Self-Compassion Around the World: Measurement Invariance of the Short Form of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS-SF) Across 65 Nations, 40 Languages, Gender Identities, and Age Groups

Viren Swami; Ulrich S Tran; Martin Voracek; Toivo Aavik; Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar; Sulaiman Olanrewaju Adebayo; Reza Afhami; Oli Ahmed; Annie Aimé; Marwan Akel; See article for complete list of authors; Barnaby J W Dixson

doi:10.1007/s12671-025-02560-5

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Self-Compassion Around the World: Measurement Invariance of the Short Form of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS-SF) Across 65 Nations, 40 Languages, Gender Identities, and Age Groups

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Self-Compassion Around the World: Measurement Invariance of the Short Form of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS-SF) Across 65 Nations, 40 Languages, Gender Identities, and Age Groups

Viren Swami, Ulrich S Tran, Martin Voracek, Toivo Aavik, Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar, Sulaiman Olanrewaju Adebayo, Reza Afhami, Oli Ahmed, Annie Aimé, Marwan Akel, …

Mindfulness, Vol.16, pp.1569-1596

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-025-02560-5

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Abstract

self-compassion scale

short form

measurement invariance

cross-cultural

multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA)

Objectives The 12-item Self-Compassion Scale–Short Form (SCS–SF) is a widely used instrument for the assessment of self-compassion. To date, there have been few examinations of this instrument’s psychometric properties, particularly across nations and languages. Therefore, we used data from the Body Image in Nature Survey (BINS) to assess measurement invariance of the SCS–SF across nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups. Methods Participants (N = 56,968) from 65 nations completed the SCS–SF in 40 languages. Using these data, we tested various hypothesised models of the SCS–SF in the total sample and, using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, tested for invariance of the optimal model across national groups, languages, gender identities, and age groups. Results In the total dataset, we found that an 11-item, 2-factor model (i.e., SCS-11) provided best fit to the data, with the two factors tapping distinct constructs of compassionate and uncompassionate self-responding. The SCS-11 was found to be partially scalar invariant across national groups and languages, and fully scalar invariant across gender identities and age groups. There was wide variation in latent means for the two factors, particularly across national groups and languages. Further analyses showed negligible associations between the two factors and sociodemographic variables, including marital status, financial security, and urbanicity. Conclusions Our results suggest that it may be possible to derive a stable 2-factor model of the SCS–SF for use in cross-cultural research, but also highlight the likelihood of cross-national and cross-linguistic variations in the way that self-compassion is understood.

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Title: Self-Compassion Around the World: Measurement Invariance of the Short Form of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS-SF) Across 65 Nations, 40 Languages, Gender Identities, and Age Groups
Authors: Viren Swami (Corresponding Author) - Anglia Ruskin University
Ulrich S Tran - University of Vienna
Martin Voracek - University of Vienna
Toivo Aavik - University of Tartu
Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar - Koç University
Sulaiman Olanrewaju Adebayo - Ekiti State University
Reza Afhami - Tarbiat Modares University
Oli Ahmed - University of Chittagong
Annie Aimé - Université du Québec en Outaouais
Marwan Akel - Lebanese International University
See article for complete list of authors (Author)
Barnaby J W Dixson - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Psychology
Publication details: Mindfulness, Vol.16, pp.1569-1596
Publisher: Springer New York LLC
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1007/s12671-025-02560-5
ISSN: 1868-8535; 1868-8527
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Data Availability: The BINS data and our analytic codes are available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/zpbc7/.
Organisation Unit: Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research; School of Health - Psychology
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991128903402621
Output Type: Journal article

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