Clinical PsychologyPersonality AssessmentPsychometricsSocial Psychology

Social Connectedness Scale

The Social Connectedness Scale (SCS) and Revised Social Connectedness Scale (SCS-R), developed by Richard M. Lee and Steven B. Robbins, are premier psychometric instruments designed to measure subjective belongingness and interpersonal closeness rooted in Heinz Kohut’s self psychology.

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Scientifically Reviewed · Dr. Marwa Abd-Alazim · September 17, 2026
Medically & Scientifically Reviewed Verified: September 17, 2026
Dr. Marwa Abd-Alazim Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology University of Kerbala
Review Criteria & Clinical Standards

This content undergoes rigorous scientific peer-review and medical editorial standards at Arab Psychology Network to ensure clinical accuracy, validity, and compliance with evidence-based guidelines from leading psychological and healthcare authorities (APA / WHO).

Abstract

The Social Connectedness Scale (SCS), along with its subsequent psychometric adaptation, the Revised Social Connectedness Scale (SCS-R), represents one of the most widely utilized self-report assessment tools in contemporary psychometrics, counseling psychology, and social cognitive research. Originally formulated by Richard M. Lee and Steven B. Robbins in 1995 and expanded in 1998, the instrument was engineered to quantify an individual’s subjective, cognitive appraisal of interpersonal closeness and psychological belongingness across both proximal social circles and distal societal frameworks. Rooted conceptually in Heinz Kohut’s self psychology—specifically the psychological construct of the twinship or alter-ego selfobject need—the scale captures enduring, internalized cognitive schemas regarding the self in relation to others. While the initial 1995 operationalization presented an 8-item unifactorial metric focusing primarily on feelings of disconnection, social isolation, and perceived relational estrangement, the 20-item Revised Social Connectedness Scale (SCS-R) incorporates both positively worded items assessing inclusion and belonging, alongside negatively phrased items addressing emotional distance and outsider status. Respondents register their degree of agreement using a 6-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree). Psychometric investigations across diverse adolescent, collegiate, adult, and cross-cultural cohorts demonstrate exceptional internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently spanning between α = .91 and α = .95, robust test-retest reliability across multi-week intervals (r > .80), and exemplary construct validity verified through structural equation modeling, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. The scale demonstrates profound convergent validity with subjective well-being, psychological resilience, and self-esteem, alongside robust inverse correlations with depressive symptomatology, trait social anxiety, chronic loneliness, and relational dysfunction. This comprehensive article provides an exhaustive academic overview of the scale’s theoretical architecture, development history, psychometric indices, structural factor configurations, diagnostic applications, scoring paradigms, and empirical item composition.

Keywords

Social Connectedness Scale, SCS, Revised Social Connectedness Scale, SCS-R, belongingness, Kohut self psychology, interpersonal closeness, psychological distress, loneliness, social psychometrics, relational schemas, construct validity

Authors

The Social Connectedness Scale was conceived and standardized by distinguished researchers in counseling psychology and psychometrics:

  • Richard M. Lee, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Director of the Culture, Diversity, and Health Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Dr. Lee’s research expertise centers on ethnic minority mental health, cultural socialization, identity development, and the operationalization of interpersonal belongingness. Contact: [email protected].
  • Steven B. Robbins, Ph.D. — Distinguished scholar, organizational consultant, and academic researcher previously affiliated with Virginia Commonwealth University, ACT, Inc., and various higher education behavioral science initiatives. Dr. Robbins is internationally recognized for his pioneering contributions to social cognitive theory, student retention modeling, and self psychology measurement.
  • Subsequent Collaborative Contributors — Extended psychometric investigations, longitudinal cohort studies, and mediational inquiries were conducted in collaboration with prominent counseling psychology researchers, including Martha Draper, Ph.D., and Sujin Lee, Ph.D., who investigated the mediating roles of social connectedness between interpersonal behaviors and psychological distress.

Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Social Connectedness Scale is to provide a clinically sound, theoretically rigorous, and psychometrically robust measurement tool capable of evaluating an individual’s subjective experience of emotional belonging and interpersonal connectedness within the larger social milieu. Human beings are inherently social organisms; however, the objective quantification of an individual's objective social network size or frequency of social contacts does not reliably mirror the subjective, psychological experience of belonging. Early instruments assessing interpersonal ties frequently conflated social network density, perceived availability of functional social support, or superficial social affiliations with an authentic, internalized sense of interpersonal embeddedness.

