Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCC)

1. Abstract

The Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCC), developed by Jennifer D. Campbell and colleagues in 1996, is a foundational psychometric instrument designed to assess the structural coherence, internal consistency, and temporal stability of an individual’s self-knowledge. While self-esteem instruments measure the evaluative and affective valence of the self (the positivity or negativity of self-views), the SCC captures an epistemic, structural dimension: the extent to which self-beliefs are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable across time and situations. The instrument comprises 12 items rated on a standard 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), featuring 10 reverse-coded items to mitigate acquiescence response bias and two positively keyed items.

Extensive psychometric investigations have established the SCC as a psychometrically robust, unidimensional scale exhibiting high internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients routinely falling between .85 and .89 across university, community, and clinical cohorts. Test-retest reliability estimates demonstrate solid temporal stability across varying intervals, ranging from $r = .79$ at four weeks to $r = .70$ over a five-month span. Factor analytic studies, incorporating both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), corroborate an essentially unidimensional structural architecture, with minor bifactor variance occasionally stemming from item directionality methods.

Construct validity is supported by strong convergent correlations with global self-esteem ($r = .60$ to $.67$) and negative associations with neuroticism and negative affectivity ($r = -.49$ to $-.51$). Behavioral and cognitive validation studies demonstrate that individuals with elevated SCC scores exhibit shorter response latencies when identifying self-descriptive traits, display higher consistency in trait endorsements across time, and demonstrate lower susceptibility to external social cues or identity-threatening contexts. The SCC has gained broad multidisciplinary adoption across clinical psychology, social psychology, cultural psychometrics, and consumer research, providing critical insight into identity diffusion, psychological well-being, and cross-cultural variations in self-construal.

2. Keywords

Self-Concept Clarity Scale, self-knowledge, structural coherence, self-concept stability, self-esteem, psychometrics, epistemic certainty, identity consolidation, neuroticism, cross-cultural psychology, factor analysis, construct validity, test-retest reliability, clinical assessment, consumer psychology.

3. Authors

The Self-Concept Clarity Scale was created and validated by a research team at the University of British Columbia, led by Dr. Jennifer D. Campbell. The original authors and primary biographical details include:

• Jennifer D. Campbell, Ph.D.: Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). A pioneering researcher in personality and social psychology, Dr. Campbell directed early empirical investigations examining the structural properties of self-conceptions, self-esteem heterogeneity, and the cognitive architecture of the self.
• Paul D. Trapnell, Ph.D.: Professor of Psychology at the University of Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada). Dr. Trapnell’s psychometric expertise spans personality structure, the Big Five taxonomy, and the differentiation between self-reflective rumination and epistemic intellectual curiosity.
• Steven J. Heine, Ph.D.: Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Internationally recognized for his seminal contributions to cultural psychology, Dr. Heine has examined how culture shapes self-concept clarity, self-enhancement, and psychological meaning systems across Western and East Asian societies.
• Ian M. Katz, Ph.D.: Affiliated with the University of British Columbia during the initial development and psychometric validation of the SCC, specializing in social-personality assessment and quantitative methodologies.
• Loraine F. Lavallee, Ph.D.: Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Northern British Columbia, focusing on environmental psychology, self-identity, and social values.
• Darrin R. Lehman, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Lehman’s research encompasses social cognition, cultural influences on decision-making, and coping processes following life crises.

Primary Institutional Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z4.

4. Purpose

The development of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale emerged from a critical theoretical problem within social, personality, and clinical psychology during the late 20th century: the confounding of self-evaluative valence with self-structural integrity. For decades, personality inventories and psychopathology frameworks predominantly evaluated the self-concept along an evaluative continuum, measuring whether individuals viewed their traits, abilities, and overall worth positively or negatively (e.g., via the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale). However, empirical anomalies routinely demonstrated that individuals with equivalent self-esteem scores exhibited markedly divergent behavioral stability, emotional resilience, and cognitive responses to feedback. Dr. Campbell and colleagues established that the structural coherence of self-beliefs represents an independent, psychologically foundational axis of personality.

