Developing the University of the Philippines Loneliness Assessment Scale: A Cross-Cultural Measurement

As the existing scales to measure loneliness are almost all Western and there is no single scale developed cross-culturally for this purpose, this study is designed to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure the experience of loneliness of individuals from individualistic or collectivistic cultures. There are three samples for this study with a total of 495 male and female international (n = 202) and local (n = 293) participants (Age range 19–60 years). An initial pool of 70 item scale was administered to a sample of 202 participants (20–60 years old) from 41 countries of the world with collectivistic and individualistic cultures and the data was subjected to factor analysis using principal component extraction. Evidence shows a unidimensional factor loading. The extracted items were subjected to reliability test and 25 items were obtained for the final scale of the UP Loneliness Assessment Scale (UPLAS) with a Cronbach alpha of .93. Further analyses show the following findings: UPLAS has a significant correlation with R-UCLA Loneliness Scale providing evidence for its moderate concurrent validity; there is a significant and inverse relationship between the measures of UPLAS and Subjective Happiness Scale establishing its higher discriminant validity; UPLAS scores are significantly correlated with the measures of negative self-perceptions, depression, and several emotional states associated to loneliness and thus establishing a higher convergent validity. The designing of the UP Loneliness Assessment Scale as a cross-cultural measurement tool may contribute to more research interests in the domain of “negative perceptions” as the most contributing factor to loneliness across cultures.     

中国老年人的主观年龄及影响因素分析

随着中国老龄化进程的加快,越来越多的研究开始探讨老年的定义和标准,但很少有研究直观地描述和分析老年人对自身进入老年的年龄标准的看法以及其主观年龄的差异。本研究使用2014年至2018年中国老年社会追踪调查的三期数据,比较分析不同队列在不同实际年龄(日历年龄)下认定的自身进入老年的年龄标准的变化以及不同实际年龄老年人的主观年龄的差异。数据分析结果显示受访者自我认定的老年的年龄标准平均为70岁,远高于社会上通常认定的60岁或65岁的标准;主观年龄和主观外表年龄平均在68岁左右,低于受访者的平均实际年龄(71岁),超过六成的受访者的主观年龄与主观外表年龄比实际年龄“更年轻”。进一步的统计模型分析结果显示健康状况越好、与子女同住、有广泛的朋友支持网络以及更愿意参与村居委会投票的老年人所认定的自己进入老年的年龄标准也更高。更多的社区娱乐场所或设施和室外活动场地也能显著地提高受访者认定的进入老年的年龄标准。更高的受教育程度以及更好的健康状况是促使老年人的主观年龄和主观外表年龄小于实际年龄的重要因素。本文直观地描述了不同实际年龄的老年人所认定的自身进入老年的年龄标准以及其主观年龄与实际年龄的差异,为与年龄相关的老龄政策的制定提供了参考。     

Investigating Validity Evidence of the Satisfaction with Life Scale Adapted for Children

This study introduces the Satisfaction with Life Scale adapted for Children (SWLS-C) and presents psychometric findings regarding its validation. The SWLS-C was adapted from the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985), which is one of the most commonly used measures to assess satisfaction with life in adults. Three subject matter experts adapted the SWLS by changing the wording of the item stem and response format in order to make it more understandable for children. A stratified random sample of 1,233 students (48% girls) in grades 4–7 (mean age 11 years and 7 months) provided data on the SWLS-C and measures of optimism, self-concept, self-efficacy, depression, emphatic concern, and perspective taking. The SWLS-C demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and high internal consistency. Furthermore, differential item functioning and differential scale functioning analyses indicated that the SWLS-C measures satisfaction with life in the same way for different groups of children (i.e., with regard to gender, first language learned at home—English vs. other language(s) than English—and across different grades) at the item and at the scale level. Associations between scores on the SWLS-C and demographic variables were statistically non-significant or of small effect size. In addition, the SWLS-C showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity in relation to the other measures. Our results indicate that the SWLS-C is a psychometrically sound instrument that demonstrated evidence of construct validity for this age group. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Getting Older and Getting Happier with Work: An Information-Processing Explanation

Job attitudes and subjective well-being (SWB) have important relationships with one another. Moreover, job attitudes and, to an extent, SWB are related to chronological age. Owing to a ??graying?? workforce in industrialized countries, uncovering how age influences job attitudes is increasingly important. The present work explores the effects of cognitive-aging research on the item response process during attitude measurement. Research finds that older individuals attend selectively to positive affective experiences and weigh affective experiences more heavily during judgment than younger individuals. Based on cognitive-aging research, we propose an item-response process and hypothesize that chronological age results in a specific form of measurement non-equivalence. Our hypothesis is tested on 2 different samples of university employees, across 3 different job attitudes rooted in emotional experiences. Results indicate age-related measurement non-equivalence across all 3 attitudes such that older employees report more positive job attitudes than younger employees even when controlling for the latent attitude construct. Our findings suggest caution in interpreting of age-satisfaction correlations, focusing greater attention on understanding item response processes of older versus younger individuals and increased attention to job-related emotional experience for older employees.     

