Psychometric properties and factor structure of the appearance-related social media consciousness scale among emerging adults

Abstract

Appearance-related social media consciousness (ASMC) is the persistent awareness of one's attractiveness on social media. The ASMC Scale, recently developed for use with adolescents (Choukas-Bradley et al., 2020), provides a promising tool for systematically examining ASMC and associations with mental health. The current study examined the psychometric properties of the ASMC Scale among emerging adult men and women. Participants for Study 1 were 428 emerging adults (M age = 21.9) from five Anglophone, industrialized countries (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand). Results from Study 1 provide evidence that the 13-item ASMC Scale has a unidimensional structure, strong internal consistency, measurement invariance across gender, and convergent validity (i.e., associations with related offline appearance concerns and cognitions) and incremental validity (i.e., associations with depressive symptoms and disordered eating, above and beyond time spent on social media). Participants from Study 2 were 296 U.S. college students (M age = 18.6). Results from Study 2 confirmed the factor structure and further demonstrated the convergent and incremental validity (above and beyond both time spent on social media and offline appearance concerns) of the ASMC Scale. Findings suggest that the ASMC Scale can be used among emerging adults, aiding future research investigating social media experiences and mental health.

Keywords: Assessment; Body image; Psychometrics; Self-objectification; Social media.