Theoretical and Diagnostic Rationale

The SCC was constructed to operationalize and measure the extent to which self-beliefs are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable. The primary purpose of the scale is not to quantify what an individual believes about themselves (content) or how positively they view themselves (evaluation), but rather how well-anchored, congruent, and certain those self-representations are (structure). Individuals with low self-concept clarity experience pervasive ambiguity regarding their identity; their self-descriptions fluctuate widely from day to day, their internal beliefs exhibit logical and affective contradictions, and they experience persistent subjective uncertainty when queried about their authentic preferences, traits, and values.

Clinical Applications

In clinical psychopathology and diagnostic evaluation, the SCC serves as a sensitive indicator of identity consolidation versus identity diffusion. Severe decrements in self-concept clarity are observed in individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), where identity disturbance represents a core diagnostic criterion in the DSM-5. Furthermore, low SCC has been identified as a significant cognitive vulnerability factor for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and chronic dysphoria. When self-beliefs lack structural coherence, individuals are hypersensitive to environmental cues, social rejection, and negative feedback, because an ambiguous self-structure cannot serve as a reliable cognitive buffer against external challenges.

Research Applications in Social, Cultural, and Consumer Psychology

Beyond clinical contexts, the SCC provides essential explanatory utility across several empirical domains:

• Social Cognition: SCC predicts information processing speeds during self-referential tasks, the stability of social comparisons, and the magnitude of cognitive dissonance experienced when confronted with behavioral inconsistencies.
• Cultural Psychology: The scale enables cross-national comparisons of identity organization. Studies consistently show that while Western independent cultural models prioritize high personal self-concept clarity, East Asian interdependent contexts emphasize contextual adaptability, leading to lower absolute SCC scores without corresponding drops in subjective well-being.
• Consumer Behavior and Marketing: In marketing and applied psychology, SCC functions as an essential moderator of self-congruity effects, brand attachment, and compensatory consumption. Consumers with low SCC often rely on material goods and explicit brand identities to externally stabilize a fragile or poorly defined sense of self.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the SCC is self-concept clarity (SCC), conceptualized as the structural integrity of the self-system. Self-concept clarity is defined as the extent to which the contents of an individual’s self-beliefs (e.g., self-perceptions of personal attributes, moral values, abilities, and behavioral predispositions) are clearly and confidently held, internally consistent, and temporally stable across time and changing situational environments. To understand this construct deeply, it must be delineated across its three structural dimensions and distinguished from adjacent personality constructs.

Constituent Dimensions of Self-Concept Clarity

Although the SCC is measured psychometrically as a unidimensional scale, Campbell et al. (1996) theoretically grounded the construct within three interconnected, mutually reinforcing structural elements:

1. Epistemic Certainty and Clarity: This dimension reflects the subjective sense of confidence an individual possesses regarding who they are. Individuals high in epistemic certainty do not spend excessive time ruminating over their authentic character or wondering about their identity. Conversely, individuals low in clarity report feeling alienated from their internal states, expressing sentiments such as not knowing what kind of person they really are.
2. Internal Consistency (Non-Contradiction): This structural property refers to the absence of logical or affective conflict among disparate self-beliefs. High SCC individuals possess an integrated cognitive schema where various personality facets harmoniously co-occur. Low SCC individuals experience substantial cognitive dissonance and distress stemming from perceived contradictions within their identity (e.g., viewing oneself simultaneously as highly extroverted and chronically reclusive, without understanding how those attributes integrate).
3. Temporal Stability: A structurally sound self-concept exhibits continuity over time. High SCC individuals maintain stable self-appraisals from one day to the next, viewing their past, present, and future selves as components of a continuous autobiographical narrative. In contrast, low SCC individuals experience frequent, unpredictable shifts in self-perception, where self-descriptions fluctuate widely depending on immediate social contexts or transient emotional states.

