'I have high self-compassion': A face-valid single-item self-compassion scale for resource-limited research contexts

Area of Science:

• Psychological Assessment
• Clinical Psychology
• Personality Psychology

Background:

• The Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and its short-form (SF-SCS) are established measures of self-compassion.
• Existing scales require significant time and resources, limiting their use in certain research contexts.
• A need exists for a brief, reliable measure of global self-compassion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate the Single-Item Self-Compassion Scale (SISC).
• To assess the psychometric properties of the SISC in various research settings.
• To provide a convenient alternative for measuring self-compassion, especially in resource-limited studies.

Main Methods:

• The SISC was administered across 10 diverse samples (N=2,477), including cross-sectional, longitudinal, and daily diary designs.
• Psychometric properties were evaluated, including temporal consistency and correlations with established scales (SCS, SF-SCS).
• Criterion validity was assessed by comparing SISC correlations with SCS/SF-SCS correlations across multiple psychological and demographic variables.

Main Results:

• The SISC demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties, including temporal consistency.
• The SISC correlated adequately with both the SCS and SF-SCS.
• The SISC showed nearly identical correlational patterns with criterion measures as the longer scales, while saving significant time (e.g., 12 minutes in a 7-day diary study).
• Results were consistent across student and community samples in the US, Turkey, and Malaysia.

Conclusions:

• The SISC is a psychometrically sound, brief measure of global self-compassion.
• The SISC is a valuable, time-efficient alternative that complements existing self-compassion measures.
• The SISC is suitable for diverse research contexts, including those with time, space, and resource constraints.