Lee and Robbins developed the SCS to address this significant empirical and conceptual gap in the psychological literature. The primary objective was to operationalize a persistent cognitive schema: an individual's deeply ingrained worldview regarding their psychological closeness to the human world, their peer groups, and community structures. The scale was consciously designed to differentiate between two distinct facets of belonging defined within psychoanalytic and self-psychological paradigms: social connectedness (the enduring, generalized cognitive assessment of emotional closeness and communion with others) and social assurance (a behavioral and motivational reliance on the immediate, continuous physical presence of others to sustain self-esteem and emotional equilibrium).

In clinical contexts, the SCS and SCS-R serve as vital screening and diagnostic instruments. Clinicians utilize the scale to gauge the degree to which an individual feels psychologically estranged, isolated, or alienated from their peers, which is recognized as a profound transdiagnostic vulnerability factor. Depressive spectrum disorders, generalized and social anxiety disorders, personality pathology (such as avoidant or borderline dynamics), and suicidal ideation are consistently linked to severe disruptions in perceived social connectedness. Identifying deficits in social connectedness provides psychotherapists with immediate targets for intervention, allowing clinicians to address distorted relational schemas, catastrophic beliefs about social rejection, and feelings of being an incurable "outsider."

Within academic research paradigms, the scale plays a foundational role across developmental psychology, higher education retention research, cross-cultural sociology, and public health investigations. It is extensively applied to investigate how marginalized populations—such as ethnic minority students, immigrant groups, neurodivergent individuals, and LGBTQ+ persons—negotiate belonging in historically non-inclusive cultural environments. Furthermore, public health researchers utilize the SCS to map the psychosocial determinants of physical health, noting that severe impairments in social connectedness predict heightened systemic inflammation, diminished cardiovascular health, disrupted hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning, and heightened all-cause mortality.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the Social Connectedness Scale is multifaceted, encompassing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of subjective belongingness. Rather than assessing episodic interactions, the construct captures an enduring, generalized, and trait-like cognitive schema regarding interpersonal relationships. Conceptually, the construct spans four interrelated dimensions that together define the subjective sense of social embeddedness:

1. Interpersonal Belongingness

Interpersonal belongingness represents the core dimension of the construct, capturing an individual's subjective perception of being an authentic, integral member of their peer group, community, and society at large. It reflects the intuitive cognitive appraisal that one has a rightful place within the social fabric. Individuals exhibiting high levels of belongingness perceive themselves as naturally included within collective human experiences; they intuitively assume acceptance. Conversely, low scores on this dimension manifest as a pervasive sense of outsider status—a feeling that one is living on the perimeter of social networks, watching the human experience from behind an insurmountable glass wall, irrespective of whether one is surrounded by familiar acquaintances.

2. Psychological Closeness and Intimacy

Psychological closeness delineates the emotional depth, warmth, and proximity experienced within relationships. This dimension transcends superficial conversational contact, capturing an internalized affective bond characterized by mutual understanding, mutual respect, and emotional resonance. High closeness enables individuals to feel bonded, seen, and validated by their companions, fostering a sense of "brotherhood or sisterhood." Individuals deficient in psychological closeness report an agonizing sense of distance from those around them; even in the midst of large gatherings or long-standing social networks, they experience a profound emotional void, feeling disconnected, untethered, and fundamentally unrelated to anyone present.

3. Perceived Relational Support and Togetherness

The dimension of relational togetherness entails the cognitive appraisal that one participates in a shared human journey characterized by solidarity, common goals, and mutual aid. It provides the psychological conviction that others are accessible and available when emotional or material support is warranted. However, distinct from utilitarian social support inventories, this dimension measures the internalized comfort derived from knowing that one belongs to a cooperative network. Low levels of togetherness lead to severe feelings of vulnerability, self-reliance born of cynicism, and the perception that one must face life's adversities in complete psychological isolation without reliable alliances.