Investigating Longitudinal and Cross Cultural Measurement Invariance of Inglehart’s Short Post-materialism Scale

Inglehart applies a four item ranking scale to measure post-materialism which is used for cross-cultural and cross-temporal comparative purposes. The aim of this research is to test measurement invariance of the scale to establish to what extent the scale produces comparable results in time and between countries. We use Eurobarometer data to test longitudinal comparability for ten countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, West-Germany, Luxembourg, Denmark, Ireland, Great Britain and North Ireland) over a period of 20 years (1976–1997). With the exception of Denmark the within-country longitudinal comparisons indicate that measurement invariance is a tenable assumption. However, the findings of the cross-cultural analyses indicate that the meaning assigned to the four items differs slightly between countries, indicating a lack of comparability of the average level of post-materialism between countries. Findings also suggest that a lack of unidimensionality of the scale might cause this incomparability.     

Cross-National Measurement Invariance of the Teacher and Classmate Support Scale

The cross-national measurement invariance of the teacher and classmate support scale was assessed in a study of 23202 Grade 8 and 10 students from Austria, Canada, England, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, and Slovenia, participating in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) 2001/2002 study. A multi-group means and covariance analysis supported configural and metric invariance across countries, but not full scalar equivalence. The composite reliability was adequate and highly consistent across countries. In all seven countries, teacher support showed stronger associations with school satisfaction than did classmate support, with the results being highly consistent across countries. The results indicate that the teacher and classmate support scale may be used in cross-cultural studies that focus on relationships between teacher and classmate support and other constructs. However, the lack of scalar equivalence indicates that direct comparison of the levels support across countries might not be warranted.     

Loneliness and Self-Esteem as Mediators Between Social Support and Life Satisfaction in Late Adolescence

This study examined both the mediation effects of loneliness and self-esteem for the relationship between social support and life satisfaction. Three hundred and eighty nine Chinese college students, ranging in age from 17 to 25 (M = 20.39), completed the emotional and social loneliness scale, the self-esteem scale, the satisfaction with life scale and measure of social support. Structural equation modeling showed full mediation effects of loneliness and self-esteem between social support and life satisfaction. The final model also revealed a significant path from social support through loneliness and self-esteem to life satisfaction. Furthermore, a multi-group analysis found that the paths did not differ across sexes. The findings provided the external validity for the full mediation effects of loneliness and self-esteem and valuable evidence for more complicated relations among the variables.     

Psychometric Properties of the PsychoSomatic Problems Scale: A Rasch Analysis on Adolescent Data

The PsychoSomatic Problems (PSP)-scale is built upon eight items intended to tap information about psychosomatic problems among schoolchildren and adolescents in general populations. The purpose of the study is to analyse the psychometric properties of the PSP-scale by means of the Rasch model, with a focus on the operating characteristics of the items. Cross-sectional adolescent data collected in Sweden at six points in time between 1988 and 2005 are used for the analysis. In all more than 15,000 students aged 15–16 are included in the analysis. Data were examined with respect to invariance across the latent trait, Differential Item Functioning (DIF), item categorisation and unidimensionality. The results show that the PSP-scale adequately meets measurement criteria of invariance and proper categorisation of the items. Also the targeting is good and the reliability is high. Since the scale works invariantly across years of investigation it is appropriate for re-current monitoring of psychosomatic health complaints in general populations of adolescents. Taking DIF into account through principles of equating provides a scale that shows no statistically significant signs of gender-DIF enabling invariant comparisons also between boys and girls.     

Assessing Adjustment to Aging: A Validation Study for the Adjustment to Aging Scale (AtAS)

Adjustment to aging (AtA) is a multifactor adjustment process with implications on aging well among older adults. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale to assess the factors that older adults recognized as indicators of their AtA, with a cross-national comparative perspective towards aging well. Convenience sampling was used to gather questionnaire data, including demographics and the proposed scale. Complete data was available for 1,291 older community-dwelling adults, aged between 75 and 102 years (M = 83.9; SD = 6.68), who represented four different nationalities. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed for dimension reduction and exploration of the factorial structure. Data gathered with the 22-items AtA five-factor scale showed overall good psychometric properties (in terms of distributional properties, statistical significant factor weights, factorial, convergent, discriminant criterion and external-related validities, as well as reliability). Five factors were selected for the Adjustment to Aging Scale: (a) sense of purpose and ambitions (b) zest and spirituality; (c) body and health; (d) aging in place and stability; and (e) social support. We present a 22-item scale with five factors for AtA estimation in a cross-national elderly population which produced valid and reliable data for elder persons from four different nationalities. Results showed that this scale is an adequate cross-cultural instrument for research, clinical practice and program development in the health care context. These may benefit from clearly understanding AtA as an important component for reducing health disparities and for aging well, across nationalities.     

