Chapter 6 - Measures of Self-Esteem

Abstract

Self-esteem is one of the most widely studied and oldest constructs in scientific psychology. Accordingly, a number of measures have been used over the past century. Despite the wide variety of measures that have appeared in the literature, the majority of researchers use either the Rosenberg (1989) Self-Esteem scale or Harter's (e.g., Harter & Pike, 1988) Self-Perception Profile series of scales. This chapter provides a detailed description of these two measures that is updated from the last edition of the chapter. We also provide extensive coverage of three additional scales that were either not available for the last edition of the chapter or not extensively reviewed: the Self-Liking and Self-Competence Questionnaires (e.g., Tafarodi & Swann, 1995), the series of Self-Description Questionnaires (e.g., Marsh, 1992a), and the Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (Robins et al., 2001). We provide a critical evaluation of each measure and make recommendations for future research.