Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of the Social Self-Compassion Scale (SSCS)

Subject Areas : social psychology

Faezeh Peimanpak ¹ , sara karimi ² , abbas abdollahi ³

1 - Department of counseling, Faculty of education and psychology, Alzahra university, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Department of counseling, Faculty of education and psychology, Alzahra university, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Department of counseling, Faculty of education and psychology, Alzahra university, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2024-11-08 Accepted : 2024-12-24 Published : 2025-03-19

Keywords: social self-compassion, positive affect, negative affect, social anxiety, validity, reliability.,

Abstract :

The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Social Self-Compassion Scale (SSCS) in an Iranian sample. The sample consisted of 307 participants (226 women and 81 men) who were selected by convenience sampling from undergraduate students at public universities in Tehran during the 2023–2024 academic year. Participants completed the Social Self-Compassion Scale (SSCS; Reece et al., 2011), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson & Tellegen, 1988), and the Social Anxiety Questionnaire (Jerabek, 1996). Based on the findings, both face and content validity indicated satisfactory validity and reliability for the instrument. Convergent validity (AVE > 0.50) was also established for this questionnaire. Results of confirmatory factor analysis to determine construct validity revealed that the scale consists of two components: negative social self-compassion and positive social self-compassion, with all items having factor loadings above 0.40, all statistically significant (p < 0.01). To assess reliability and internal consistency, composite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were used, demonstrating that the scale possesses adequate internal consistency and composite reliability. Concurrent validity was assessed by examining the correlation matrix between social self-compassion and its factors with the PANAS and the Social Anxiety Questionnaire. The results showed that social self-compassion and its factors were positively and significantly correlated with positive affect, and negatively and significantly correlated with negative affect. Additionally, there was a significant negative correlation between social self-compassion and social anxiety, indicating that higher social self-compassion is associated with lower social anxiety scores. Therefore, the SSCS demonstrated satisfactory concurrent validity (p < 0.01). Overall, the findings of the present study indicate that the SSCS has robust psychometric properties in the Iranian sample and can be reliably used among Iranian populations.