Cross-cultural validation of Multidimensional Flourishing Scale in six countries

MARÍA EMILIA OÑATE; BELÉN MESURADO; LUCAS MARCELO RODRIGUEZ; LUCAS MARCELO RODRIGUEZ; MARÍA PAULINA GUERRA; MARÍA PAULINA GUERRA; MARÍA EMILIA OÑATE; BELÉN MESURADO

Minneapolis

Congreso; 2018 Society for Reserach on Adolescence Biennial Meeting; 2018

Society for Research on Adolescence.

Flourishing, as a construct that includes both hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions, is considered by this literature to be a richer way of assessing people?s well-being than the mere subjective measure of well-being commonly known as ?happiness?. Keyes (2013) believes that a combination of high levels of emotional, psychological, and social well-being contribute to a flourishing life. Keyes (2002) suggests that the presence of hedonic symptoms and positive functioning are required for a person to be classified as flourishing. The purpose of this study is to empirically test to what extent the Multidimensional Flourishing Scale can be used across countries with a Luso or Hispanic heritage (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Portugal and Spain). Hence, we seek to investigate the validity and stability of the Multidimensional Flourishing Scale by Mesurado, Crespo, Rodriguez & Debeljuh (under review) across these six countries. A total number of 1500 participants from 6 different countries with Luso-Hispanic roots participated in this study (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Portugal and Spain). Data included in the study was collected from different foundations or institutions located in each country through a website: www.globalhomeindex.org. Participants completed the 12-item version of the Multidimensional Flourishing Scale by Mesurado et al. (under review). Each item is phrased in a positive manner. A five-level Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree) was used to measure social and emotional dimensions and a five-level semantic differential scale was used to measure emotional dimensions (e.g. 1 = Negative to 5 = Positive). The results indicated that the theoretical three-factor model fit the data well in the six countries included in this study (see Table 1). We used multiple group analysis to test whether the three-factor model was invariant across the six countries. The results suggest that configural invariance, metric invariance and scalar invariance may hold across the six countries, but error variance-invariance does not (see Table 2). In general, we also found good Internal Consistency of The Multidimensional Flourishing Scale for each country, both for each individual dimension and for the total score.