Desarrollo y validación de la Escala de Expectativas de Rechazo Social (ERS)

The social performance of individuals is influenced by the expectations that people have about the outcome of their behavior, since these allow us to anticipate the future and plan courses of action. The expectations of social rejection have been defined as thoughts that anticipate the possibility of being rejected in an interpersonal situation. When they are frequent can bring a number of difficulties in the social life of people. The aim of this study was to build the Social Rejection Expectations Scale (SRE) for the adult population. First, 51 preliminary items were submitted to expert judgment (N = 6) to obtain evidence of content validity. Second, using an accidental sampling, an exploratory (N = 320) and confirmatory factor analysis (N = 458) was performed. As a result, a final scale was obtained, consisting of 27 items distributed in three factors named as Expectations of rejection in situations with known people, Expectations of rejection in situations of establishment of new relationships and Expectations of rejection in public places and with unknown people. The internal consistency of the scale was evaluated, obtaining very good and excellent coefficients for each factor (from .71 to .88). Finally, significant positive correlations were obtained between the scales of the test and different measures of social anxiety. It can be concluded that the SRE is a valid and reliable instrument for the evaluation of expectations of social rejection in the adult population, being a useful tool in research and diagnosis.