The Italian Validation of Singelis’ s Self-Construal Scale (SCS): a Short 10-Item Version Shows Improved Psychometric Properties Antonella D’Amico 1 & Fabrizio Scrima 2 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 Abstract This study validates an Italian version of Singelis’ s Independent and Interdependent Self-Construal Scale (SCS; Singelis in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 580–591, 1994; Singelis et al. in Cross-Cultural Research, 29, 240–275, 1995), a scale intended to measure individuals' feelings of connectedness to and separateness from social sit- uations. Results of the Italian validation, carried out through three studies involved a total of 803 Italian university students, has led to a short 10-item version, with two 5-item orthogonal factors respectively reflecting independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal. The new short version of Singelis’ s scale, as examined through exploratory and confir- matory factorial analyses, shows a more stable factor structure than the original version, maintaining the same internal con- sistency and obtaining improved indexes of concurrent valid- ity for the Interdependent Self-Construal Scale, as explored by investigating the relationships with self-esteem. Keywords Self-construal scale . Self-esteem . Validation . Confirmatory factor analysis Introduction In a 1990s study, Markus and Kitayama (1991) evidenced that individuals account for a dual frame of reference, one that emphasizes their own separateness and uniqueness and anoth- er that is interconnected with others, which forms a social context. These two self-construals were respectively named independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal. Independent individuals base their identity on internal characteristics, dispositions, and traits and on being separate from social contexts; they resist evaluation by others. Interdependent individuals are more influenced by context and are oriented to others through conformity, feelings of belonging, and by attending to their relationships over their personal goals. Independent and interdependent self-construal have been the focus of a number of studies. Many authors investigated these constructs in different cultures (i.e., Singelis and Brown 1995), or examined the relationships among self-construal and other psychological dimensions (i.e., Kim and Markus 1999; Markus et al. 1996). Cross cultural studies, in general, affirm that Western people, being members of individualistic cul- tures, tend to develop independent self-construal, whereas non-Western people, members of collective cultures, tend to develop interdependent self-construal (Singelis and Brown 1995). Studies focusing on individual differences demonstrat- ed that independent and interdependent self-construal are dif- ferently related to other psychological dimensions: only inter- dependent self-construal positively predicts high-context communication (Singelis and Brown 1995), relational harmo- ny (Kwan et al. 1997), students’ beliefs about learning (Youn 2000) and help-seeking attitudes (Yeh 2002), whereas inde- pendent self-construal is correlated to higher levels of self- * Antonella D’Amico antonella.damico@unipa.it Fabrizio Scrima fabrizioscrima@hotmail.com 1 Dipartimento di Scienze Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e della Formazione - Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Parco d’Orleans, Edificio 15, 90128 Palermo, Italy 2 Université de Rouen, Rue Lavoisier, Mont Saint Aignan, 76821 Rouen, France Curr Psychol DOI 10.1007/s12144-015-9378-y