The Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale (RCBS)

13 Item Shyness Scale

Cheek J.M. (1983). Unpublished Wellesley College Wellesley MA 02181
Original 9-item version in Cheek J.M. & Buss A.H. (1981). Shyness and sociability. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 41 330-339.
INSTRUCTIONS: Please read each item carefully and decide to what extent it is characteristic
of your feelings and behavior. Fill in the blank next to each item by choosing a number from the
scale printed below.
1 = Very uncharacteristic or untrue strongly disagree
2 = Uncharacteristic
3 = Neutral
4 = characteristic
5 = Very characteristic or true strongly agree
____ 1. I feel tense when I'm with people I don't know well.
____ 2. I am socially somewhat awkward.
____ 3. I do not find it difficult to ask other people for information.
____ 4. I am often uncomfortable at parties and other social functions.
____ 5. When in a group of people I have trouble thinking of the right things to talk about.
____ 6. It does not take me long to overcome my shyness in new situations.
____ 7. It is hard for me to act natural when I am meeting new people.
____ 8. I feel nervous when speaking to someone in authority.
____ 9. I have no doubts about my social competence.
____ 10. I have trouble looking someone right in the eye.
____ 11. I feel inhibited in social situations.
____ 12. I do not find it hard to talk to strangers.
____ 13. I am more shy with members of the opposite sex.
Items 3 6 9 & 12 are reversed recode before scoring. (1=5) (2=4) (4=2) (5=1)
For college students mean = 33.3 for men and 32.4 for women alpha coefficient = .90 45-day
retest reliability = .88 correlation with aggregated ratings of shyness by friends and family = .
68 and correlation with original 9-item version = .96. This revised scale is copyright
1983 Jonathan M. Cheek. The scale may be used in non-profit educational research without
further permission.
For More Information

Cheek J.M. & Briggs S.R. (1990). Shyness as a personality trait. In W.R. Crozier (Ed.)
Shyness and Embarrassment: Perspectives from Social Psychology (pp. 315 - 337). Cambridge
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Cheek J. M. & Melchior L.A. (1990). Shyness self-esteem and self-consciousness. In H.
Leitenberg (Ed.) Handbook of Social and Evaluation Anxiety (pp. 47-82). New York: Plenum
Publishing.
Leary M.R. (1991). Social anxiety shyness and related Constructs. In Robinson J.P.
Shaver P.R. & Wrightsman L.S. (Eds.) Measures of Personality and Social Psychological
Attitudes (pp. 182-184). San Diego: Academic Press.