PtychologicaJ Assessment: Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

A Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1040-3590/90/100.75

1990, Vol. 2, No. 2,191-197

Beck Self-Concept Test

Aaron T. Beck Robert A. Steer
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Center for Cognitive Therapy Department of Psychiatry
School of Osteopathic Medicine

Norman Epstein Gary Brown

University of Maryland University of California at Los Angeles

The development and psychometric characteristics of the Beck Self-Concept Test (BST) are de-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

scribed. The BST is a 25-item self-report instrument that asks respondents to evaluate themselves
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

in relation to other people whom they know. An item analysis with 550 psychiatric outpatients
diagnosed primarily with DSM-III-R mood or anxiety disorders indicated that all of the BST's
items were significantly correlated with the corrected total scores; the coefficient alpha was .82,
indicating good internal consistency. The 1-week and 3-month test-retest reliabilities were .88 and
.65, respectively. The BST was significantly related to the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and displayed
both discriminant and convergent validities with respect to measures of psychopathology.

In her reviews of the self-concept literature, Wylie (1974,
1979) described a variety of instruments for measuring the phe-
nomenal aspects of the self-concept. She broadly classified in-
struments into (a) those assessing overall self-regard, such as the
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965) and (b)
those measuring more specific aspects of the self-concept, such
as the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965). Although Wy-
lie (1974) found that a number of self-concept instruments were
reported in the psychological literature, she concluded that the
majority of these instruments had methodological and theoreti-
cal problems that were generally attributable to a lack of sys-
tematic instrument development. In his discussion of self-es-
teem instruments, Demo (1985) indicated that there are too
many poorly validated self-concept scales in the psychological
literature. Robson (1988) also observed that there is little con-
sensus about what these scales actually measure.
Fleming and Watts (1980, p. 921) asserted that "most psy-
chologists would probably agree on a general definition of self-
esteem as a personal judgment of one's own worth," and Wytie
(1974, p. 128) has used self-regard as a generic term to "include
self-satisfaction, self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-favorability,
congruence between self and ideal self, and discrepancies be-
tween self and ideal self." The operational definition and evalua-
tion of the self-concept is important because persons with low
self-esteem are more vulnerable to the development of psychiat-
ric disorders than persons with high self-esteem (Ingham, Kreit-
man, Miller, Sashidharan, & Surtees, 1986; Robson, 1988).
This research was supported by the Foundation for Cognitive Ther-
apy and Research and National Institute of Mental Health Grant
MH38843.
Correspondence concerning this article, including the availability of
the BST, should be addressed to Aaron T. Beck at the Center for Cogni-
tive Therapy, 133 South 36th Street, Room 602, Philadelphia, Pennsyl-
vania 19104.
However, no published self-concept instrument appears to have
been explicitly developed to address the theoretical relation be-
tween self-concept and psychopathology as postulated by an in-
tegrated model of psychopathology, such as Beck's (1967,1976)
cognitive model of psychopathology.
With respect to defining the self-concept, Beck considers this
construct to consist of a number of characteristics that people
ascribe to themselves, such as interpersonal attractiveness, and
to be operationally defined by descriptors such as attractive,
kind, and efficient. The descriptors, in turn, are weighed by an
individual with respect to how much they are valued by himself
or herself. The overall self-concept thus reflects the summation
of an individual's self-evaluations of the set of descriptors and
represents how good the person feels about himself or herself.
The self-concept is the product of input of self-relevant data
and relatively stable structures (self-schemata) that serve as in-
formation processors. The stronger a self-schema, the greater its
influence on the input of self-relevant information (i.e., data
supporting the self-concept will be processed, whereas data not
supporting the self-concept will be ignored). For example, in
depression, individuals direct their cognitive processing toward
critical self-evaluations, and self-schemata assume a crucial
role. Data supporting a depressed person's negative self-concept
are more readily acceptable to the individual than data foster-
ing positive self-evaluations.
As part of his cognitive model of psychopathology, Beck
(1967) proposed the negative triad as a framework for under-
standing the phenomenology of depression. He observed that
depressed patients systematically expressed negative views
about themselves, their present experiences, and their futures.
Over the last 30 years, Beck and his associates at the University
of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Center for Cognitive
Therapy (CCT) have methodically been developing procedures
for evaluating the negative cognitive triad. For example, the
Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS; Beck, Weissman, Lester, &
Trexler, 1974) was designed to evaluate a person's negative ex-

