scores below 15 generally indicate clinically significant low self-esteem; scores from 15 to 25 reflect normative self-regard; scores above 25 represent exceptionally high self-esteem.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was published in 1965 in Dr. Morris Rosenberg’s book, Society and the Adolescent’s Self-Image. Dr. Rosenberg intended for the instrument to be freely accessible to the global scientific community. The RSES resides in the public domain and is considered an open-access psychometric instrument.

No licensing fees, user royalties, or formal administrative permissions are required for non-commercial educational, scientific, clinical, or academic research applications. Researchers and practitioners may administer, adapt, translate, or digitize the scale provided that full and appropriate academic attribution is given to Morris Rosenberg’s foundational 1965 publication. The Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, which historically maintained archives of Dr. Rosenberg’s work, confirms that the scale may be utilized free of charge for non-commercial purposes without seeking written permission.

12. References

• Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4(1), 1–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/1529-1006.01431
• Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
• Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 392–414. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.392
• Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202
• Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., Rosenblatt, A., Burling, J., Lyon, D., Simon, L., & Pinel, E. (1992). Why do people need self-esteem? Converging evidence that self-esteem serves an anxiety-buffering function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(6), 913–922. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.6.913
• Greenberger, E., Chen, C., Dmitrieva, J., & Farruggia, S. P. (2003). Item-wording and the dimensionality of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: Do they matter? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32(6), 403–418. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025983713065
• James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). Henry Holt and Company.
• Leary, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). The nature and function of self-esteem: Sociometer theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 32, pp. 1–62). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(00)80003-9
• Lightsey, O. R., Burke, M., Ervin, A., Henderson, D., & Yee, C. (2006). Generalized self-efficacy, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms among African American college students. Journal of Black Psychology, 32(2), 206–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798406286801
• Marsh, H. W. (1996). Positive and negative global self-esteem: A substantively meaningful distinction or artifactors? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(4), 810–819. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.4.810
• Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. University of Chicago Press.
• Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent’s self-image. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400876136
• Schmitt, D. P., & Allik, J. (2005). Simultaneous administration of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in 53 nations: Exploring the universal and culture-specific features of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(4), 623–642. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.4.623
• Sinclair, S. J., Blais, M. A., Gansler, D. A., Sandberg, E., Bistis, K., & LoCicero, A. (2010). Psychometric properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: Overall and across demographic groups living within the United States. Evaluation & the Health Professions, 33(1), 56–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278709356187
• Tafarodi, R. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1995). Self-liking and self-competence as dimensions of global self-esteem: Initial validation of a measure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 65(2), 322–342. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6502_8
• Tafarodi, R. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2001). Two-dimensional self-esteem: Theory and measurement. Personality and Individual Differences, 31(5), 653–673. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00169-0
• Tomás, J. M., & Oliver, A. (1999). Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale: Two factors or method effects. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 84–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540120
• Torrey, W. C., Mueser, K. T., McHugo, G. H., & Drake, R. E. (2000). Self-esteem as an outcome measure in studies of persons in service for severe mental illness. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 188(4), 219–227. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-200004000-00005

13. Items of the Scale