Distinction from Adjacent Constructs

To avoid theoretical conflation, psychometric researchers must clearly demarcate self-concept clarity from related self-referential constructs:

• Self-Esteem: While global self-esteem (e.g., Rosenberg, 1965) evaluates the overall affective worth of the self (“I feel that I have a number of good qualities”), SCC evaluates structural stability and clarity (“In general, I have a clear sense of who I am and what I am”). Although empirically correlated ($r pprox .60$), an individual can possess high self-concept clarity with low self-esteem (e.g., an individual who is completely certain, stable, and clear in their belief that they are unlikable and inadequate).
• Self-Complexity: Formulated by Linville (1987), self-complexity refers to the number of distinct self-aspects an individual maintains (e.g., parent, executive, athlete, artist) and the degree of independence among those aspects. Self-concept clarity focuses not on the multidimensional fractionation of roles, but on whether those roles are coherent and free of internal conflict.
• Self-Concept Differentiation (SCD): Developed by Donahue et al. (1993), SCD measures the degree to which an individual’s personality traits vary across different social roles (e.g., behaving differently with parents versus romantic partners). While high SCD reflects behavioral variability, low SCC represents subjective internal confusion and conflict.
• Self-Monitoring: Proposed by Snyder (1974), high self-monitoring involves intentional, strategic adjustments of behavior to match social norms. While low SCC individuals change due to an unstable internal anchor, high self-monitors alter expressive behaviors deliberately, often possessing high internal awareness of their pragmatic strategies.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale synthesizes classic personality theories, cognitive social schemas, and contemporary cross-cultural psychology. Understanding this theoretical framework requires examining the epistemological roots of the self-concept, social cognitive information processing models, and narrative identity paradigms.

The Jamesian Duality: The “I” and the “Me”

The foundational architecture of self-concept clarity is rooted in William James’ (1890) seminal distinction between the self as knower (the pure ego, or the “I”) and the self as known (the empirical self, or the “Me”). James conceptualized the “Me” as an organized cognitive construct composed of the material, social, and spiritual self. Self-concept clarity directly evaluates the epistemic relationship between the “I” and the “Me”: it captures the capacity of the active observer (“I”) to perceive the organized object (“Me”) with cognitive fidelity, structural stability, and an absence of internal contradiction. When the “Me” is poorly organized, the subjective experience of the “I” is characterized by chronic identity doubt, fragmentation, and reflective distress.

Cognitive Social Learning and Schema Theory

Within the cognitive revolution of personality psychology, Hazel Markus (1977) introduced the construct of self-schemas—cognitive generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize and guide the processing of self-related information. Expanding upon schema theory, Campbell et al. (1996) posited that self-concept clarity reflects the global structural properties of these schemas. When self-schemas are well-differentiated, internally coherent, and strongly consolidated, they serve as efficient information-processing systems. Individuals with clear self-schemas demonstrate shorter reaction times when endorsing self-descriptive traits and are resistant to counter-attitudinal information.

Conversely, when an individual’s self-schemas are diffuse and weakly consolidated, information processing becomes inefficient. Such individuals experience persistent ambiguity, requiring extensive cognitive resources to determine how they feel or behave in novel circumstances. Furthermore, E. Tory Higgins’ (1987) Self-Discrepancy Theory reinforces this perspective: internal conflict arises when substantial incongruities exist between the actual self, the ideal self, and the ought self. Low self-concept clarity represents an overarching cognitive state where even the baseline definition of the actual self is destabilized, precluding effective self-regulation toward ideal or ought benchmarks.

Narrative Coherence and Identity Development

The scale also interfaces with Erik Erikson’s (1968) developmental theory of ego identity formation versus identity diffusion, as well as Dan McAdams’ (2001) narrative identity framework. According to McAdams, psychological maturity requires the construction of an internalized, evolving life story that reconstructs the past and imagines the future to provide unity and purpose. Self-concept clarity directly assesses the perceived coherence of this biographical narrative. Items evaluating uncertainty regarding past identity (e.g., Item 5: “When I think about what kind of person I have been in the past, I’m not sure what I was really like”) capture breakdowns in temporal narrative integration, reflecting persistent identity diffusion.