191
 192 BECK, STEER, EPSTEIN, AND BROWN
pectations about the future. The negative interpretation of cur-
rent experiences was assessed by the Cognition Checklist
(CCL), a scale to measure the frequency of automatic thoughts
about one's current life experiences associated specifically with
anxiety or depression (Beck, Brown, Steer, Eidelson, & Riskind,
1987).
Beginning in 1960, Beck and his associates (Beck, 1967; Beck
& Stein, 1961) began pilot-testing a self-report instrument de-
signed to assess self-concepts. The Beck Self-Concept Test
(BST) possesses the systematic developmental history that Wy-
lie (1974) reported as deficient in most other self-concept mea-
sures; the BST was specifically designed to evaluate the negative
view of self that Beck (1963) observed in depressed patients and
later described more fully in his cognitive model of psychopa-
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thology(Beck, 1967, 1976).
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Development
The development of the original version of the BST in 1960
was described by Beck and Stein (1961). A series of characteris-
tics was selected as representative of those that psychiatric pa-
tients considered important aspects of their own personalities.
The initial set of self-descriptive words was systematically ad-
ministered to randomly drawn samples of psychiatric outpa-
tients and inpatients. Ultimately, a set of 25 items that patients
consistently endorsed was selected. In 1978, one item was re-
written for clarity, and the resulting version of the BST has been
used at CCT since then. The instrument was designed so that
high scores would reflect a positive self-concept.
In a preliminary study, Beck (1967) reported that in a sample
of 25 psychiatric inpatients and outpatients, BST scores were
negatively correlated, r(23) = —.66, with depression as mea-
sured by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Ward,
Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961).
Description
The BST's standards of comparison are other people whom
the respondent knows. Beck assumed that if patients were asked
to make concrete comparisons of themselves with other people,
they would be less prone to make extremely negative judgments
of themselves when depressed. Consequently, they would pro-
vide more stable ratings of their self-concepts. Respondents are
instructed to describe themselves on 25 traits in relation to
other people by circling one of the five phrases beside each char-
acteristic that most accurately describes themselves. It repre-
sents the type of self-concept scale that Wylie (1974) classified
as assessing overall self-regard.
For 16 of the items, a 5-point scale representing decreasing
degrees of the characteristics is used, whereas for 9 items a 5-
point scale indicating increasing degrees of the characteristic is
used. An example of the former is the response scale for telling
jokes, which asks the respondent to indicate whether he or she
is (1) better than nearly anyone I know, (2) better than most
people I know, (3) about the same as most people, (4) worse than
most people I know, or (5) worse than nearly anyone I know.
Weights from 1 to 5 are assigned to the phrases to represent
increasing ordinal gradations of a positive self-concept and are
reversed where appropriate, so that high ratings consistently in-
dicate a positive self-concept. A total score is calculated by sum-
ming the ratings for 25 traits to reflect a positive overall self-
concept. Consequently, the total scores may range from 25 to
125. It takes approximately 10 min for respondents to complete
the self-administered BST.
The 25 traits composing the BST cover a broad spectrum of
characteristics representing personality, abilities, aptitudes, and
virtues or vices. They include (1) looks, (2) knowledge, (3)
greed, (4) telling jokes, (5) intelligence, (6) popular, (7) tidy, (8)
successful, (9) memory, (10) sex appeal, (11) kind, (12) person-
ality, (13) lazy, (14) athletic, (15) selfish, (16) reading ability,
(17) appearance, (18) good natured, (19) independent, (20) fin-
ishing things, (21) self-conscious, (22) learning things, (23) jeal-
ous, (24) working hard, and (25) cruel.
Although it might be argued that to elicit consistent re-
sponses the BST items should all represent the same part of
speech (e.g., all adjectives), the specific wording of the items
reflected speech variations (e.g., nouns, adjectives, and phrases)
actually expressed by patients. Evidence for the BST's high in-
ternal consistency (reported here later) indicates that the gram-
matical variations in the item set consistently tapped the in-
tended self-concept construct.
Method
Several cohorts of patients have been used in studying the psychomet-
ric properties of the BST over the past 28 years. This article focuses on
the three primary samples drawn to investigate the 1978 version of the
reliability and validity of the BST.
DSM-1I sample. The first sample that was systematically studied
was composed of 198 outpatients evaluated at the CCT between 1978
and 1979. There were 79 men (39.9%) and 119 women (60.1%). The
racial composition was 93.4% White (n = 185) and 6.6% Black (n= 13).
The mean age was 38.22 years (SD - 12.73), and the mean educational
attainment was 15.14 years (SD = 2.78). The patients' diagnoses, using
the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM-II; American Psychiatric Association, 1975), were
made after conducting structured clinical interviews, but no reliability
studies were conducted concerning the diagnoses. The modal DSM-I1
diagnosis was depressive neurosis (54.3%). This sample was primarily
used in testing the short-term stability and construct validity of the BST.
DSM-III sample. A cohort of 110 patients admitted to the CCT
during 1982 and diagnosed according to DSM-III criteria (American
Psychiatric Association, 1980) was used for testing the concurrent valid-
ity of the BST. It was composed of 48 men (43.6%) and 62 women
(56.4%). There were 105 Whites (95.5%) and 5 Blacks (4.5%). The mean
age was 35.79 years (SD = 13.45), and the mean educational attainment
was 14.56 years (SD = 1.27). Structured clinical interviews were used
to determine the diagnoses, but no reliability studies were conducted
concerning these diagnoses. The majority of the diagnoses reflected
affective disorders.
DSM-IH-R sample. Most of the statistical analyses presented in this
article focus on a cohort of 550 outpatients evaluated at the CCT be-
tween 1986 and June 1988. The majority of these patients were diag-
nosed with DSM-HI-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) psy-
chiatric disorders, according to the Structured Clinical Interview for
DSM-III-R (SC1D-OP; Spitzer, Williams, & Gibbon, 1987), but some
of the 1986 admissions were diagnosed according to the Structured
Clinical Interview for DSM-III (SCID; Spitzer & Williams, 1985).
There were 315 women (57.3%) and 235 men (42.7%). The racial com-
position was 93.3% White (» = 513), 4.9% Black (n = 27), and 1.8%
Asian (« = 10). The mean age was 36.78 years (SO = 10.0), and the
mean educational attainment was 14.51 years (SD = 1.23).
 BECK SELF-CONCEPT TEST 193

