The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: its dimensionality, stability and personality correlates in Estonian

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) was adapted to the Estonian language. By all relevant psychometric properties the developed Estonian version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (ERSES) was identical to the original construct measuring a personʹs overall evaluation of his or her worthiness as a human being. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that global self-esteem can be best represented as a single dimension. The temporal stability of the ERSES was also very similar to the original version demonstrating an exponential decay over time. Like previously reported findings, individuals with high self-esteem tended to obtain similar and individuals with low self-esteem divergent total self-esteem scores on two subsequent occasions. A joint factor analysis of the ERSES and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) scales led to a five-factor structure which replicated the normative North-American structure, self-esteem loading significantly only on the Neuroticism factor. The pattern of correlations between the ERSES and the Five-Factor model of personality dimensions was very similar to that obtained in Hong Kong and Canada [Kwan, V. S. Y, Bond, M. H., & Singelis, T. M. (1997). Pancultural explanations for life satisfaction: adding relationship harmony to self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1038–1051] suggesting that the relationship between personality and self-esteem is universal, not depending on a particular language and/or culture. The correlations between the ERSES and two other personality measures, the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) and the Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS), also supported cross-cultural generalizability of the relationships between personality and self-esteem.