Self-consciousness and social anxiety in youth: the Revised Self-Consciousness Scales for Children.

Despite the established relationship between self-consciousness (SC) and anxiety and depression in adults, there is a paucity of research examining SC in children and adolescents. We therefore sought to examine the factor structure, reliability, and validity of scores for a revised version of the Self-Consciousness Scales for Children, a measure of SC in youth. The Revised Self-Consciousness Scale for Children (R-SCS-C) was examined in 2 studies using a community sample of children and adolescents. In the 1st study, 1,207 youth (685 girls) ages 7 to 18 completed the R-SCS-C as well as measures of imaginary audience, anxiety, depression, and positive and negative affect. Results of an exploratory factor analysis of the R-SCS-C conducted on a randomly selected subsample (n = 603) supported a 3-factor solution, including the subscales of Public Self-Consciousness, Private Self-Consciousness, and Social Anxiety. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) conducted on the remaining half of the sample (n = 604) revealed that this model fit the data well. Additionally, subsequent multigroup CFAs by gender and age demonstrated good model fit across both gender and younger (ages 7 to 12 years) and older (ages 13 to 18 years) cohorts. In the 2nd study, 245 youth completed the R-SCS-C twice, approximately 2 weeks apart. The R-SCS-C scores in these samples demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity, and test-retest reliability. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.