Construction and validation of a measure of integrative well-being in seven languages: The Pemberton Happiness Index

“These items were based on widely used scales (e.g., PANAS, Satisfaction With Life Scale, Subjective Happiness Scale, and Psychological Well-Being Scales).”

“Relevant measures include the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; [33]), Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; [34]), Flourishing Scale (FS; [35]), the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF; [36]), and Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS; [37]).”

“From attachment processes to later social bonds, social needs seem to be relevant across most developmental stages, and the depth of the social roots of human functioning and well-being is widely recognized (see [22]).”

“We used Ryff ’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB; [13]) to validate the items measuring eudaimonic wellbeing.”

“Most existing measures only cover one well-being domain, even though well-being is a conceptually complex construct [8-11].”

“Hedonic wellbeing underscores the importance of life satisfaction and affective components, whereas eudaimonic well-being is focused on optimal psychological functioning, which depends on self-fulfillment and includes the concepts of personal growth, purpose in life, and a sense of autonomy among others [9,13].”

“Note that in some contexts, psychological well-being is used to name one of the modern eudaimonic theories formulated by Ryff [10].”

“Although using a single-item scale implies diminished psychometric properties, it has been noted that this allows for an efficient assessment when needed [58].”

“To evaluate the incremental validity of the PHI for the whole sample compared to other widely used well-being scales, we conducted a series of separate regression analyses, employing sleep quality and perceived health as criteria because they are often considered adequate proxies of well-being [20,57].”

“Although there is cultural variation in the relevance assigned to happiness, a positive evaluation of one’s own life in conjunction with a state of positive emotions is universally valued as a significant component of a good life [1].”

“Assessment of well-being is crucial for validating theories and models of well-being [2], and measuring the outcome of positive interventions, particularly clinical interventions [3,4].”

“, optimal functioning), and social wellbeing (for a similar perspective, see [12]).”

“Structural validity was assessed using principal components factor analysis, and the number of factors was determined through the Velicer's minimum average partial test [51,52].”

“Relevant measures include the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; [33]), Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; [34]), Flourishing Scale (FS; [35]), the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF; [36]), and Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS; [37]).”

“It has been adapted for use in several languages and cultures [47].”

“Daniel Kahneman and colleagues [29], for example, developed the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), a procedure intended to reduce memory biases by asking people to reconstruct in detail how they spent their time and how they experienced the various activities and events of their lives within the past 24 hours (see a rev…”

“Although there are several components of social well-being (see [23,39]), we selected two items that tap into the global feeling of living in a society that promotes optimal psychological functioning.”

“Most current authors emphasize the existence of two ways to conceptualize well-being: hedonia and eudaimonia [14].”

“We included two items related to global satisfaction with life and one item of vitality as it is closely associated with eudaimonic functioning [38].”

“Structural validity was assessed using principal components factor analysis, and the number of factors was determined through the Velicer's minimum average partial test [51,52].”

“, “I am satisfied with my life”); it is the most common scale used to assess global satisfaction with life and has been implemented in several languages and cultures, providing good psychometric indices [41].”

“As perceived health is a consistent proxy of happiness and well-being [48,49], participants were asked to rate their health (i.”

“, confirmatory factor analysis) and then verify the presence of measurement invariance across different language versions of the index [64].”

“Recent research and theoretical elaboration on the eudaimonic perspective have provided sound arguments on ways to improve the design and measure of the wellbeing construct [15-19].”

“different from typical remembered well-being measures [68].”

“, life satisfaction, positive emotions, psychological functioning, and social well-being) [2,5,6], there is still a need for brief, comprehensive measures that can be used to make rapid, reliable, and valid assessments [7].”

“Daniel Kahneman and colleagues [29], for example, developed the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), a procedure intended to reduce memory biases by asking people to reconstruct in detail how they spent their time and how they experienced the various activities and events of their lives within the past 24 hours (see a rev…”

“These methods are inspired by the experience sampling method [6,28] where people are asked to note what they are doing and feeling in the very moment of the assessment.”

“Although there are several versions of the scale, we used the 39-item version [44,45], a questionnaire that covers the six areas of psychological well-being proposed in Ryff ’s model with six to eight items per area (environmental control, autonomy, positive relationships, purpose in life, personal growth, and self-ac…”

“Waterman [19] pointed out that “experiences of eudaimonia are always accompanied by experiences of hedonia, but.”

“, hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well-being) [56].”

“These current assessment instruments mainly rely on “remembered well-being” [24], which is based upon participants’ memory and judgment of their lives.”

“Some authors have warned against high homogeneity as it may indicate that several items have been paraphrased [63]; however, this is not our case.”

“Authors from the eudaimonic tradition maintain that any well-being measure lacking eudaimonic components is incomplete [17,18].”

“, telephone surveys) in some aspects such as less item nonresponse, and worse in other aspects such as response rate and item differentiation [73].”

“While some authors defend the idea of using no more than 7 categories [59], others favor the idea of using more categories [60].”

“3 We followed the criteria described by Hambleton and Patsula [74] who suggested that a rigorous instrument adaptation process should involve at least three steps: (a) translating the test from a source to target language, (b) translating the test back into the source language (back translation), and (c) using indepen…”

“Assessment of well-being is crucial for validating theories and models of well-being [2], and measuring the outcome of positive interventions, particularly clinical interventions [3,4].”

“For instance, Oishi [32] compared well-being reports of Asian and European Americans and found that although there were no cultural differences in experienced well-being, European Americans reported a higher degree of well-being than Asians in retrospective global reports.”

“, life satisfaction, positive emotions, psychological functioning, and social well-being) [2,5,6], there is still a need for brief, comprehensive measures that can be used to make rapid, reliable, and valid assessments [7].”

“Other researchers used this method in the past to reach a single score based on positive and negative experiences of the day before [53].”

“To evaluate the incremental validity of the PHI for the whole sample compared to other widely used well-being scales, we conducted a series of separate regression analyses, employing sleep quality and perceived health as criteria because they are often considered adequate proxies of well-being [20,57].”

“Recent research and theoretical elaboration on the eudaimonic perspective have provided sound arguments on ways to improve the design and measure of the wellbeing construct [15-19].”

“, personality, culture, memory, and assessment conditions) [25-27].”

“We are aware that the use of a self-report retrospective approach, such as the one used in the PHI and the Gallup study [66], does not completely preclude memory and judgmental biases when assessing experienced well-being.”

“Thus, an adequate assessment of well-being requires assessing both affect, including evaluations of one’s own life, and positive (and negative) functioning [17,21].”

“For example, it seems that natural and induced sad moods are associated with decreased sensitivity to reward but not decreased sensitivity to punishment (Hervas & Vázquez 2013a).”