N Yashwi Reddy
Madras School of Social Work, Chennai
Self-Blame can be a source of pain that is insistent and remorseless. This emotion
prevents us from being in the present, positively accepting ourselves and being
compassionate towards ourselves. Extreme cases of being self-critical or blaming oneself
has led to cases of suicide across all stages of life. The present study aimed to develop
and standardize a tool on the construct ‘Self-blame’ in the Indian population, and study
its relationship with Self-criticism and Self-reassurance. The sample consisted of 216
adult participants who belonged to the age group of 20 – 40 years (Mage = 23.95, SD =
4.51). Online forms were circulated among the population which included brief summary
of the study, a consent form, the scale developed by the researcher on Self- Blame,
and the “Forms of self-criticizing / attacking and self-reassuring scale – Short form”
(Sommers-Spijkerman et al., 2018). Gender difference revealed a significant difference
for Self-reassurance only. Exploratory factor analysis revealed 22 items for ‘The Selfblame Scale’ which has a Cronbach alpha of 0.891. Discriminant validity between
Self-blame and Self-reassurance revealed a significant negative correlation. Since the
tool is statistically reliable and valid, it could be used for research and clinical purposes
for an adult Indian population. Norms for ‘The Self-blame Scale’ were also developed.