Measuring psychological well-being in the Chinese

A 4-item-per-construct version of the Scales of Psychological Well-being (Ryff, 1989) was constructed and administered to a sample of adults in Hong Kong (ages 18-86). Three competing models were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. Results suggested that a simple 6-factor model without any higher-order factor provided the best fit to the data, though only moderatly fitting. Furthermore, an examination of the factor loadings suggests that individual items might need further refinement or replacement. While the original 3-item scales suffered from poor internal consistencies, the new 4-item scales had relatively more acceptable internal consistency coefficients. Copyright © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.