A Scale for Express Assessment of Sense of Online-Offline Identity: Theoretical and Empirical Justification

In conditions of a shortage of tools designed to diagnose identity, and accordingly its new type associated with the use of information technology, we present the "Scale of express assessment of the feeling of online-offline identity". The technique allows us to diagnose the features of hybrid identity, which is formed in the context of integration of the real world and the world of the Internet. According to E. Erickson's concept, identity in its Self-aspect is to a certain extent available for introspection. Currently, studies predominate in which the structural and substantive characteristics of virtual and real identity are established by analyzing the self-descriptions of respondents (in particular, in the well-known test by M. Kuhn and T. McPartland, with classical and modified instructions) or comparing self-presentations with personal data. In contrast, the new technique diagnoses a sense of identity corresponding to the quality of being a person as a unique entity. It contains two direct statements based on the Likert scale type, suggesting that the respondent assesses the feeling of the truth of the Self in online and offline conditions. The sum of both measurements makes up the overall indicator of online-offline identity. The study sample consisted of 337 people from students to full-time and part-time adults from departments of Perm universities (19% men) ages 14 to 57 (M = 24.87; SD = 8.86). Smaller sub-samples were also used. The reliability of the overall scale of Hybrid onlineoffline identity in terms of internal consistency was 0.53. The retest reliability exceeded 0.6. Factor validity indicated the presence of a common scale of online-offline identity. The developed methodology, as part of the verification of convergent validity, was compared with methods for existential measurements, Internet addiction, and identity and demonstrated theoretically expected relationships. In general, the methodology meets the requirements of reliability and validity and can be used to study the feeling of online, offline and hybrid onlineoffline identity.