Rosenburg Self-esteem Scale
What It Measures
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is the most widely used measure of self-esteem in psychology and has been for sixty years. Ten statements, five positive and five negative, ask how a person feels about themselves overall.
Positive items include "on the whole, I am satisfied with myself" and "I take a positive attitude toward myself." Negative items include "at times I think I am no good at all" and "all in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure." Each is rated from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and the five negatively worded items are reverse-scored. It measures global self-worth as a single dimension, not self-esteem in specific areas.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The RSES is in the public domain and may be used without explicit permission for research and clinical purposes.
Learn More: There is no validated clinical cut-off. The 15-to-25 "normal range" that circulates widely is a convention rather than a published threshold, and the RSES is not a diagnostic instrument. Scores are best read against a normative mean for a comparable population, or against the person's own earlier score.