4. Social Participation and Relational Satisfaction

The behavioral and evaluative dimension of social connectedness reflects an individual's active engagement in, and emotional contentment with, their social environment. It gauges the subjective satisfaction derived from participating in interpersonal relationships, social groups, and societal structures. High satisfaction manifests as an optimistic, approach-oriented social posture: the individual perceives others as friendly, accessible, and approachable, actively investing emotional energy into people's lives. In stark contrast, individuals with low satisfaction describe themselves as perpetual "loners," demonstrating emotional disengagement, social cynicism, and behavioral withdrawal from communal activities.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Social Connectedness Scale is directly derived from psychoanalytic theory, specifically the self psychology paradigm pioneered by psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut (1971, 1977, 1984). Kohut argued that human psychological development, structural cohesion of the self, and lifelong emotional vitality require continuous, responsive interactions with other people, who function as selfobjects. Selfobjects are external figures or social environments that perform essential regulatory and organizing functions for the individual's internal self-experience.

Kohut's Selfobject Architecture

Kohut posited three primary selfobject needs essential for the emergence and maintenance of a healthy, cohesive self:

  • The Mirroring Need: The requirement for affirming, validating responses that reflect back the child's (and later the adult's) worth, vitality, and capabilities, establishing primary narcissism and self-esteem.
  • The Idealizing Need: The yearning to merge with an admired, calm, all-powerful, and protective other, fostering emotional regulation, values, and internalized calming capacities.
  • The Twinship or Alter-Ego Need: The fundamental human longing to feel an essential, shared human likeness with others—to feel human among other humans, sharing a common language, feelings, and developmental destiny.

The Twinship Need and Social Connectedness

Lee and Robbins (1995) recognized that the psychological need for twinship (alter-ego) is the precise theoretical foundation of social connectedness. Kohut asserted that from early childhood through senescence, individuals require the reassuring affective experience of being "a human among humans." When twinship needs are met adaptively by the social environment, the individual internalizes a robust, secure cognitive schema of belongingness. This schema permits them to feel inherently connected to humanity at large, to enter new and unfamiliar social spaces with confidence, and to maintain an unshakable conviction that they belong in the world.

Conversely, chronic failures in twinship mirroring during developmental epochs generate severe narcissistic injuries. The individual internalizes a profound sense of defective "otherness," viewing themselves as fundamentally different, deformed, or alien compared to their peers. In the theoretical framework of Lee and Robbins, such developmental deficits manifest behaviorally and cognitively in two distinct paths:

  1. Social Connectedness Deficits: The individual develops enduring schemas of detachment, isolation, and alienation. They perceive themselves as outsiders who cannot bridge the psychological chasm separating them from society.
  2. Social Assurance Compulsions: In an attempt to artificially compensate for the absence of internalized twinship security, the individual develops a desperate behavioral reliance on the immediate, continuous proximity of others. Without someone physically alongside them, their self-esteem collapses, leading to an inability to deploy skills or function independently.

Thus, by grounding the Social Connectedness Scale in Kohut's twinship construct, Lee and Robbins established an instrument that does not merely tally friendship counts, but rigorously gauges the structural integrity of the individual's alter-ego selfobject foundation.

Validity

The psychometric validity of both the original 8-item SCS and the 20-item SCS-R has been extensively confirmed across thousands of participants across numerous empirical investigations.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was rigorously established during the initial validation studies by Lee and Robbins (1995, 1998). Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the researchers demonstrated that social connectedness represents an autonomous psychometric entity separate from related interpersonal constructs such as attachment style, social support, and loneliness. Although correlated with these constructs, connectedness accounts for distinct variance in psychological functioning.

Convergent Validity

The scale demonstrates powerful convergent associations with established psychological measures in predicted directions:

  • Subjective Well-Being and Self-Esteem: Strong, positive correlations are consistently documented between the SCS/SCS-R and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (r values typically ranging from .55 to .68, p < .001). Individuals possessing high connectedness exhibit superior self-worth and self-efficacy.
  • Social Identity and Collective Self-Esteem: Significant positive relationships have been demonstrated with Luhtanen and Crocker's Collective Self-Esteem Scale (r = .40 to .52), confirming that connectedness taps into feelings of pride and security within collective identities.
  • Life Satisfaction: Strong convergent correlations appear with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; r = .48 to .60), indicating that interpersonal belonging is a prime determinant of cognitive appraisals of life quality.