Starting in the 1980s, the CCT became increasingly involved in devel- Table 1
oping innovative cognitive approaches for the treatment of anxiety dis- Means, Standard Deviations, and Corrected Item-Total
orders, especially panic disorder (Beck & Emery, 1985). Therefore, al- Correlations of Beck Self-Concept Test
though the CCT continued to attract a majority of patients with mood
disorders, as it had during the 1970s, it also attracted more patients with Item M SD
anxiety disorders. In the DSM-II1-R sample, there were 254 (46.2%)
primary mood disorders (225 depressive and 29 bipolar depressives); Looks 3.13 0.69 .35
247 (44.9%) primary anxiety disorders (116 panic, 57 generalized anxi- Knowledge 3.29 0.84 .42
ety, 28 social phobias, 18 obsessive-compulsive, 8 simple phobia, and 2 Greed 3.50 0.80 .17
Tellingjokes 2.55 1.00 .20
nonpanic agoraphobia); and 49 (8.9%) other disorders. The other cate-
Intelligence 3.41 0.77 .43
gory included 5 substance abusers and 26 patients with adjustment dis- Popular 2.78 0.86 .45
orders. A study of the reliabilities of these SClD-derived diagnoses, Tidy 2.99 0.96 .25
based on 75 patients drawn from this sample, is described by Riskind, Successful 2.71 0.94 .47
Beck, Berchick, Brown, and Steer (1987). The interrater kappas for the Memory 2.95 0.95 .41
major depression and generalized anxiety disorders were .72 and .79, Sex appeal 2.81 0.79 .43
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respectively. Kind 3.63 0.68 .37

