title: The Experienced Self and Other Scale: A technique for assaying the experience of one's self in relation to the other.
abstract: The construct "self" appears in diverse forms in theories about what it is to be a person. As the sense of "self" is typically assessed through personal reports, differences in its description undoubtedly reflect significant differences in peoples' apperception of self. This report describes the development, reliability, and factorial structure of the Experience of Sense of Self (E-SOS), an inventory designed to assess one's perception of self in relation to the person's perception of various potential "others." It does so using Venn diagrams to depict and quantify the experienced overlap between the self and "others." Participant responses to the instrument were studied through Exploratory Factor Analysis. This yielded a five-factor solution: 1) Experience of Positive Sensation; 2) Experience of Challenges; 3) Experience of Temptations; 4) Experience of Higher Power; and 5) Experience of Family. The items comprising each of these were found to produce reliable subscales. Further research with the E-SOS and suggestions for its use are offered.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University & New York State, Psychiatric Institute.
authors.forename: Erel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shvil
authors.affiliation: Pace University.
authors.forename: Herbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Krauss
authors.affiliation: Columbia University.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Midlarsky
keywords: Venn diagram; self; self and other; sense of self
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