The Personal Wellbeing Index: Psychometric Equivalence for Adults and School Children

Despite the wealth of accumulated research evaluating subjective wellbeing (SWB) in children and adults, the validity of scores from parallel forms of SWB measures for each age group has yet to be empirically tested. This study examines the psychometric equivalence of the child and adult forms of the personal wellbeing index (PWI) using multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis. The child sample comprised 1,029 Victorian high-school students (aged 11–20) sampled across three independent studies. The adult sample comprised 1,965 Australian adults drawn from the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index. The results demonstrated strict factorial invariance between both versions, suggesting that the PWI measures the same underlying construct in adolescent and adult populations. These findings provide support for quantitative comparisons between adult and adolescent SWB data as valid.     

Patterns of Time Use Across the Life Span in Korea: A Latent Class Analysis and Age and Gender Differences

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of time use and the patterns of time use across the life span using a socioemotional selectivity theory. The data used for this study were from the “Korean Time Use Survey,” which is collected every 5 years by Statistics Korea (KOSTAT). The data collected in 1999, 2004, and 2009 were used to analyze the patterns of time use using latent class analyses and to observe the differences of time use by age and gender. The results were summarized as follows: Based on the analyses of nine behavior classifications, after sleep and personal care, Korean allocated more time in daily activities to relationship and leisure time, followed by education, paid work, and household management, with the order differing between each age group and gender. Three different classes of time use were classified at each age group. Education-centered time use was revealed to be mainly in the young, paid work-centered in the middle-aged, and relationship and leisure-centered in older adults. We find significant gender differences. Men’s patterns of time did not change markedly across the 3 years, while women’s patterns have shifted. Meanwhile, in the age 65 and older group, paid work appeared alongside as well as leisure among most prominent activities, were appeared as dominant forms of time use. This phenomenon is closely related to reflecting high rates of elderly poverty in Korea. Further discussions concerning the time use by age and gender were provided and countermeasures for changing time use in later life were discussed.     

Resilience in low-income African American women living and aging with HIV

Women are living with HIV into middle and older age and are likely to face multiple comorbidities and stressors as they age. This study focused on understanding how women who experience multiple forms of oppression and ongoing adversity are still able to adapt and stand strong. Using a theoretical framework of resilience and a feminist research ideology, interviews of eight middle-aged and older African American women living with HIV were analyzed. Despite experiences of HIV-related discrimination, trauma, and violence, these women demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt and maintain support. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Factorial Validity and Invariance of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale Among Portuguese Youngsters

The purpose of the present study was to examine the reliability, factorial validity and measurement invariance (across gender, age and physical activity participation) of a Portuguese version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). The sample consisted of 1,763 Portuguese youngsters (731 male and 1,032 female) with ages between 15 and 20 years. Reliability estimate for the one-factor solution was .845, although some proposed RSES’s underlying dimensions were lower than .70. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the best-fitting model was a single self-esteem factor, plus simultaneous correlated uniqueness for positively and negatively worded items. Multigroup analysis supported measurement invariance across age and physical activity participation, and partial metric invariance across gender, as three items failed to show metric equivalence. These results provide evidence that RSES has excellent psychometric properties and it is a valid self-esteem measure to be used among Portuguese youngsters.     

Measurement Invariance of Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Scales Across Italian and Belarusian Students

Cross-cultural researches on the Ryff’s Psychological Well-being (PWB) Scales are currently not available. The aim of the paper was to investigate the measurement invariance of the 18-item version of the PWB Scales across 1,114 high school and undergraduate Italian and Belarusian students. After identifying the six correlated first-order factors and one second-order factor model of the Ryff’s PWB Scales, as baseline model for each sample, multi-groups confirmatory factor analyses were subsequently performed. All analyses were performed using the Robust Diagonally Weighted Least Squares estimation procedures, entering a polychoric correlation matrix. Multi-groups analyses showed that factor structure of the preferred model did not change across the Italian and Belarusian samples. Although the obtained results provided a preliminary support for cross-cultural structural invariance of the PWB Scales, further investigations are required to ensure its generalizability and applicability. Limitations and suggestions for future researches as well as psychosocial applications for educational context were discussed.     

Does Child Gender Predict Older Parents’ Well-Being?

Inconsistencies in comparisons of older parents’ well-being with that of older, childless adults may be resolved by considering the separate effects of sons and daughters on parents. The hypothesis was that older parents of only daughters have greater life satisfaction, more satisfying relations with their children, more intimate family relations, and greater social support satisfaction compared to older childless adults and parents of only sons. Childless older adults were predicted to have more intimate friends. The effect of having both sons and daughters was also explored. Longitudinal results indicated parents had greater life satisfaction than childless adults, and parents of daughters were more satisfied with relations with their children than parents of only sons. Childless adults had more relations with friends and fewer family intimate relations. Neither social support satisfaction or affect varied across groups. The findings are related to gender socialization, social support, and normative expectations.     