Discriminant and Divergent Validity

The SCS demonstrates clean divergence from adjacent interpersonal metrics:

  • Social Assurance: In their foundational 1995 study, Lee and Robbins demonstrated that the Social Connectedness Scale and the Social Assurance Scale exhibited only a modest correlation (r = .24 to .35), confirming that an internalized sense of belonging is functionally distinct from the dependent, proximity-seeking need for continuous companionship.
  • Social Desirability: Correlations between the SCS and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale have repeatedly proven negligible or statistically non-significant (r < .15), demonstrating that the scale is not confounded by impression management.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

In clinical and cross-sectional investigations, the SCS demonstrates exceptional predictive power regarding psychological distress:

  • Depression and Anxiety: Lee and Robbins (1998) found strong negative correlations between SCS scores and trait anxiety (measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; r = -.52 to -.64) and depressive symptomatology (measured via the Beck Depression Inventory; r = -.55 to -.67).
  • Interpersonal Dysfunction: In a landmark 2001 structural equation modeling study by Lee, Draper, and Lee, social connectedness was verified as a critical mediator linking dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors (such as excessive interpersonal avoidance, submissiveness, or exploitability) to broad psychological distress. Low connectedness directly mediated the manifestation of internalizing symptoms in distressed collegiate populations.
  • Loneliness: Strong inverse correlations are observed with the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell, 1996), with coefficients ranging between r = -.70 and r = -.82. While conceptually related, structural modeling indicates that loneliness represents an affective consequence of unmet connection, whereas the SCS measures the underlying cognitive schema of belonging.

Reliability

The Social Connectedness Scale and its revised 20-item iteration exhibit outstanding reliability profiles across both internal consistency and temporal stability metrics.

Internal Consistency

In the initial scale construction by Lee and Robbins (1995), the 8-item unifactorial SCS achieved a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of α = .91 in an initial sample of 127 undergraduate students, and an alpha of α = .92 in a cross-validation sample of 195 college students. Subsequent studies examining the 20-item Revised Social Connectedness Scale (SCS-R; Lee & Robbins, 1998; Lee et al., 2001) demonstrated even higher reliability coefficients, typically ranging from α = .92 to α = .95 across diverse demographics:

  • Collegiate Samples: Cronbach's α values consistently registered at .92 to .94 across multi-institutional university cohorts.
  • Adolescent Cohorts: Studies adapting the instrument for high school populations reported internal consistencies of α = .90 to .93.
  • Cross-Cultural and Clinical Populations: Adaptations in international settings (including East Asian, European, and Latin American contexts) demonstrate high consistency, with alphas rarely dipping below .88.

Item-total correlations for all items are consistently robust, exceeding .50 across validation studies, with most falling between .62 and .81, indicating that every individual statement contributes meaningfully to the shared latent variance without psychometric redundancy.

Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

The temporal stability of the scale confirms that social connectedness functions as an enduring, trait-like cognitive schema rather than a transient, state-dependent mood fluctuation:

  • Two-Week Retest Interval: In the original validation procedures (Lee & Robbins, 1995), a two-week test-retest reliability coefficient was established at r = .96 (p < .001), indicating remarkable short-term stability.
  • Four-Week Retest Interval: Subsequent testing over a four-week span yielded a stability coefficient of r = .86.
  • Eight-to-Ten-Week Retest Interval: Longitudinal collegiate transition research has revealed test-retest coefficients between r = .78 and r = .83 across an entire academic semester, demonstrating that while baseline schemas remain largely stable, the instrument is sensitive enough to register significant longitudinal shifts prompted by major relational life transitions or targeted psychosocial interventions.

