Perceived Social Risk Scale: development and validation in relation to social status and depression in the UK

To develop and validate the Perceived Social Risk Scale (PSRS) for assessing perceptions of socially risky behaviours, and to validate it against existing psychological measures such as perceived social status and depressive symptoms in a UK sample of older adolescents and adults.

A cross-sectional study involving exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

Participants were recruited from the Cardiff University's Department of Psychology participant pool (students completing studies for course credit) and Prolific Academic (a crowdsourcing platform for research volunteers). Data collection occurred between 17 February and 6 May 2024.

A total of 640 UK participants, including both men and women, aged 18-65.

We measured the internal consistency of the PSRS, test-retest reliability and validity against measures including rejection sensitivity, perceived social status, depressive symptoms and resistance to peer influence. Moderation analyses examined the role of perceived social status, age and a sense of belonging in the relationship between PSRS scores and depressive symptoms.

The PSRS showed excellent internal consistency (α=0.96) and good test-retest reliability (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC)=0.70). Perceptions of social risks significantly declined with age (r=-0.20, p<0.001) and factor analyses confirmed that the PSRS differentiates among four distinct but related social risk constructs: authenticity and integrity (α=0.91), social assertiveness (α=0.72), reservedness (α=0.83) and social non-conformity (α=0.72). For evidence of convergent validity, higher PSRS scores were associated with increased sensitivity to social rejection (r=0.23, p<0.001), elevated depressive symptoms (r=0.13, p=0.012) and negatively correlated with resistance to peer influence (r=-0.13, p=0.013). Local perceived social status significantly moderated the relationship between PSRS scores and depressive symptoms (β=0.005, SE=0.002, t=2.36, p=0.019). A general sense of belonging did not moderate this relationship.

Our results confirm that social risk is not a uniform construct but is instead multidimensional. The PSRS offers a reliable and valid tool for assessing multidimensional social risk-taking, with strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The interaction between depression and local perceived social status highlights the importance of perceived status on social risk perception.