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Personality 3.06 0.85 .54

Lazy 3.03 0.95 .48
Results Athletic 2.84 0.95 .24
Selfish 3.28 0.88 .31
Reliability Reading ability 3.26 0.84 .31
Appearance 3.16 0.69 .50
Internal consistency. Table 1 presents the means, standard Good-natured 3.22 0.86 .44
deviations, and corrected item-total correlations of the 25 BST Independent 2.89 1.08 .28
items for the 550 patients in the DSM-III-R sample. Because Finishing things 2.79 0.93 .42
Self-conscious 2.11 0.81 .25
25 correlations were calculated, and the chances of making a
Learning things 3.27 0.82 .45
Type I error were thus increased, a Bonferroni adjustment was Jealous 2.89 0.91 .26
used by dividing the alpha levels by 25. As Table 1 indicates, all Working hard 3.30 0.91 .41
of the corrected item-total correlations were significant beyond Cruel 3.88 0.83 .24
the .01 level, one-tailed test, even after applying the Bonferroni
Note. N = 550. All of the corrected item-total correlations (r^J were
adjustment. Nevertheless, the magnitudes of the corrected
significant beyond the .01 level, one-tailed test, after using a Bonferroni
item-total correlations were low (<.55) and might reflect un- adjustment (alpha/25).
derestimates (lower limits) produced by constrictions in the
ranges of the ratings because the sample represented individuals
who were predominantly depressed, or anxious, or both. The Concurrent Validity
coefficient alpha was .82, indicating satisfactory internal consis-
tency. To test the concurrent validity of the BST, the DSM-HI sam-
The BST total score for the entire DSM-III-R sample was ple completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) (Rosen-
76.71 (SD = 9.47) and ranged from 35 to 101. The DSM-IU- berg, 1965), one of the most widely used scales for measuring
R sample's mean BST total score indicates that they had rated self-esteem (Demo, 1985; Wylie, 1974), as well as the BST. The