Cross-Cultural Frameworks of the Self

A critical theoretical dimension embedded within the SCC’s development is Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) paradigm of independent versus interdependent self-construals. In Western cultures characterized by individualism, the self is conceptualized as an autonomous, distinct, and stable entity; structural consistency across situations is celebrated as authenticity and psychological integrity. Consequently, in Western contexts, high SCC correlates robustly with psychological well-being, self-esteem, and social adjustment.

In contrast, East Asian collectivistic contexts emphasize interdependent self-construals, where the self is fundamentally relational, context-dependent, and flexible. In these societies, expressing different personality facets across varied social relationships is not viewed as internal contradiction or pathology, but as social maturity and contextual harmony. Consequently, cross-cultural empirical investigations by Campbell, Heine, and Lehman demonstrate that Japanese cohorts report significantly lower SCC scores than Canadian cohorts, yet these lower scores do not yield the same negative psychological consequences observed in Western samples.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale has been validated through rigorous construct, convergent, discriminant, criterion-related, and experimental investigations across diverse populations.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was established by Campbell et al. (1996) across four multi-method empirical studies. The SCC demonstrated strong convergent associations with instruments measuring adjacent but theoretically distinct personality constructs:

• Self-Esteem: SCC demonstrates consistent positive correlations with global self-esteem (measured via the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale), with coefficients ranging between $r = .60$ and $r = .67$ ($p < .001$). Individuals with a coherent, stable self-concept report higher personal self-worth.
• Affective Dispositions and Neuroticism: The SCC correlates negatively and robustly with measures of chronic negative affectivity and Neuroticism. In Big Five inventories, the correlation between SCC and Neuroticism routinely falls between $r = -.50$ and $r = -.64$. Moderate positive correlations are consistently observed with Extraversion ($r pprox .25$ to $.35$) and Conscientiousness ($r pprox .25$ to $.32$), whereas correlations with Openness to Experience and Agreeableness are generally weak or negligible ($r < .15$).
• Depression and Anxiety: Validating its clinical relevance, the SCC correlates inversely with chronic depressive symptomatology (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory, $r = -.45$ to $-.55$) and trait anxiety (e.g., STAI, $r = -.48$ to $-.56$).

Discriminant Validity

Campbell et al. (1996) provided discriminant validity evidence demonstrating that SCC cannot be reduced to a mere proxy for self-esteem or positive affectivity:

• Partial Correlation Modeling: When global self-esteem is statistically controlled via partial correlation analyses, SCC remains significantly predictive of self-concept temporal stability, lower public self-consciousness, and lower self-rumination.
• Self-Rumination versus Self-Reflection: Trapnell and Campbell (1999) demonstrated that while SCC is strongly negatively associated with neurotic self-rumination ($r = -.45$ to $-.52$), it exhibits near-zero correlations with epistemic self-reflection ($r = -.05$ to $.08$), proving that self-concept clarity is not synonymous with an absence of self-focus, but specifically with the absence of anxious, self-doubting preoccupation.

Experimental and Criterion-Related Validity

To establish that the SCC measures authentic structural properties rather than mere self-report response styles, Campbell and colleagues employed cognitive reaction-time paradigms and longitudinal behavioral assessments:

• Response Latency in Trait Self-Descriptiveness: Participants completed computerized trait-judgment tasks where they decided whether specific personality adjectives described them. Individuals with high SCC scores exhibited significantly shorter response latencies ($p < .01$) when making “me” versus “not me” judgments, confirming that their self-schemas are more accessible and clearly structured.
• Cross-Temporal Consistency of Trait Ratings: In longitudinal laboratory trials, participants rated themselves on 50 bipolar trait dimensions at Time 1 and again after an interval of several weeks. High SCC individuals displayed significantly higher test-retest trait correlation coefficients ($r > .80$) than low SCC individuals ($r < .65$), demonstrating that self-concept clarity directly reflects verifiable temporal stability in self-description.
• Resistance to Social Feedback: In experimental paradigms involving false performance feedback, high SCC individuals demonstrated greater stability in their self-views, whereas low SCC individuals exhibited significant fluctuations in self-ratings, demonstrating greater susceptibility to external social cues.

