The effect of negatively worded measures of self-esteem on children

Low self-esteem in learning disabled or emotionally disturbed children has been reported as a result of their failures in various social and educational settings (e.g., Conley, Ghavami, Vonohlen, & Foulkes, 2007). To verify such a decline, a number of self-esteem scales have been used in research. These usually utilize positive and negative items. For example, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) has five positive descriptions and five negative descriptions.