themselves with the 5-point scale as being about the same as
most people they knew on the specified dimensions. The score
frequencies were approximately normally distributed (Shapiro-
Wilk statistic = .98, p > .05) with a skewness of —.41 and a
kurtosisof.59.
Stability. The stability of the BST over time was first esti-
mated in the DSM-II sample, with 50 patients who were re-
tested 1 week after their initial evaluation at the CCT. There
were 24 women (48.0%); the mean age for the 50 patients was
35.52 years (SD = 11.07). The correlation between the initial
evaluation and the 1-week posttest BST total scores was .88
(df= 48, p < .001). Subsequently, the long-term stability of the
BST over a 3-month interval was studied in 24 of the DSM-
III-R patients evaluated before and after receiving cognitive
therapy. The mean pretherapy BST total score was 74.75 (SD =
8.75), and the 3-month BST total score was 79.08 (SD = 9.43).
Although the mean difference of 4.33 indicated significant im-
provement in the self-concept, ((22) = 2.78, p < .05, the correla-
tion between the pre- and posttest BST scores was .65 (df= 22,
p < .001), indicating that the BST was measuring a relatively
enduring characteristic of individuals and not exclusively mea-
suring a transient psychological state.
correlation between the BST and the RSE for the 110 DSM-III
patients was .51 (df= 108, p < .001). The mean BST and RSE
scores for the DSM-III patients were 79.39 (SD = 8.95) and
24.18 (SO = 4.83), respectively.
Significant negative correlations were found between the
BST and the self-dislike item (7) from the Revised BDI (Beck
& Steer, 1987), r(108) = -.35, and between the BST and worth-
lessness rating (24) from the 24-item version of the Hamilton
Psychiatric Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD; Hamilton,
1960; Guy, 1976), r( 108) = -.34, within the DSM-III-R sam-
ple (both ps < .001). Thus, as predicted, the BST was inversely
related to self-reported self-dislike and clinically rated worth-
lessness.
Construct Validity
Convergent and discriminant. Table 2 presents correlations
of the BST with a number of scales assessing aspects of psycho-
pathology, intellectual ability, and positive functioning. Because
low self-esteem has repeatedly been found to be related to nega-
tive affect and psychopathology (Ingham et al., 1986), it was hy-
pothesized that the BST scores would be (a) negatively related
to scores or measures of psychopathology, (b) not correlated
 194 BECK, STEER, EPSTEIN, AND BROWN

Table 2
Correlations of Beck Self Concept Test With Other Instruments

Instrument r df

DSM-III-R sample
Beck Depression Inventory -.38*** 548
BDI Self-dislike item -.35*** 548
Beck Anxiety Inventory -.08 505
Beck Hopelessness Scale -.41*** 548
Cognition Check List
Depression -.50*** 529
Anxiety -.19** 529
Scale for Suicide Ideation -.15** 526
Dysfunctional Attitude Scale -.21*** 539
Clarke-WAIS -.04 548
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Revised Hamilton Psychiatric

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Rating Scale for Depression -.34*** 548

Hamilton Worthlessness item -.34"* 548
Revised Hamilton Psychiatric
Rating Scale for Anxiety -.04 548

DSM-II sample
MMP1 scales
L .10 178
F -.42*** 178
K .01 178
Hypochondnasis -.17 178
Depression -.46*" 178
Hysteria -.11 178
Psychopathic Deviate -.27" 178
Masculinity and Femininity -.16 178
Paranoia -.25* 178
Psychasthenia -.51*** 178
Schizophrenia -.38"* 178
Hypomania .21 178
Social Introversion -.55*" 178
Ego Strength .33"* 178

SCL-90 scales
Somatization -.14 186
Obsessive-Compulsive -.30*** 187
Interpersonal Sensitivity -.42*** 187
Depression -.28** 184
Anxiety -.28** 185
Hostility -.10 190
Phobic Anxiety -.32"* 188
Paranoid Ideation -.07 190
Psychoticism .24* 178

Note. Levels of significance were adjusted using the Bonferroni method. DSM = Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (III-R = third edition revised; // = second edition); BDI = Beck Depression
Inventory; WAIS = Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale; MMPI = Minnesota Multiphastc Personality Inven-
tory; SCL-90 = Symptoms Check List-90.
*p<.05. "p<.01. *"p<.001.

