Revised Self-Monitoring Scale

What it measures

A psychometrically refined revision of Snyder's (1974) Self-Monitoring Scale, narrowing the construct to its two most behaviourally meaningful components. Total scale alpha 0.75; Ability to Modify Self-Presentation alpha 0.77; Sensitivity to Expressive Behaviour alpha 0.70. Correlates with individuation (r=0.30) and private self-consciousness (r=0.17). The Ability subscale captures behavioural flexibility — the capacity to adapt one's self-presentation to situational demands. The Sensitivity subscale captures emotional and interpersonal attunement — reading others' facial expressions, emotions, and deception cues. Both subscales can be scored separately or combined. Preferred over the original Snyder scale for most consumer research contexts due to its continuous response format and cleaner factor structure.

Response format

6-point scale (0=certainly always false to 5=certainly always true); items summed within or across factors. Items 4 and 6 require reverse scoring.

Scale items

Ability to Modify Self-Presentation (7 items) — behavioural flexibility and adaptive self-presentation. Scored 0–5. Items 4 and 6 require reverse scoring (*).

• In social situations, I have the ability to alter my behavior if I feel that something else is called for.
• I have the ability to control the way I come across to people, depending on the impression I wish to give them.
• When I feel that the image I am portraying isn't working, I can readily change it to something that does.
• I have trouble changing my behavior to suit different people and different situations. * (R)
• I have found that I can adjust my behavior to meet the requirements of any situation I find myself in.
• Even when it might be to my advantage, I have difficulty putting up a good front. * (R)
• Once I know what the situation calls for, it's easy for me to regulate my actions accordingly.

Sensitivity to the Expressive Behaviour of Others (6 items) — interpersonal attunement and emotional reading. Scored 0–5.

• I am often able to read people's true emotions correctly through their eyes.
• In conversations, I am sensitive to even the slightest change in the facial expression of the person I'm conversing with.
• My powers of intuition are quite good when it comes to understanding others' emotions and motives.
• I can usually tell when others consider a joke to be in bad taste, even though they may laugh convincingly.
• I can usually tell when I've said something inappropriate by reading it in the listener's eyes.
• If someone is lying to me, I usually know it at once from that person's manner of expression.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Items 4 and 6 of the Ability subscale require reverse coding (marked * in original). Scored 0–5 per item; summed within each factor or overall. Factor scores can be used separately or combined. 6-point anchors: 0=certainly always false, 1=generally false, 2=somewhat false but with exceptions, 3=somewhat true but with exceptions, 4=generally true, 5=certainly always true. Preferred over the Snyder (1974) 25-item true-false version for research requiring interval-level measurement.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Lennox, R.D., & Wolfe, R.N. (1984). Revision of the self-monitoring scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(6), 1349–1364.

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