Global self-esteem and method effects: Competing factor structures, longitudinal invariance, and response styles in adolescents

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) is a widely used measure for assessing self-esteem, but its factor structure is debated. Our goals were to compare 10 alternative models for the RSES and to quantify and predict the method effects. This sample involves two waves (N =2,513 9th-grade and 2,370 10th-grade students) from five waves of a school-based longitudinal study. The RSES was administered in each wave. The global self-esteem factor with two latent method factors yielded the best fit to the data. The global factor explained a large amount of the common variance (61% and 46%); however, a relatively large proportion of the common variance was attributed to the negative method factor (34 % and 41%), and a small proportion of the common variance was explained by the positive method factor (5% and 13%). We conceptualized the method effect as a response style and found that being a girl and having a higher number of depressive symptoms were associated with both low self-esteem and negative response style, as measured by the negative method factor. Our study supported the one global self-esteem construct and quantified the method effects in adolescents.