with measures of nonpsychopathological constructs, such as vo-
cabulary knowledge, and (c) positively correlated with mea-
sures of positive functioning. The scales administered to the
DSM-H sample were the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1983), including
Barren's (1953) Ego Strength Scale, and the Symptom
Checklist-90 (SCL-90; Derogatis, Lipman, & Covi, 1973). The
DSM-III-R sample completed the BST, the BDI, the Beck
Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988),
the BHS, the Cognition Checklist's Depression (CCL-D) and
Anxiety (CCL-A) subscales, the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale
(DAS; Weissman, 1979; a measure of basic dysfunctional be-
liefs, such as perfectionism), the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI;
Beck, Kovacs, & Weissman, 1979), the revised Hamilton Psy-
chiatric Rating Scales for Depression (HRSD-R) and Anxiety
(HARS-R; Hamilton, 1959, 1960; Riskind, Beck, Brown, &
Steer, 1987), and the Clarke-Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
(WAIS) Vocabulary Test (Clarke-WAIS; Paitich & Crawford,
1976).
The overall pattern of relations between the BST and the
other instruments for the DSM-III-R sample was generally as
predicted. Because 12 correlations were calculated for this sam-
 BECK SELF-CONCEPT TEST
pie, Bonferroni adjustments were derived by dividing the .05,
.01, and .001 alpha levels in a two-tailed test by 12. Therefore,
for a correlation to be significant beyond the .OS level, it would
have to be significant beyond the .004 level. Despite such an
adjustment, the BST was significantly and negatively related to
the BDI, HRSD-R, BHS, DAS, CCL-D, and SSI. Because the
self-dislike item in the BDI and the worthlessness item in the
HRSD-R measure aspects that would spuriously inflate the
magnitudes of the relations of these instruments with the BST,
separate correlations of the BST with the HRSD-R and BDI
were also calculated without including these items in these in-
struments' respective total scores. Again, the correlations of the
BST with the BDI, r(548) = -.37, and HRSD-R, r(548) =
-.32, were significant beyond the .001 level in a two-tailed test.
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The CCL-A was also significantly and negatively related to
the BST but less so than the BDI and CCL-D were. This is con-
sistent with Beck's (1967,1976) conceptualization of the nega-
tive cognitive triad in which a low self-concept is more charac-
teristic of depression than of other diagnostic groups. As pre-
dicted, the Clarke-WAIS was not significantly correlated with
the BST.
Table 2 shows the correlations, based on the DSM-II sample,
of the BST with scales from the MMPI (to which AT corrections
were added) and the SCL-90. Again, a Bonferroni adjustment
was applied to this sample's alpha levels by dividing them by
23. The MMPI F, Depression (0), Psychopathic Deviate (Pd),
Paranoia (Pa), Psychasthenia (Pt), Schizophrenia (Sc), and So-
cial Introversion (Si) scales were negatively related to the BST,
whereas the MMPI Ego Strength (Es) scale was positively asso-
ciated with the BST. Again, the majority of the MMPI clinical
scales were correlated with the BST in the hypothesized direc-
tions; psychopathology was negatively related to a positive self-
concept and positively associated with ego functioning. The
mean BST score for 198 patients in the DSM-II sample was
74.87 (SD = 9.03).
Six of the nine SCL-90 clinical scales assessing symptoms of
psychopathology were negatively associated with the BST as
predicted, and the SCL-90 Somatization, Hostility, and Para-
noid scales were not significantly related to the BST (Table 2).
The SCL-90 Depression and Anxiety scales' correlations with
the BST were comparable in the DSM-II sample. In contrast,
depression, as measured by the BDI and HRSD-R, was related
to the BST in the DSM-III-R sample, whereas anxiety, as mea-
sured by the BAI and HARS-R, was not related to the BST.
This difference in results may be because the SCL-90 Depres-
sion and Anxiety scales were derived from an oblique factor
analysis and are highly correlated with each other (Derogatis
et al., 1973), whereas the HRSD-R, HARS-R, and BAI were
especially developed to differentiate depression and anxiety.
The latter instruments thus produce relatively unconfounded
assessments of depression and anxiety, which the SCL-90 does
