Social Self-Esteem Scale (SSES)

SOCIAL SELF-ESTEEM SCALE (SSES, Repišti & Kerla, 2011, in Kerla & Repišti, 2013a)

Instructions for participants: Nine statements are listed below. Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of them. You can do this by choosing the appropriate number that reflects your degree of agreement. The numbers mean the following: 1 – Totally disagree 2 – Mostly disagree 3 – Somewhat disagree 4 – Somewhat agree 5 – Mostly agree 6 – Totally agree

1. I feel self-confident in social situations.

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6

2. I am easy to love.

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6

3. I make friends easily.

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6

4. I am popular among my peers.

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6

5. I really enjoy social roles.

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6

6. I can really make other people feel good in my presence.

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7. I am a friendly person.

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8. I am good at holding people's attention and interest.

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6

9. People have lots of fun because of my presence.

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6

Additional explanation SSES was developed from Social Self-Esteem Inventory (SSEI, Lawson et al., 1979), that consisted of 30 items. Items were translated into Bosnian, with small changes in their content, due to specific features of the Bosnian language. Based on Kaiser-Guttman's criterion, seven components were extracted. However, only the first one could be interpreted meaningfully. Hence, these items (nine of them) were retained and this short and simple scale was created.

Its reliability (more precisely, internal consistency) was α = .837. In was tested in a sample of 185 adolescents who attended several private schools in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In addition, Guttman split-half coefficient was equal to .853. Therefore, this is a reliable measure of social self-esteem. The overall score is calculated by summing up scores on all nine items, because all items are given in a positive directions, without reversely coded ones. References Lawson, J. S., Marshall, W. L., & McGrath, P. (1979). The Social Self-Esteem Inventory. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 39, 803–811. Kerla, M. i Repišti, S. (2013a). The Intercultural Sensitivity and Social Self-Esteem of High School Students. In Akbarov, A. (Ed.), FLTAL: Book of Abstracts Teaching, Acquiring and Applying Intercultural Linguistic Competence (pp. 175–176). Sarajevo: International Burch University. Kerla, M. i Repišti, S. (2013b). Socijalno samopoštovanje i interkulturalna osjetljivost kod srednjoškolaca [Social self-esteem and intercultural sensitivity among high school students] . Pedagogija/Pedagogy, 3, 451–461.