Reliability of the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Children and Predictors of Global Self-Worth

Harter's (1985) Self-Perception Profile for Children is one of the measures most widely used by developmental social psychologists. The aim of the present study was to investigate the test-retest reliability of the subscales for 24 children over a 3-year period. The results show that scores on the global self-worth subscale at age 8 correlated highly with scores at age 11 (r = .61) and did not change over time, t(23) = 0.22. These results suggest that perceptions of global self-worth remain highly stable. However, domain-specific measures of competence did not show the same level of stability. Harter (1990) has suggested that global self-worth is a function of domain-specific measures. The relationship between global self-worth and the domain-specific measures was also investigated at each age; although the perception of physical appearance was the single best predictor of global self-worth at both age 8 and age 11, the second best predictor at age 8 was perception of social acceptance, whereas at age 11 it was scholastic competence.