not produce.
To estimate whether the BST contributed unique variance to
the explanation of self-reported depression as measured by the
BDI, we performed a multiple regression analysis in which the
BST and BHS were simultaneously regressed on the BDI, con-
trolling for each other's effects, «2 = .43, F(2, 547) = 209.62,
;><.001. The BST, f{ 1,547)= 14.64, and the BHS, f* 1,547) -
282.31, both contributed unique variance to the explanation of
195
the BDI beyond the .001 level. The incremental variance ex-
plained by the BST over that added by the BHS (29%) was 14%.
The ability of the BST to predict eventual suicide in psychiat-
ric outpatients was also tested. From a cohort of 1,683 consecu-
tive outpatients evaluated at the CCT from September 1978
through December 1983 for whom BSTs were available, 15 per-
sons eventually committed suicide. The mean BST scores for
the IS suiciders and 1,668 nonsuiciders were 68.47 (SD =
13.42) and 76.26 (SD = 9.63), respectively. Using an unequal-
variance l test for independence, the t( 14) statistic for the mean
difference between the suiciders and nonsuiciders was 2.24 (p <
.05, one-tailed test). The suiciders described less positive self-
concepts than the nonsuiciders did. Furthermore, using a BST
cutoff score of 78 or less to divide the sample according to high
or low self-concept, 14 out of the 15 suiciders had BST scores
less than or equal to 78, whereas 960 out of the 1,668 nonsuicid-
ers had BST scores less than or equal to 78. The BST's sensitiv-
ity and specificity rates were thus 93.3% and 42.4%, respec-
tively.
Component structure. A principal-components analysis was
performed with the intercorrelations among the 25 BST items
in the DSM-III-R sample (Beck, Steer, & Epstein, 1989).
Seven self-concept dimensions were identified, representing (a)
Intellectual Ability, (b) Work Efficacy, (c) Physical Attractive-
ness, (d) Social Skills, (e) Vices and Virtues, (f) Effectiveness,
and (g) Self-Doubt. Only Social Skills had five items saliently
(>.40) loading on it and suggested potential generalizability.
However, this component explained less than 8% of the total
variance and was considered not to reflect a regnant self-con-
cept dimension. Thus, Beck et al. (1989) concluded that the
BST should be scored as a unidimensional scale.
Cognitive Specificity
Beck's thesis (1967, 1976) about cognitive specificity of psy-
chiatric disorders was evaluated by testing whether the measure
of low self-concept, assumed to be a specific characteristic of
depression, differentiated individuals with this disorder from
normal subjects and patients with other psychiatric conditions.
Although the BST's psychometric properties have not been
thoroughly studied in normal adult populations, Wright (1986)
indicated that the mean BST score of 42 depressed patients
(M = 70.7, SD = 11.9) was lower than that of 19 normal adults
(M = 82.8, SD = 6.9), f(59) - 4.7, p < .001. As expected from
Beck's (1976) cognitive model of psychopathology, the de-
pressed patients described more negative self-concepts than did
the normal adults.
In the DSM-III-R sample, the correlation with age was .14
(p < .001). The mean BST total scores for the 315 women was
75.97 (SD = 9.35) and for the 235 men was 77.70 (SD = 9.56),
r(548) = 2.12, p < .05). Although these associations represented
small amounts of shared variance, it was considered important
to control for both sex and age in determining whether the BST
discriminated patients with different DSM-III-R diagnoses.
A multiple regression analysis of the BST by three broad
types of DSM-III-R disorders (affective, anxiety, and other)
was conducted, controlling for sex and age. The variables were
entered into the regression in a stepwise manner, with sex being
entered first, F(l, 545) = 4.77, p < .05, followed by age, F(l,
 196 BECK, STEER, EPSTEIN, AND BROWN
545) = 10.31, p < .01, and then type of disorder, F(2, 545) =
11.41, p < .001. On the basis of Beck's (1967, 1976) negative
cognitive triad, it was hypothesized that the self-concept level
of the patients with DSM-III-R depressive disorders would be
lower than the self-concept levels of patients with other DSM-
III-R disorders. The BST did differentiate the disorders, even
after controlling for sex and age. The mean BST total scores for
the 254 affective, 247 anxiety, and 49 other outpatients were
74.78 (SD = 10.16), 78.14 (SD = 8.80), and 79.53 (SD = 6.81),