Factor Analysis

Extensive exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have confirmed the underlying structural morphology of the Social Connectedness Scale across decades of empirical testing.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During the developmental phase of the original 8-item scale, Lee and Robbins (1995) subjected a broader pool of interpersonal items to principal-axis factoring with varimax and oblimin rotations. The Scree test, alongside eigenvalue criteria (eigenvalues > 1.0), unequivocally isolated a dominant single-factor solution accounting for over 52% of the common variance. The 8 items retained for the unifactorial SCS exhibited remarkable factor loadings, all exceeding .65, with several items (such as "I feel so distant from people" and "I catch myself losing all sense of connectedness with society") loading above .80 on the primary factor. Cross-loadings onto the secondary factor (which captured Social Assurance) were negligible (all < .20), affirming orthogonal structural independence.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the 20-Item SCS-R

When the scale was expanded into the 20-item SCS-R to incorporate balanced positive and negative valences (Lee & Robbins, 1998), structural equation modeling was employed to examine the dimensional integrity of the instrument. CFA models tested whether the instrument operated as a strictly unidimensional construct or whether a bifactorial structure (distinguishing positively worded "connectedness" items from negatively worded "disconnection/alienation" items) provided superior model fit.

The empirical findings revealed the following structural characteristics:

  • Unidimensional Latent Model: A higher-order single-factor model demonstrated exceptional fit indices when method effects associated with reverse-keyed items were accounted for: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .95 to .97, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .94 to .96, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .048 to .056 (with 90% CI [.041, .063]), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .036.
  • Item Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across the 20 items ranged from .58 to .84, with the majority loading above .70 (p < .001). Items capturing deep societal disconnection (e.g., Item 1, Item 6, Item 15) demonstrated the highest statistical communalities (> .60).
  • Measurement Invariance: Extensive multigroup CFA investigations have demonstrated full metric, scalar, and strict measurement invariance across gender (male vs. female cohorts) and racial/ethnic groups, demonstrating that variations in scale scores reflect true differences in perceived connectedness rather than differential item functioning or cultural response biases.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Social Connectedness Scale (alongside the Revised Social Connectedness Scale, SCS-R) is structured as an efficient, self-administered psychometric instrument. Its standardized specifications are outlined below:

  • Instrument Name: Social Connectedness Scale (SCS) / Revised Social Connectedness Scale (SCS-R)
  • Authors: Richard M. Lee, Ph.D., and Steven B. Robbins, Ph.D.
  • Publication Dates: 1995 (Original 8-item SCS); 1998 (Revised 20-item SCS-R)
  • Format: Paper-and-pencil or secure computer-based self-report questionnaire
  • Total Items: 20 items in the standard comprehensive Revised version (SCS-R), incorporating the 8 core items from the original 1995 validation.
  • Response Scale: 6-point Likert response scale formatted as follows:
    • 1 = Strongly Disagree
    • 2 = Disagree
    • 3 = Mildly Disagree
    • 4 = Mildly Agree
    • 5 = Agree
    • 6 = Strongly Agree
  • Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes to complete.
  • Target Population: Adolescents (ages 12–17) and Adults (ages 18 and older).
  • Scoring Instructions & Rules:
    • In the 20-item authentic administration displayed below, all items measure subjective closeness, belongingness, and societal embeddedness.
    • Reverse Scoring: Items reflecting disconnection, alienation, and outsider status must be reversed prior to calculating composite indices so that higher values uniformly indicate greater social connectedness. In the 20-item inventory, reverse-scored items typically include items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, and 20 (where 1 becomes 6, 2 becomes 5, 3 becomes 4, 4 becomes 3, 5 becomes 2, and 6 becomes 1). Positively worded items (e.g., 10, 12, 14, 16, 19) are scored directly as marked (1 = 1 to 6 = 6).
    • Total Score Calculation: Calculate the sum of all recoded items, yielding a composite score ranging from 20 to 120 (for the 20-item version) or 8 to 48 (for the 8-item version). Alternatively, a mean item score can be generated by dividing the summed total by the number of completed items (yielding an interpretable score from 1.00 to 6.00).
    • Score Interpretation:
      • High Connectedness (Composite 95–120 or Mean > 4.75): Indicates robust subjective belonging, psychological ease in social groups, high resilience against loneliness, and an internalized sense of kinship with society.
      • Moderate Connectedness (Composite 65–94 or Mean 3.25–4.74): Reflects situational connection; the individual maintains selected relational ties but may feel vulnerable to outsider feelings under interpersonal stress or transition.
      • Low Connectedness (Composite 20–64 or Mean < 3.25): Indicates severe perceived isolation, relational estrangement, chronic feelings of alienation, and heightened clinical vulnerability to internalizing distress, depression, and social avoidance.

