Abstract
Consistent with Burnkrant and Page (1984), Piliavin and Charng (1988) support the view that Fenigstein, Scheier, and Buss's (1975) Self-Consciousness Scale actually measures four different traits, rather than the three traits proposed by the original authors. The current aulhors note that they ignore important statistical problems in reaching this conclusion and suggest that their factor-analytic results reflect the same problems that Bernstein, Teng, and Garbin (1986) point out in Burnkrant and Page's (1984) analysis. A simple BASIC computer program is presented that illustrates these points. The authors acknowledge a possible basis for separating "internal state awareness" and "self-reflectiveness" using other evidence, but they further note that this evidence is relatively weak. They conclude by noting a philiosophical problem in proliferating narrowly defined "miniscales. "
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