The Meaning and Measurement of Productive Engagement in Later Life

This study draws from the work engagement literature to define engagement as an indicator of role quality and to develop a measure—The Productive Engagement Portfolio (PEP)—that can be used to assess engagement in work, volunteering, caregiving, and informal helping among older adults. A Rasch measurement approach was used to develop both Likert-based and semantic-differential-based measures of engagement across 4 roles. Items for both scales were developed through an iterative process that included focus groups, 4 pilot tests, and one full-scale administration. Results suggest that the psychological state of engagement can be conceptualized and measured on a meaningful continuum defining a unidimensional and hierarchical construct ranging from lower to higher levels of engagement. The technical characteristics of the items were found to be invariant across each productive role type for both measurement approaches and the meaning of person scores within a role were found to be independent of the response format for both approaches. Using score conversion charts designed to translate the scale scores into a form that is readily transparent and usable for practitioners, our scales can easily and meaningfully chart a person’s level of engagement pre- and post-intervention. The PEP instrument can also be used in survey research or by practitioners in community or medical settings to assess the extent to which older adults are involved in roles that enhance their overall quality of life.     

Dimensionality of the Chinese Perceived Causes of Poverty Scale: Findings Based on Confirmatory Factor Analyses

The Chinese Perceived Causes of Poverty Scale (CPCPS) was constructed to assess Chinese people’s beliefs about poverty. Four categories of explanations of poverty are covered in this scale: personal problems of poor people, lack of opportunities to escape from poverty, exploitation of poor people, and bad fate. Based on the responses of 1,519 Chinese secondary school students to the CPCPS, confirmatory factor analyses provided support for these four dimensions of the scale. By splitting the total sample into two sub-samples, further analyses showed that the CPCPS was invariant with reference to factor structure (configural invariance), factor loadings (construct-level metric covariance) and factor variances/covariances across different samples. The present findings are generally consistent with the previous findings based on exploratory factor analyses and they provide support for the use of the CPCPS for assessing beliefs about causes of poverty in Chinese people. The preparation for this work was financially supported by Wofoo Foundation.     

Unpacking Self-Rated Health and Quality of Life in Older Adults and Elderly in India: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

The Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) aims at improving empirical understanding of the health and well-being of older adults in low- and middle-income countries. A total of 321 adults aged 50 years and older were interviewed in rural Pune district, India, in 2007. We used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to examine the pathways through which social factors, functional disability, risk behaviours, and chronic disease experience influence self-rated health (SRH) and quality of life (QOL) amongst older adults in India. Both SRH and QOL worsened with increased age (indirect effect) and limitations in functional ability (direct effect). QOL, socio-economic status (SES), and social networking had no significant effect on SRH. Smoking was associated with the presence of at least one chronic illness, but this did not have a statistically significant effect on SRH. Higher social networking was seen amongst the better educated and those with regular income, which in turn positively affected the QOL rating. QOL had a direct, but statistically not significant, effect on SRH. In conclusion, the indirect effects of age on SRH mediated through functional ability, and the effects of SES on QOL mediated through social networking, provide new understanding of how age and socio-economic status affect SRH and QOL. By allowing for measurement errors, solving for collinearity in predictor variables by integrating them into measurement models, and specifying causal dependencies between the underlying latent constructs, SEM provides a strong link between theory and empirics.     

Satisfaction Ratings of QOLPAV: Psychometric Properties Based on the Graded Response Model

A scale measuring quality of life (QOL) is important in adolescent research. Using the graded response model (GRM), this study evaluates the psychometric properties of the satisfaction ratings of the Quality of Life Profile Adolescent Version (QOLPAV). Data for 1,392 adolescents were used to check IRT assumptions such as unidimensionality and local item dependence (LID). The goodness of fit of the GRM to the data and the item characteristic curves were evaluated. The reliability and validity analyses included item/test information, Cronbach’s α, and convergent and discriminant validity. Differential item functioning (DIF) procedures were also performed to detect item bias. The results provide evidence that the items sufficiently measured one single dimension. Few pairs of questions were flagged as LID due to content or wording similarity. Five items did not fit the GRM, and 4 were low in item discrimination. The findings also suggest that the assessment had appropriate reliability and validity. The DIF impact on the assessment score was considered minor. Because QOLPAV includes a respondent’s perceived importance of various life aspects, a short form that only considers important life aspects in the overall QOL estimation for each respondent becomes feasible within the framework of IRT. Future studies focusing on the development of a QOL overall index using the items from QOLPAV are recommended.