Turkish Adaptation of Personal Social Responsibility Scale: Validity and Reliability Study

The concept of personal social responsibility is a crucial notion that significantly impacts both individuals and society as a whole. Individuals' embrace of social responsibility leads to positive developments economically, ecologically, psychologically, and socially. It also plays a protective role factor against potential risks and crises. The purpose of this research is to adapt the Personal Social Responsibility Scale into Turkish and to test its validity and reliability within the context of a sample from Turkey. The research sample comprises 223 individuals between the ages of 20 and 65 years, including 111 males and 112 females, all of whom have a steady income. Translation efforts were conducted in line with the research objective, followed by the use of confirmatory factor analysis and discriminant validity methods to test validity and reliability. The confirmatory factor analysis resulted in the desired fit and item-total correlation values, ensuring the expected differentiation regarding the scale. As a result, a valid, reliable, and practical tool for assessing the level of personal social responsibility within the Turkish sample was developed through this research.


Introduction
In the 21st-century, as opportunities and possibilities have become global, it's evident that problems have also become universal, expanding in scope and impact.From migration and refugee crises to wars, environmental pollution to natural disasters, and terrorism to hunger, multifaceted global issues persistently remain on the agenda of this era (Yeşil, 2021).Addressing these regional or global-scale issues involves responsibilities not only for states and institutions but also assigns certain roles to individuals.This situation accentuates the concept of individual responsibility.
Responsibility is a broadly defined concept described in various dimensions such as personal, social, and moral in the literature (Sheldon et al., 2018).Wray-Lake & Syvertsen (2011) define responsibility as an individual's ability to be accountable for their own decisions and actions, to be seen as trustworthy by others, and to act sensitively toward issues within their control.Another definition portrays responsibility as a person's display of interest in themselves and others, fulfilling their duties, engaging in societal processes, being sensitive to their own and others' pains, attempting to alleviate that pain, and striving for a better world (Lickona, 1991(Lickona, , as cited in Özen, 2015)).
Personal responsibility involves attitudes and behaviors such as maintaining respect in relationships, practicing selfdiscipline and self-care, pursuing goals, making independent decisions, and being accountable for them (Costa et al., 1991;Messina, 2004).Essentially, personal responsibility involves an individual's effort to make their own life physically, socially, and mentally healthier and more reliable (Erzurumlu Ceylan, 2022).
Responsibility not only encompasses a personal aspect but also a societal dimension that influences the individual's surroundings and the community in which they live (Özen, 2009).The attitudes and behaviors of individuals aiming for such social benefits are evaluated within the scope of the concept of social responsibility.
Social responsibilities are shaped according to the needs and expectations of the societies in which individuals live (Ada & Çetin, 2006).Social responsibility has two distinct dimensions: personal and institutional.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a type of responsibility that primarily concerns businesses.CSR signifies the efforts of businesses to address social and environmental issues through organizational activities.
Accordingly, organizations and businesses should engage in social responsibility activities aligned with the values and goals of society (Mohr et al., 2001).When it comes to individuals' responsibilities towards the social environment and society, the concept of personal social responsibility, which is another dimension of social responsibility, comes into play.
Personal social responsibility requires individuals to consciously approach and act on social issues.Çınar (2013) defines personal social responsibility as "an individual, based on their character, assuming the consequences of their actions toward society, social groups, or other individuals within their sphere of influence."Actions related to personal social responsibility emerge based on the needs and demands of society and may change over time (Eraslan, 2011).Within personal social responsibility, an individual feels accountable towards others, thereby exhibiting tendencies towards activities rooted in cooperation and sharing (Scales et al., 2000).Eraslan (2011) outlines the characteristics of personal social responsibility as being voluntarism-based, emotional, teachable, collaborationfocused, inclusive of all societal realms, and rooted in awareness-based project management.Considering these insights, personal social responsibility encapsulates a series of endeavors highlighting concepts such as assistance, sharing, solidarity, empathy, sensitivity, and awareness.It shifts the focus away from self-centeredness, prioritizing the overall welfare of society.
Social responsibility has been extensively explored in the literature, with a predominant focus on corporate social responsibility, while the scope of research on personal social responsibility appears limited.Studies on personal social responsibility have revealed its relationship with various variables.Within these inquiries, positive relationships between social responsibility and academic achievement (Wentzel, 1991) and job satisfaction (Aliakbari & Babanezhad, 2013) have been identified, whereas negative correlations have been found between social responsibility and future anxiety (Salah, 2021).Findings from these studies reveal that personal social responsibility is a significant concept that interacts with various areas such as anxiety, success, and professional satisfaction within both society and individuals.This emphasizes the importance of valid and reliable measurement tools in the assessment of personal social responsibility.
Various measurement tools aimed at assessing personal social responsibility can be found in the international literature.Among these, the Responsibility Scale, consisting of 8 items and 2 dimensions developed by Arslan & Wong (2022), and the Personal Social Responsibility Scale, comprising 19 items and 5 dimensions devised by Davis et al. (2020), have garnered attention in recently.
In the field literature, three studies adapted or developed for Turkish audiences have been identified.The Individual and Social Responsibility Scale, originally developed by Li et al. (2008) and adapted to Turkish by Filiz & Demirhan (2016), measures middle school students' levels of individual and social responsibility in a unidimensional consisting of 13 items.The Social Responsibility Scale, developed by Demir (2019), measures the social responsibility of primary school students.The scale, comprising 32 items, consists of two factors: 'effort' and 'self-direction'.Another scale, the Individual Social Responsibility Scale, developed by Eraslan (2011), aims to measure university students' levels of individual social responsibility.This 28-item scale is unidimensional in structure.

