Investigation of the Psychometric Properties of the Turkish Adaptation of Positivity Scale for Adolescents and Young Adults

Abstract

Positive orientation or positive thinking, is one of the main subjects studied in positive psychology. Thus, the main purpose of the present study was to investigate the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Positivity Scale (P Scale) for adolescents and young adults. The participants were 307 high school students (Female = 189, Male = 118) with a mean age of 15.84 years, and 354 college students (Female = 190, Male = 164) with a mean age of 21.36 years. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was employed to evaluate the construct validity of the P Scale, and the measurement invariance of the Turkish version of the scale was analyzed. The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, the Life Orientation Test, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Adolescents and the Satisfaction with Life Scale were used to provide further evidence for the construct validity of the scale. For internal reliability of the scale, Cronbach alpha level was computed. Findings of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale. Measurement invariance across groups showed that both configural and metric models provided acceptable fits to the data. Moreover, there were significant correlations between positivity and self-esteem, optimism, pessimism, life-satisfaction, positive and negative affect. The scale also had a satisfactory internal consistency coefficient. The findings of the present study suggest that the Turkish adaptation of the Positivity Scale can be confidently used with Turkish adolescents and young adults.