Individual-level and culture-level self-esteem: a test of construct isomorphism

Several empirical studies have used the Rosenberg General Self-Esteem Scale (RGSE) to address issues of cross-cultural differences in mean level of self-esteem. The majority of these studies have mostly focused on the comparison of individual-level factor structures, leaving unanswered the issue regarding the equivalence of the factor structure of the RGSE across the individual and the culture-level, a condition called factor isomorphism. This is a particularly worrisome issue, given the large interest in cross-cultural variations of self-esteem levels. The present study was designed to address this concern by administering the RGSE across 37 different countries. The study used multilevel confirmatory factor analysis to investigate the equivalence of the individual- and culture-level factor structure of self-esteem. We found evidence for the cross-cultural stability of a bifactor structure of the RGSE, which emerged both at individual and culture-levels. However, only the general self-esteem factor showed a substantial degree of isomorphism. The specific factors capturing positive and negative self-evaluations resulted instead non-isomorphic. We discuss the implications of these results for the assessment of self-esteem in cross-cultural studies.