Method Research Model
Firstly, a translation process was completed to ensure linguistic equivalence.Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to demonstrate construct validity, followed by assessing discriminant validity in the final stage.

Translation Process
In the translation process of the Personal Social Responsibility Scale into Turkish, the steps suggested by Brislin et al. (1973) were followed.Accordingly, two independent experts who were competent in the original language translated the scale into Turkish.Subsequently, similarities and differences between the two translated Turkish versions were evaluated and documented by two translators and a researcher.Three experts in the field reviewed the comprehensibility of expressions, word and sentence structures, and cultural compatibility of the translated scale in Turkish.Upon consensus, the translated Turkish version was retranslated into English by two different experts to identify similarities and dissimilarities with the original version.Finally, the scale was refined based on the evaluation of aspects that aligned or diverged from the original version.

Study Group
This study involved 223 participants who were adults and had a regular income.The participants comprised 111 males and 112 females.Their ages ranged from 20 to 65 years.

Measurement Tools
Personal Social Responsibility Scale.The scale originally named the "Personal Social Responsibility Scale" was developed by Davis and colleagues in 2020.The original language of the scale is English.The scale measures 5 subscales: philanthropic, environmental, ethical, legal, and economic.It consists of 19 items in total.The items are rated on an 11-point Likert scale, with no reverse-scoring.Items are scored between 0 and 10, where 0 represents "Strongly Disagree," and 10 represents "Strongly Agree."Items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 assess philanthropy; items 6, 7, 8, and 9 assess environmental responsibility; items 10, 11, 12, and 13 assess ethical responsibility; items 14, 15, and 16 assess legal responsibility; and items 17, 18, and 19 assess economic responsibility.The original scale demonstrates a cronbach's alpha coefficient above .79.Factor loadings of the items on the scale range between .56 and .86.
The Selfishness Questionnaire.The original Selfishness Questionnaire was developed by Raine & Uh (2018) and comprises 24 items.Yılmaz (2018) conducted a Turkish adaptation of the scale, which includes 18 items rated on a scale of 1-3.The scale measures three sub-dimensions of selfishness: adaptive, egocentric, and pathological.

Data Analysis
The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) method was employed to examine whether the Personal Social Responsibility Scale, whose construct validity was previously tested in its original language, remains valid in Turkish.Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using the IBM SPSS Amos 24.The following fit indices were used as references for the model to exhibit good fit: χ2 / df <3; RMSEA and SRMR <.05; AGFI <.90; NFI, IFI, GFI, CFI, and TLI <.95.Acceptable fit indices were defined as χ2 / df <5; RMSEA and SRMR <.08; AGFI <.85; NFI, IFI, GFI, CFI, and TLI <.90 (Byrne, 2010;Kline, 2011).Subsequently, the correlation between the Selfishness Questionnaire and the Personal Social Responsibility Scale was examined for discriminant validity.

Reliability of the Scales
As shown in Table 1, the total cronbach's alpha value for the Personal Social Responsibility Scale was calculated as .88.When examining the subscales, the cronbach's alpha value was found to be .82for philanthropic responsibility, .82for environmental responsibility, .79 for ethical responsibility, .87 for legal responsibility, and .61for economic responsibility.There are studies indicating that an internal consistency coefficient higher than .60 in scales with few items is sufficient for the scale to be considered reliable (Cortina, 1993;Cronbach, 2004; as cited in Üztemur & Dinç, 2022).According to Özdamar (2002), a cronbach's alpha coefficient within the range of .81-1.00 indicates high reliability, .61-.80 indicates moderate reliability, and .41-.60 indicates low reliability.Therefore, considering that the total Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the Personal Social Responsibility Scale was calculated as .88, it can be stated that the scale demonstrates high reliability.Looking at the subscales, philanthropic responsibility, environmental responsibility, and legal responsibility exhibit high reliability, while ethical and economic responsibilities seem to show moderate reliability.In addition, cronbach's alpha value for the Selfishness Questionnaire was calculated as .84 in this study.

