Scales

Permission is granted to use these scales in research. 

Adolescent Invulnerability Scale (Subjective Invulnerability Scale)

This scale measures one’s felt invulnerability to threat, harm and danger; and includes two sub-scales: Danger Invulnerability and Psychological Invulnerability. See relevant papers under Articles and Chapters.

Dysfunctional Separation-Individuation Scale

This single factor 10-item scale is the best performing measure I have seen.  It has strong internal consistency (typically in the .90s), converges with other indices of separation-individuation, and is a strong concurrent predictor of psychiatric symptoms of all kinds; and of various indices of poor adaptation.  We have used the scale successfully in samples ranging from early adolescence to emerging adulthood, and a construct validity paper is published in the journal Assessment (see also under Articles and Chapters). 

Subjective Omnipotence Scale

This scale measures adolescents’ felt sense of subjective omnipotence.  Adolescent omnipotence is sometimes considered a kind of “personal fable” ideation, but we make the case that subjective omnipotence is just the form that narcissism takes during normal adolescent development (as opposed to the narcissism linked with personality disorder and DSM criteria.) See relevant chapters and conference papers for more information.                                                                                                                       

Personal Uniqueness Scale

This scale measures a kind of ‘personal fable’---adolescents’ conviction that they are utterly unique, that no one can understand them (“But Mom, you don’t know how it feels!”), that their inner life and experience is so singular that it cannot possibly be shared or understood, and so on. Our most recent research shows that the PUS is a single factor, 8-item scale with strong reliability. It converges with indices of hypersensitive narcissism (and indeed may be a form of vulnerable narcissism), is moderately correlated with internalizing symptoms and adjustment problems and negatively correlated with self-esteem.  Girls are more prone to these ideations than are boy. Our lab continues to examine the construct validity of the PUS. 

New Imaginary Audience Scale

This scale was constructed to measure Elkind’s (1967) famous claim that adolescents construct imaginary audiences during course of normal cognitive development as they enter formal operations. However, we think of the imaginary audience as a form of "object relational ideation" that accompanies the individuation process. See related artices and chapters on the "new look" at the adolescent egocentrism constructs.

New Personal Fable Scale

This scale was constructed to measure Elkind’s (1967) famous claim that adolescents construct personal fables during the course of normal adolescent development.  The NPFS taps three such fables: invulnerability, personal uniqueness and omnipotence.  Of course, we now think these constructs have importance quite apart of the role they play in Elkind’s theory; and have constructed separate assessments (as above) to measure them. For this reason we do not actively use this scale in our research.