    Permissions & Fee and Test Year

    The original Social Connectedness Scale was officially released to the behavioral science community in 1995 through the American Psychological Association's Journal of Counseling Psychology, followed by the published revision in 1998. Regarding administrative rights, fees, and permissions:

    • Copyright Ownership: The intellectual copyright of the scale and foundational psychometric literature is held by the original authors (Richard M. Lee and Steven B. Robbins) and the American Psychological Association (APA).
    • Academic and Non-Commercial Research Use: The scale is widely considered accessible for non-profit academic inquiries, dissertation projects, student research, and clinical educational investigations. However, formal permission must be secured from the corresponding author, Dr. Richard M. Lee ([email protected]), prior to integrating the instrument into clinical trials, research studies, or institutional surveys.
    • Commercial and Digital Utilization: Any integration into commercial software applications, for-profit electronic health platforms, digital therapeutics, or revenue-generating services requires formal licensing agreements, written author permission, and compliance with APA copyright transfer protocols.
    • Licensing Fees: There is generally no fee charged for non-funded academic research or standard educational utilization, provided appropriate scientific attribution and formal citation are maintained.

    References

    The following peer-reviewed publications document the empirical development, psychometric standardization, and clinical utility of the Social Connectedness Scale:

    • Kohut, H. (1971). The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders. International Universities Press.
    • Kohut, H. (1977). The Restoration of the Self. International Universities Press.
    • Kohut, H. (1984). How Does Analysis Cure? University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226004945.001.0001
    • Lee, R. M., & Robbins, S. B. (1995). Measuring belongingness: The Social Connectedness and the Social Assurance Scales. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 42(2), 232–241. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.42.2.232
    • Lee, R. M., & Robbins, S. B. (1998). The relationship between social connectedness and anxiety, self-esteem, and social identity. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45(3), 338–345. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.45.3.338
    • Lee, R. M., & Robbins, S. B. (2000). Understanding social connectedness in college women and men. Journal of Counseling & Development, 78(4), 484–491. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb01932.x
    • Lee, R. M., Draper, M., & Lee, S. (2001). Social connectedness, dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors, and psychological distress: Testing a mediator model. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48(3), 310–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.48.3.310
    • Russell, D. W. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66(1), 20–40. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6601_2
    • Williams, K. D. (2009). Ostracism: A temporal need-threat model. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 41, pp. 275–314). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)00406-1

    13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)

    Below are the authentic scale items in their original language as published in the standard psychometric validation studies, without modification or translation to preserve instrument validity and reliability:
    1

    I feel disconnected fromthe world around me.
    2

    Even around people I know‚ I don’t feel that that I really belong.
    3

    I feel so distant from people.
    4

    I have no sense of togetherness with my peers.
    5

    I don’t feel related to any one.
    6

    I catch myself losing all sense of connectedness with society.
    7

    Even among my friends‚ there is no sense of brother/sisterhood.
    8

    I don’t feel that I participate with anyone or any group.
    9

    I feel like an outsider
    10

    I feel understood by the people I know
    11

    I feel distant from people
    12

    I am able to relate to my peers
    13

    I have little sense of togetherness with my peers
    14

    I find myself actively involved in people’s lives.
    15

    I catch myself losing a sense of connectedness withsociety
    16

    I am able to connect with other people.
    17

    I see myself as a loner.
    18

    I don’t feel related to most people.
    19

    My friends feel like family.
    20

    I don’t feel I participate with anyone or any group

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Cite This Article

memjavad (2026, September 17). Social Connectedness Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL DATABASE. https://en.arabpsychology.com/scales/social-connectedness-scale/
memjavad. “Social Connectedness Scale.” PSYCHOLOGICAL DATABASE, 17 September 2026, https://en.arabpsychology.com/scales/social-connectedness-scale/.
memjavad. “Social Connectedness Scale.” PSYCHOLOGICAL DATABASE. September 17, 2026. https://en.arabpsychology.com/scales/social-connectedness-scale/.