Internal Consistency
To demonstrate the internal consistency of the adapted scale, item-total correlations calculated are provided in Table 2.As observed in Table 2, all item-total correlations fall within the range of .25 to .71.Subscale correlations for items range between .33 and .78.An item-total correlation above .40indicates excellent distinction, between .30and .40 is considered good, and within .20 to .30 is deemed an acceptable discriminative level (Büyüköztürk, 2015).
As all item-total correlations were above .20,no items were removed from the scale.Similarly, cronbach's alpha coefficient did not exceed .88 when any item was removed, indicating that all original items were retained in the adapted scale.

Discriminant Validity
The correlation between the Personal Social Responsibility Scale adapted into Turkish and the Egocentrism Scale was examined to assess the validity of the adaptation.The fact that the correlations are significant and in the desired direction can be considered as another evidence for the validity of the adapted scale.

Discussion, Conclusion & Suggestions
Personal social responsibility is important concept that significantly impacts both the individual and society in various ways.Individuals who are socially responsible lead to positive developments economically, ecologically, psychologically, and socially.It also plays a protective role against potential risks and crises (Özen, 2010;Soyyiğit, 2019).In this context, fostering individuals with high personal social responsibility and increasing awareness about it will contribute to the proliferation of fair, democratic, and humane social structures, ultimately resulting in the proliferation of healthy and happy individuals.
A review of the international literature reveals that various measurement tools have been developed to measure this aspect of individuals.The 'Personal and Social Responsibility Questionnaire (PSRQ)' developed by Li et al. (2008) is a 14-item scale that measures personal social responsibility.On this scale, the first 7 items, which are rated on a 6-point Likert scale, measure social responsibility, while the remaining 7 items measure personal responsibility.
The scale is used to measure the responsibility levels of children between the ages of 9 and 15.Another 8-item scale developed by Arslan and Wong (2022) measures two dimensions, personal and social, and can be used in the adult population.
Regarding studies conducted in Turkey, the Individual and Social Responsibility Scale developed by Li et al. (2008) mentioned earlier has been adapted into Turkish by Filiz and Demirhan (2015).Eraslan (2011), on the other hand, created a unidimensional scale named the Individual Social Responsibility Scale, consisting of 28 items.In another study, Demir (2019) developed a 32-item, two-dimensional scale to measure the level of social responsibility among fourth primary school students.
The scale developed by Davis et al. (2020), which was the subject of this adaptation study, can measure 5 subdimensions: philanthropic, environmental, ethical, legal, and economic.The fact that personal social responsibility, which is a multidimensional concept, can be handled together with these 5 sub-dimensions and can be used on adults with income is seen as the strength of this scale.Therefore, the purpose of this study is to adapt the Personal Social Responsibility Scale developed by Davis et al. (2020) to the Turkish and Turkish cultural context.
In accordance with the purpose of the study, a translation study was conducted, CFA and discriminant validity analyses were applied for reliability and validity.The findings indicate that the adapted scale possesses sufficient statistical properties to measure personal social responsibility along with its philanthropic, environmental, ethical, legal, and economic sub-dimensions.In this context, the adapted scale is particularly suitable for use by researchers engaged in social sciences.
The adaptation study of the Personal Social Responsibility Scale was conducted on adult individuals with regular income in Turkey.According to the July 2023 statistics of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), the employment rate of women in Turkey is 31.5%.(TÜİK, 2023).There is no evidence that the adapted scale can measure the personal social responsibility of unemployed men and women.In addition, since the study involves social issues and Annex 1: Personal Social Responsibility (Kişisel Sosyal Sorumluluk Ölçeği) 1) Bir sivil toplum kuruluşu ile iş birliği yapmaktayım.
Note: The scale can be used by researchers and educators without permission, provided that they cite the source and maintain scientific ethics (Ölçek, kaynak göstermek ve bilimsel etiği korumak şartıyla, araştırmacılar ve eğitimciler tarafından izin alınmadan kullanılabilir).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.CFA model results for the Personal Social Responsibility Scale

Table 1
Cronbach's Alpha's for Personal Social Responsiblity Scale and The Selfishness Scale

Table 2
Item-Total Statistics for Personal Social Responsiblity Scale * PHIL = Philanthropic responsibility; ENV = Environmental responsibility; ETH = Ethical responsibility; LEG = Legal responsibility; ECO = Economic responsibility.