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Development and Validation of an Age-Appropriate Self-Compassionate Reactions Scale for Children (SCRS-C)

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Abstract

Objectives

Three studies were conducted to develop an age-appropriate scale to assess children’s self-compassionate reactions by using a vignette technique.

Methods

In Study 1, a scale employing vignette technique was developed first based on self-compassion theory and interview with children. Next, based on further item analysis with 161 children, two items were eliminated and three were modified to form the Self-Compassionate Reactions Scale for Children (SCRS-C), including 4 vignettes and 24 items. In Study 2, serial CFAs (N = 637) were conducted to investigate the structure, factorial invariance, and equivalence across gender of the SCRS-C. The reliability, convergent and discriminate validity, and concurrent validity were also examined. Study 3 explored the test-retest reliability of the scale over 6 weeks (N = 77).

Results

A two second-order factor model (compassionate and uncompassionate reaction) with six first-order factors (self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness, self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification) was found to best fit the data. In addition, the factorial invariance of the second-order factor structure across gender was verified, and the internal consistency reliability was satisfactory. The scale showed satisfactory convergent, discriminate and concurrent validity and test-retest reliability.

Conclusions

The SCRS-C shows promise as a reliable and valid scale of self-compassion suited for children aged 9–12 for both boys and girls.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (17wkzd18), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31871128; 31700961), the MOE (Ministry of Education) Project of Humanities and Social Science of China (18YJA190013) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (2017A030310423).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

      Hui Zhou, Yuyin Wang, Junhao Ding, Yue Wang & Junhao Pan

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    1. Hui Zhou
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    2. Yuyin Wang
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    3. Junhao Ding
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    4. Yue Wang
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    Contributions

    HZ: designed and executed the study, assisted with the data analyses, and wrote the paper. YYW: collaborated in the design of the study and writing of the paper. JHD and YW: collected the data, wrote part of the results, and edited the final manuscript. JHP: analyzed data and collaborated in the design of the study and writing of the paper. HZ, YYW, and JHP critically reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission. HZ and YYW are the co-first authors and contributed equally to this work.

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    Correspondence to Junhao Pan.

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    The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of Department of Psychology at Sun Yat-sen University and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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    Informed consent was obtained from the parents of all individual participants.

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    The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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    Zhou, H., Wang, Y., Ding, J. et al. Development and Validation of an Age-Appropriate Self-Compassionate Reactions Scale for Children (SCRS-C). Mindfulness 10, 2439–2451 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01220-9

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