Simultaneous Administration of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in 53 Nations: Exploring the Universal and Culture-Specific Features of Global Self-Esteem.

TLDR

The Rosenberg Self‑Esteem Scale was translated into 28 languages and administered to 16,998 participants across 53 nations. Across 53 nations, the RSES demonstrated largely invariant factor structure, strong correlations with personality traits, universally positive scores above the midpoint, but variable self‑esteem differences linked to cultural individualism and differing interpretations of negatively worded items, suggesting limited value for direct cross‑cultural comparisons.

Abstract

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) was translated into 28 languages and administered to 16,998 participants across 53 nations. The RSES factor structure was largely invariant across nations. RSES scores correlated with neuroticism, extraversion, and romantic attachment styles within nearly all nations, providing additional support for cross-cultural equivalence of the RSES. All nations scored above the theoretical midpoint of the RSES, indicating generally positive self-evaluation may be culturally universal. Individual differences in self-esteem were variable across cultures, with a neutral response bias prevalent in more collectivist cultures. Self-competence and self-liking subscales of the RSES varied with cultural individualism. Although positively and negatively worded items of the RSES were correlated within cultures and were uniformly related to external personality variables, differences between aggregates of positive and negative items were smaller in developed nations. Because negatively worded items were interpreted differently across nations, direct cross-cultural comparisons using the RSES may have limited value.