Short Resilience Scale ™ (RS14™)

The 14-item Resilience Scale™ (RS14™) may be the most popular scale in the world to measure resilience.

After 30 years of research, we know that our measures are reliable and valid. 

The RS14™ has been:

  • Translated into dozens of languages (see below).  
  • Requested by thousands of researchers.
  • Published in dozens of journals (see Bibliography).

When you purchase a licensing agreement, you will also receive the indispensable Resilience Scale User's Guide, which is sent electronically so you will have it within 48 hours M-F. 

Please read on if you are interested in more specific information about the RS14™:

Researchers frequently prefer shorter instruments when available to reduce participant burden and increase response. With this in mind, in 2009 I developed a shorter RS14™ derived from the original Resilience Scale called the RS14™.

I did several large surveys before making this instrument available to other researchers. The original Resilience Scale™ (RS™) and the RS14™are strongly correlated (r = 0.97, p>0.001). The Resilience Core (5 essential characteristics constituting resilience) are represented in the RS14™.

Reliability

Cronbach’s alpha ranges from .89 to .96.

Construct Validity

In the ten years since the RS14™ was made available to researchers, its construct validity has been evaluated using content analysis, known groups, convergent/discriminant studies, correlation studies, factor analysis, pretest-posttest intervention studies, similar to the Resilience Scale™ (RS™).

 A review of the Bibliography on this website will demonstrate the wide range of studies that have established the construct validity for the RS14™.

As with the Resilience Scale™ (RS™), we have learned that resilience (measured by the RS14™) is positively associated with self-esteem, active coping, forgiveness, health promotion, family health, psychological well-being, sense of community, social support, sense of coherence, healthy lifestyle behaviors, self-care during chronic illness, purpose in life, self-transcendence, religiosity, optimism, high physical function, spiritual well-being, goal achievement, and many other positive qualities.

We have learned that resilience (measured by the RS14™) is inversely related to hopelessness, helplessness, passive coping, stress, number of perceived stress events, depression, anxiety, battle fatigue stress, compassion fatigue, burnout, employee turnover, and other events.

Age groups

The RS14™ is written at the 6th grade level (12-13 years) and can be completed in about 3-4 minutes for most people.

Translations

The RS14™is available in the following languages:

Amharic, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian, Bosnian, Chinese, Chinese (Taiwanese), Creole, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Malay, Nepali, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian,  Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovenian, Spanish Castilian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil,  Thai, Turkish, and Urdu.

Examples of items include:

  • I have self-discipline.
  • I can usually find something to laugh about.
  • My life has meaning.

The RS14™ is not offered online. Its primary purpose is for graduate student research and for established researchers in the university setting. 

Indispensable to the use of the Resilience Scale is the Resilience Scale User's Guide, which is sent electronically when you purchase a licensing agreement.

If you would like to purchase a licensing agreement to use the RS14, please click here.

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