Acta Psychologica Sinica

Abstract

Self-confidence is a widely used concept rooted in Chinese culture, yet no multidimensional measures of self-confidence have been developed for use within a Chinese cultural context. The primary purpose of this research was to determine the structure of self-confidence from an indigenous perspective, through developing and validating a youth self-confidence inventory.

An initial sample (n = 130) from senior high school and university completed the open-ended questionnaire “Twenty Self-Confidence Statements Test”. Their responses were subjected to content analyses and five domains of self confidence emerged: academic confidence, interpersonal confidence, moral certainty, coping efficacy, and achievement expectations. In a second sample, 391 students (170 males, 221 females) completed 50 items generated to reflect these five dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) resulted in a five factor solution comprising 33 items that explained 53.32% of the variance in self-confidence and reflected the hypothesized factor structure. In Study 3, 1084 high school and university students (537 males, 533 females) completed the YSCI, Self-Doubt Scale (Oleson et al., 2000), Beck Depression Inventory-II (Beck et al., 1996), Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky, & Lepper, 1999), Student Behavioral Inhibition Scale (Wang et al., 2004), and Scale of Self-Worth (Huang & Yang, 1998), with a subset of 67 students completing the YSCI two weeks later. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) replicated the initial factor structure of the YSCI and indicated a satisfactory goodness-of-fit (χ ²/df = 2.81, RMR = 0.07, GFI = 0.90, AGFI = 0.88, TLI = 0.83, RMSEA = 0.05, RMSEA LO = 0.04, RMSEA HI = 0.05, PCLOSE = 0.970 > 0.05). Internal consistencies and retest reliabilities for the subscales were all higher than 0.70, supporting the reliability of the YSCI. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that self-confidence could explain 13% of the variance in confidence inhibition (F = 27.80, p < 0.01), 17% of the variance in self-doubt (F = 40.26, p < 0.01), 29% of the variance in self-worth (F = 66.83, p < 0.01), 24% of the variance in depression (F = 63.19, p < 0.01) and 18% of the variance in subjective happiness (F = 40.65, p < 0.01), indicating the YSCI had satisfactory criterion validity.

In sum, this research resulted in the development of the Youth Self-Confidence Inventory (YSCI), a reliable, comprehensive measure of self-confidence that has promising validity and considerable potential utility in research on adolescent and emerging adult samples within Chinese and non-Chinese cultural contexts.

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