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Presentation date

Summer 8-12-2021

Research Mentor

Sheri Rowland, PhD, APRN-BC

Abstract

This research focuses on establishing reliability of a revised Social Comparison Motive Scale (SCMS) and subscales in two different adult populations, and to compare demographics of the two populations. The results correspond to Tigges (2016) original SCMS, which was developed to measure motives for comparison thinking about teen pregnancy prevention. One sample was recruited from Midwestern Health System, while the other sample was recruited in two rural Midwestern communities. The total sample was 122, in which 52 were inactive women employees of Midwestern Health System, and 70 were Hispanics with hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia, or type II diabetes, living in either of the two rural Midwestern communities. SPSS was used to determine Cronbach’s alpha of the revised SCMS total scale and subscale. There are 5 subscales to measure motives, including distancing (three items), similarity identification (three items), enhancement (four items), modeling (three items), and future self (six items). Each subscale was revised to measure motives for social comparison related to increasing physical activity. The revised SCMS internal consistency reliability of the total scale (Cronbach's α = 0.968) and the subscales (Cronbach’s α = 0.806-0.897) were both high, indicating that each item/question measures motives for comparing themselves with others about physical activity. Although the two population differ in income and ethnicity, both samples had acceptable reliability. Future research is needed to evaluate the validity of the tool, including content, criterion, and construct validity.

Keywords

social comparison theory, physical activity, reliability measure

Reliability of a Revised Social Comparison Motive Scale (SCMS) in Two different Adult Populations
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