Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)

Self esteem is one’s own feeling of worthyness. In the 1960s, Rosenberg developed a 10 item scale to measure it (Rosenberg, 1965). There is an alternative scale in the survey library as well, namely the State Self Esteem Scale.

This 10-item scale takes only a minute or so to fill in.

The scale was developed based on the data of 5,024 adolescents from American schools (Rosenberg, 1965).

I am writing this library contribution based on secondary literature, I have not had access to the original 1965 book, and I notice that the scoring on scales found on the internet and in a book about personality varies.

In this implementation, I use the description I found on the webstie of Maryland University (where Prof. Rosenberg worked) and a document from York university. In both these descriptions, the total score ranges from 0-30, whereas some scales range it from 10-40. The difference depends on whether the individual items are score from 0 to 3 or 1 to 4.

I think that the total score ranging from 0-30 is the correct way of scoring, given that that is how the University where Professor Rosenberg worked describes it. Ultimately, this only matters when the self esteem score is being compared between studies, but it seems that researchers rarely seem to use the scale in this way, and some studies just score it in the way they seem fit. In the end, the scale is more used for correlational analyses, and then it does not really matter.

The 10 items on the scale are very similar and some researchers argue that just one item instead of ten would be nearly or just as useful (Robins et al., 2001). Robins et al. created a one item (Single Item of Self Esteem, SISE): "I have high self esteem". They scored this on a likert scale from one to five (not very true of me to very true of me).

The following statement can be found here:

"" The scale may be used without explicit permission. The author’s family, however, would like to be kept informed of its use:

The Morris Rosenberg Foundation
c/o Department of Sociology
University of Maryland
2112 Art/Soc Building
College Park, MD 20742-1315 ""

And on a link from the University of Maryland, it states:

"" May I have permission to use the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in my research?
Dr. Florence Rosenberg, Manny’s wife, has given permission to use the Self-Esteem Scale for educational and professional research. There is no charge associated with the use of this scale in your professional research. However, please be sure to give credit to Dr. Rosenberg when you use the scale by citing his work in publications, papers and reports. We would also appreciate receiving copies of any published works resulting from your research at the University of Maryland address listed below.

How do I cite the scale?
You should cite the scale according to the standards of your discipline. The most appropriate citation is: "Rosenberg, Morris. 1989. Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Revised edition. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ""

This is a very simple survey with some items on a scale negatively scored.