Rathus’ self-affirmation test was designed to address a need detected in the 1960s, assertiveness, as social and communicative competence, is fundamental to our mental well-being, knowing how to adequately express your thoughts and needs, defend your rights, etc. . , optimize our relationships with others and nurture our self-esteem.
However, we are faced with a dimension that does not always come from the factory, but that needs to be developed, so it is interesting to know that self-affirmation training was one of the first techniques developed by behavioral therapists in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
- Experts knew that it was necessary to provide people with guidelines and strategies related to the subject.
- They knew that when humans communicate and behave assertively.
- Behavior decreases aggressively.
In addition, it is possible to exalt respect and protect the identity, values and self-confidence of each individual, without these areas, without a good level of self-affirmation, often one finds himself immersed in suffering.
This instrument, developed by Dr. Spencer A. Rathus in 1973, remains very useful and interesting. Thanks to it, we can measure our competence in terms of assertiveness. Let’s look at more data below.
Remember that your goal is not to become an aggressive and self-centered person, because self-affirmation is not that, is it about taking advantage of your social relationships and preventing others from taking advantage of you?-Spencer A. Rathus-
Rathus’ assertiveness test was developed more than 40 years ago, however, it remains equally valuable, reliable and useful in providing information about a person in this area.
It should be noted, however, that the test was updated during this period (Thompson and Berenbaum, 2011) and that it has now become more relevant for one aspect that Dr Spencer Rathus himself pointed out at the time.
There are people who perceive themselves as very assertive, when in fact what is present in their behavior and their style of communication is aggression, this instrument will also give us information to know if the subject has an aggressive and non-assertive profile.
Despite this “additional” utility, Rathus’ assertiveness test was designed for another purpose: to serve as a training scale.
This test provides information on
The Rathus scale consists of 30 items (questions) with 6 answer options (ranging from “Very characteristic of me” to “Nothing characteristic”). This test provides a final score as well as a percentile.
The questions are:
To get to the test result, evaluators know that there are questions with positive score and others with negative score, the sum of each point gives a number and, from it, you will be able to know in which percentile we are, identifying whether we are assertive, not assertive, moderately assertive or aggressive.
The psychologist who applies the test will be able to explain where each client should work, which tools and strategies would be best depending on the personal needs of each one.
Finally, it should be noted that self-affirmation is a matter of practice that also involves managing social insecurity and anxiety to define boundaries and establish relationships with others in a safer and more determined way.