What is the Factorial Structure of the Private and Public Self-Consciousness Scales?

Abstract

The Fenigstein, Scheier, and Buss (1975) private and public self-consciousness scales were administered to two samples of blood donors as part of longitudinal research on commitment to donation: 658 U.S. voluntary donors who were contacted by mail and 256 Polish donors, some paid, some volunteer, who were interviewed. A principal axis factor analysis of the U.S. data extracted essentially the same three-factor solution obtained by Burnkrant and Page (1984) and by Lennox, Welch, Wolfe, Zimmerman, and Dixon (1987), rather than the expected two factors obtained originally by Fenigstein et al. and by Scheier and Carver (1985) in a recent replication. The same two subfactors of the original private self-consciousness scale were found in the Polish data. These two subscales correlate in opposite directions with a measure of identity seeking in both data sets, and with self-esteem in the Polish data. Further conceptual and psychometric work to clarify the importance of this factorial structure is suggested.

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