Berkowitz & Daniels social responsibility scale: Development and validation

The measurement of social responsibility as a disposition is based on the Berkowitz & Daniels-scale. The German translation attains satisfactory test statistics. In addition, two subscales have been developed: fulfillment of justified expectations of others and adherence to social rules. The validity results are encouraging: Social responsibility is positively correlated with empathy and internal locus of control and negatively with uncertainty. The correlations with responsibility denial are in the expected direction for males, while null correlations are obtained for females. The results for Females are explained by the fact that the subscales correlate in the opposite direction with responsibility denial. Finally, results indicate that social responsibility and prosocial behavior covary. Key words: social responsibility, responsibility denial, uncertainty, empathy, internal locus of control.