8. Reliability

The Self-Concept Clarity Scale exhibits strong reliability across varied populations, cultural settings, and sampling intervals.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Across the initial validation cohorts detailed by Campbell et al. (1996), the SCC demonstrated high internal consistency:

• Study 1 (Undergraduate Sample, $N = 787$): Cronbach’s alpha was observed at $lpha = .86$.
• Study 2 (Replication Cohort, $N = 437$): Cronbach’s alpha yielded $lpha = .85$.
• Study 3 (Cross-Validation Cohort, $N = 345$): Cronbach’s alpha was computed at $lpha = .87$.
• Study 4 (Community and Cross-Cultural Samples): Cronbach’s alpha was observed at $lpha = .86$ in Canadian undergraduate samples ($N = 186$) and $lpha = .82$ in Japanese university samples ($N = 191$).

Subsequent independent validation studies spanning various languages—including German, Spanish, Dutch, Turkish, and Chinese adaptations—have corroborated internal consistency estimates consistently between $lpha = .84$ and $lpha = .90$. Average corrected item-total correlations across the 12 items range from .45 to .71, with no individual item deletion yielding an increase in the composite Cronbach’s alpha.

Test-Retest Reliability and Temporal Stability

Because self-concept clarity is conceptualized as a structural trait rather than a transient emotional state, temporal stability represents an essential psychometric criterion:

• Short-Term Stability (4-Week Interval): Campbell et al. (1996) evaluated a cohort of 142 undergraduate students across a four-week span, yielding a test-retest reliability coefficient of $r = .79$ ($p < .001$).
• Medium-Term Stability (5-Month Interval): In a longitudinal sample tested across a full academic semester (five months; $N = 89$), the test-retest coefficient was $r = .70$ ($p < .001$).
• Long-Term Stability (1-Year to 2-Year Intervals): Independent research programs (e.g., Lodi-Smith & Roberts, 2010) assessing adult community samples over extended intervals have documented stability coefficients between $r = .62$ and $r = .68$, confirming that self-concept clarity behaves as an enduring structural personality dimension across adulthood.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale has been examined through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During the initial scale construction, Campbell et al. (1996) subjected an initial pool of over 40 candidate items to principal components analysis (PCA) and common factor analysis (principal axis factoring) with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations. Across multiple participant cohorts, the scree test and eigenvalue criteria consistently supported an essentially unidimensional structure:

• Eigenvalue Distribution: In the final 12-item inventory, the first unrotated factor yielded an eigenvalue of 4.88, accounting for approximately 40.7% to 44.5% of the total variance across validation cohorts. The second factor yielded an eigenvalue substantially below 1.15 (typically dropping to 0.98), demonstrating a classic single-factor scree pattern.
• Item Factor Loadings: All 12 items exhibited substantial primary factor loadings onto the single general clarity factor, with standardized factor loadings spanning from .48 to .78. Item 11 (“In general, I have a clear sense of who I am and what I am”) and Item 8 (“My beliefs about myself seem to change very frequently”) consistently yield among the highest factor loadings ($> .70$).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Method Artifacts

Subsequent psychometric investigations utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) have evaluated the fit of the unidimensional model against alternative configurations:

