The Need to Belong Scale revisited: Spanish validation, wording effect in its measurement and its relationship with social networks use in adolescence.

Abstract

During adolescence, the need to belong is a basic motivation that drives the building of strong in-terpersonal links with peers, and online social networks are one of the most widely used media today for this purpose. A Spanish-adaptation of the Need to Belong Scale (Leary et al., 2013) and a self-developed instrument about the social network uses were administered to a representative sample of 524 adolescents (Mage = 13.57, SD = 1.24). Six models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis, in order to assess the possible effect of the wording on this measure. Our research supports the presence of a wording effect on the Need to Belong Scale and suggests the need to revise the wording of the items of the scales of this construct. Likewise, it was also observed that those adolescents with a high need to belong are using online social networks more frequently and in more varied ways.