respectively. Bonferroni comparisons indicated that patients
with primary mood disorders described less positive self-con-
cepts than either the patients with anxiety or other psychiatric
disorders did (p < .001). The mean self-concept levels of the
patients with anxiety and other psychiatric disorders were com-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
parable.
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The mean BST scores for specific DSM-III-R anxiety and
mood disorders for which 30 or more patients had been diag-
nosed were 76.35 (SD = 9.62) for 57 generalized anxiety pa-
tients, 78.38 (SD = 7.75) for 45 agoraphobia patients with
panic, 80.13 (SD = 8.99) for 71 panic patients, 76.00 (SD =
9.42) for 52 single-episode major depression patients, 74.77
(SD - 9.71) for 130 recurrent-episode major depression pa-
tients, and 71.57 (SD = 10.74) for 35 dysthmic disorder pa-
tients. When we controlled for sex and age in this reduced sam-
ple of 390 patients, the BST differentiated the disorders, f{5,
382) = 5.64, p < .001, with the Bonferroni comparisons indicat-
ing that the patients with recurrent-episode major depression
and dysthymic disorders endorsed less positive self-concepts
than did the patients with panic disorders. The patients with
agoraphobia and panic attacks had more positive self-concepts
than the patients with dysthymic disorders.
Discussion
The overall pattern of results indicates that the BST possesses
high internal consistency and good stability over time with psy-
chiatric patients. Its concurrent validity with respect to clini-
cally rated measures of self-concepts as well as with other self-
report measures is satisfactory. The BST has demonstrated the
hypothesized pattern of discriminant and convergent relations
with other psychiatric and psychological instruments that sup-
ports its construct validity as a self-concept measure. Further-
more, it differentiated patients with DSM-III-R primary
mood disorders from those with DSM-III-R anxiety and other
disorders.
The magnitudes of the BST's corrected item-total corre-
lations and coefficient alpha suggest that it is now appropriately
used in terms of its total score, representing an overall self-con-
cept relative to other people whom a patient knows. Of course,
the present analyses did not reflect on the predictive validity of
the BST except for the prediction of suicide. Future research
could test the hypothesis that the BST is positively related to
favorable therapeutic outcome, considering its positive relation
with the MMPI Ego Strength scale. More studies are needed to
establish its predictive validity.
The BST needs to be validated with a broader spectrum of
patient and nonpatient populations. Nevertheless, the struc-
tured clinical interviews and the SCID-based DSM-III-R dis-
orders (Spitzer et al., 1987) used in the BST reliability and valid-
ity studies maximize the possibility that the present samples
will be comparable to other patient samples diagnosed with
similar disorders on the basis of the use of the SC1D at other
treatment and research centers.
In summary, the BST has displayed sufficient validity and re-
liability to suggest that it is potentially useful for clinical re-
search and practice. However, its usefulness in clinical assess-
ment and prediction still requires more research. In terms of
theory, the BST fills the gap concerning previous instruments
that have been developed to measure aspects of Beck's (1976)
cognitive model of psychopathology and affords another instru-
ment for other self-concept researchers, such as Ingham et al.
(1986) and Robson (1988), who view the self-concept as an im-
portant variable for determining an individual's vulnerability
for developing psychiatric disorders. Because the BST is related
to suicidal ideation as well as eventual suicide, this instrument,
along with the BHS, may have clinical usefulness as an indicator
of suicidal risk in psychiatric outpatients. Such a self-concept
instrument is particularly useful for therapists who are inter-
ested in addressing specific cognitive aspects of their patients'
problems. Finally, this instrument may be used to test the possi-
ble relation of negative self-concept to a variety of problems,
such as academic difficulties, delinquency, and job failure.
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Accepted October 11,1989 •