Self-esteem: a Study of Methods of Measurement

The measurement of the construct self-esteem has always been a controversial topic in the field of personality psychology. While most psychologists agree on how to define self-esteem, the measurement of the construct is another matter. In this book, Peter Weiss and colleagues discuss different methods of measuring self-esteem and describe differences in how these tests are constructed. They note that self- esteem tests can be categorized along two dimensions: They either measure self-esteem using a unitary score or a disparity measure, and they are either idiographic or nomothetic in focus. The authors explain how these issues in test construction may potentially affect measurement and result in the lack of construct validity sometimes observed in research on self-esteem. They then describe their comprehensive original study of self- esteem measurement, in which they examined the relationship between the Kelly Repertory Test, the Rorschach Comprehensive System, and several self- report measures of self-esteem. The implications of this study, unique in the personality assessment literature, are also discussed.