• Strict Unidimensional Model: A single-factor CFA where all 12 items load directly onto a solitary latent SCC construct typically produces acceptable to marginally adequate fit indices across diverse samples ($\chi^2/df pprox 3.2 – 4.5$, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] $= .91 – .94$, Tucker-Lewis Index [TLI] $= .90 – .93$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] $= .065 – .080$, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] $= .045 – .055$).
• Method Effect and Bifactor Structures: Because the SCC consists of 10 reverse-coded items and only 2 positively keyed items (Items 6 and 11), several psychometricians (e.g., Marsh et al.) have investigated whether a two-factor model provides superior fit. Empirical CFA testing indicates that while a two-factor model (grouping positively keyed items separately from negatively keyed items) yields slightly higher fit indices ($\chi^2/df pprox 2.1$, $ ext{CFI} = .97$,$ ext{RMSEA} = .048$), the correlation between the two latent factors is high ($r > .80$). Bifactor modeling and multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) analyses confirm that this statistical improvement does not reflect a substantive multi-dimensional trait, but rather a standard methodological artifact common to mixed-polarity Likert scales. Consequently, substantive consensus supports treating the SCC as a functionally unidimensional instrument.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale are structured as follows:

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric inventory / psychological rating scale.
• Construct Assessed: Self-Concept Clarity (structural coherence, certainty, and temporal stability of self-beliefs).
• Instrument Format: Paper-and-pencil or computerized self-administered questionnaire.
• Item Count: 12 items.
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
• Target Population: Adolescents (ages 14+) and adults across clinical, general, and organizational settings.
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale with labeled response options:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly agree
• Scoring and Transformation Rules:
  • Reverse-Scored Items: Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 are reverse-coded prior to composite scoring (i.e., $1
    ightarrow 5$, $2
    ightarrow 4$, $3
    ightarrow 3$, $4
    ightarrow 2$, $5
    ightarrow 1$).
  • Positively Scored Items: Items 6 and 11 retain their raw scoring values ($1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=4, 5=5$).
  • Composite Score Calculation: Following reverse-scoring, compute either the sum across all 12 items (yielding a possible total range of 12 to 60) or the mean item score (total sum divided by 12, yielding a range of 1.0 to 5.0).
  • Interpretation: Higher composite scores reflect greater self-concept clarity, stability, and internal consistency. Lower scores indicate structural confusion, identity conflict, and temporal instability of self-beliefs.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Self-Concept Clarity Scale was first published in 1996 in the Journal of Personality by Dr. Jennifer D. Campbell and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia.

• Publication Year: 1996.
• Copyright Holder: Original empirical publication copyright belongs to the authors and the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell (Journal of Personality).
• Academic Licensing and Fair Use: The SCC is an open-access psychometric instrument for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical purposes, and clinical assessments. Researchers and practitioners do not require formal written permission or fee payment to administer the 12-item scale, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is cited referencing Campbell et al. (1996).
• Commercial Applications: Commercial software integration, commercial assessment platforms, or for-profit organizational consulting using the SCC may require formal clearance from the copyright holders or corresponding authors.

12. References

The following peer-reviewed publications represent foundational and psychometric literature relevant to the Self-Concept Clarity Scale:

• Campbell, J. D. (1990). Self-esteem and clarity of the self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(3), 538–549. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.3.538
• Campbell, J. D., Trapnell, P. D., Heine, S. J., Katz, I. M., Lavallee, L. F., & Lehman, D. R. (1996). Self-concept clarity: Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality, 64(1), 141–156. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00524.x
• Donahue, E. M., Robins, R. W., Roberts, B. W., & John, O. P. (1993). The divided self: Concurrent and longitudinal consequences of further differentiation among multiple self-aspects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(5), 834–846. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.5.834
• Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.3.319
• James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology (Vol. 1). Henry Holt and Co. https://doi.org/10.1037/10538-000
• Linville, P. W. (1987). Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against stress-related illness and depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(4), 663–676. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.4.663
• Lodi-Smith, J., & Roberts, B. W. (2010). Getting to know me: Social role investments and personality trait development in adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 317–335. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016987
• Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(2), 63–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.35.2.63
• Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224
• McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5(2), 100–122. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100
• Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400876136
• Trapnell, P. D., & Campbell, J. D. (1999). Private self-consciousness and the five-factor model of personality: Distinguishing rumination from reflection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(2), 284–304. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.284

13. Items of the Scale