Imaginary audience responses among Anglo and Mexican-American early adolescents.

Abstract

This study examined selected psychometric properties of the Situation Scale for Adolescents (SISA), a Dutch instrument and extension of the Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS) which purports to measure presence of an imaginary audience. The SISA, plus several additional items, was administered to 273 adolescents in grades 7 and 8 in order to investigate the imaginary audience phenomenon in terms of gender, ethnicity, and dating pattern. The ethnic composition of the sample was approximately 52% Anglo, 38% Mexican-American, and 10% other. The SISA had high estimates of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) and adequate evidence of convergent and discriminant validity with the adolescents. It was determined that the SISA is more reliable than the IAS and that it is suitable for use with American subjects. Factorial analyses of variance indicated that females demonstrated significantly higher imaginary audience responses than males. There were no significant differences in SISA means between Anglo and Mexican-American subjects. Adolescents reporting previous dating experience exhibited significantly lower sensitivity to the imaginary audience than those adolescents who had not yet begun to date. The latter finding lends support to Elkind's hypothesis that social experiences (e.g., dating) help diminish the imaginary audience, a manifestation of adolescent egocentrism.