Measuring shame across five countries: dimensionality and measurement invariance of the external and internal shame scale

Shame is a universal emotion, albeit having a bewildering constellation of causes, valuations, and behavioural consequences that differ across social ecologies. This transdiagnostic emotion may be categorized into two distinct components: external and internal shame. The External and Internal Shame Scale (EISS) has proven to be a brief and reliable instrument to assess external and internal shame, as well as a global sense of shame. The current study aims to corroborate the validity of the EISS and expand its utility, by investigating its dimensionality and testing its measurement invariance in samples from five eclectic countries from Europe, East and Southeast Asia and Australia. Differences in EISS scores across the five countries were also explored. This cross-national study included 1405 participants recruited in community samples of adults from Portuguese, French, Australian, Singaporean and Japanese populations, who completed the EISS in four different languages. An hierarchical model with two factors (external and internal shame) loading on one global factor (global shame) revealed good fit to the data in the total sample and in each of the five countries’ samples, and the instrument showed good reliability across countries. The EISS factorial structure also proved to be invariant across countries. Differences in global shame, external and internal shame scores were found between the countries. By supporting the factorial structure, reliability and measurement invariance of the EISS across countries, this study contributes to expand the use of the EISS across nations and in different languages, both in research and clinical settings.