Cargando…

The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Despite the well-established protective functions of positivity (i.e., a dispositional self-evaluative tendency to view oneself, life, and future under a positive outlook) from middle adolescence to old age, its reliable assessment and contribution to a proper psychological functioning have received...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zuffianò, Antonio, López-Pérez, Belén, Cirimele, Flavia, Kvapilová, Jana, Caprara, Gian Vittorio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6491802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31068850
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00831
_version_ 1783415018961764352
author Zuffianò, Antonio
López-Pérez, Belén
Cirimele, Flavia
Kvapilová, Jana
Caprara, Gian Vittorio
author_facet Zuffianò, Antonio
López-Pérez, Belén
Cirimele, Flavia
Kvapilová, Jana
Caprara, Gian Vittorio
author_sort Zuffianò, Antonio
collection PubMed
description Despite the well-established protective functions of positivity (i.e., a dispositional self-evaluative tendency to view oneself, life, and future under a positive outlook) from middle adolescence to old age, its reliable assessment and contribution to a proper psychological functioning have received little attention during previous developmental phases. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties and construct validity of the eight-item Positivity Scale (P Scale; Caprara et al., 2012) during late childhood and early adolescence in a sample of British students (N = 742; 48% boys) from both primary (M(age) = 10.75, SD = 0.52) and secondary schools (M(age) = 13.38 years, SD = 0.94). First, results from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) attested to the plausibility of the hypothesized 1-factor structure of the P Scale in a revised CFA model including the correlation between the residuals of two items similar in their wording. Next, we found evidence for strong (scalar) measurement invariance of the P Scale across late childhood and early adolescence as well as for its concurrent validity as indicated by expected relations of positivity to indicators of adjustment (i.e., prosocial behavior) and maladjustment (i.e., externalizing and internalizing problems). Overall, these findings support the concurrent and factorial validity of the P Scale as a short self-report instrument to measure children’s tendency to view their experience from a positive stance. We discuss the implications of our results for improving the wording of the items composing P Scale as well as for understanding the dispositional mechanisms conducive to psychological health and wellbeing across late childhood and early adolescence.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6491802
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-64918022019-05-08 The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence Zuffianò, Antonio López-Pérez, Belén Cirimele, Flavia Kvapilová, Jana Caprara, Gian Vittorio Front Psychol Psychology Despite the well-established protective functions of positivity (i.e., a dispositional self-evaluative tendency to view oneself, life, and future under a positive outlook) from middle adolescence to old age, its reliable assessment and contribution to a proper psychological functioning have received little attention during previous developmental phases. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties and construct validity of the eight-item Positivity Scale (P Scale; Caprara et al., 2012) during late childhood and early adolescence in a sample of British students (N = 742; 48% boys) from both primary (M(age) = 10.75, SD = 0.52) and secondary schools (M(age) = 13.38 years, SD = 0.94). First, results from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) attested to the plausibility of the hypothesized 1-factor structure of the P Scale in a revised CFA model including the correlation between the residuals of two items similar in their wording. Next, we found evidence for strong (scalar) measurement invariance of the P Scale across late childhood and early adolescence as well as for its concurrent validity as indicated by expected relations of positivity to indicators of adjustment (i.e., prosocial behavior) and maladjustment (i.e., externalizing and internalizing problems). Overall, these findings support the concurrent and factorial validity of the P Scale as a short self-report instrument to measure children’s tendency to view their experience from a positive stance. We discuss the implications of our results for improving the wording of the items composing P Scale as well as for understanding the dispositional mechanisms conducive to psychological health and wellbeing across late childhood and early adolescence. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-04-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6491802/ /pubmed/31068850 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00831 Text en Copyright © 2019 Zuffianò, López-Pérez, Cirimele, Kvapilová and Caprara. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Zuffianò, Antonio
López-Pérez, Belén
Cirimele, Flavia
Kvapilová, Jana
Caprara, Gian Vittorio
The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
title The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
title_full The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
title_fullStr The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
title_full_unstemmed The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
title_short The Positivity Scale: Concurrent and Factorial Validity Across Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
title_sort positivity scale: concurrent and factorial validity across late childhood and early adolescence
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6491802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31068850
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00831
work_keys_str_mv AT zuffianoantonio thepositivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT lopezperezbelen thepositivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT cirimeleflavia thepositivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT kvapilovajana thepositivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT capraragianvittorio thepositivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT zuffianoantonio positivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT lopezperezbelen positivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT cirimeleflavia positivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT kvapilovajana positivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence
AT capraragianvittorio positivityscaleconcurrentandfactorialvalidityacrosslatechildhoodandearlyadolescence