Examining the Internal Consistency Reliabilityand Construct Validity of the Authentic HappinessInventory (AHI) among Iranian EFL Learners

Reza Zabihi & Saeed Ketabi & Mansoor Tavakoli &Momene Ghadiri

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Unlike other measures of happiness that have tended to capture current levelsof happiness, the Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI) (Peterson, 2005; Seligmanet al. in The American Psychologist 60:410–421, 2005) assesses changes in happinessbased on the creation of positive emotions (the pleasant life), engagement in activitiesthat facilitate the utilization of one’s strengths (the engaged life), and serving a moreworthwhile purpose than merely the self’s pleasures (the meaningful life). Nonetheless,there is little published data regarding the construct validation of the AHI. The presentstudy, which is part of a larger research project in assessing the effectiveness of integratinghappiness intervention programs in the foreign language teaching curriculum at privateEnglish institutes and universities in Iran, attempts an examination of the psychometricquality and the construct validation of the Persian version of AHI (hereafter AHI-PV)using data collected from 234 Iranian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL),mainly through employing the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The AHI was trans-lated into Persian to ensure item comprehension by the Iranian participants. The resultsshow that the AHI-PV enjoys a high internal consistency (alpha=.93). Further, havingdetermined a ‘marvelous’ factorability of the present sample through the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of Sampling Adequacy (.94) and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (p<0.05),we employed the EFA to the data. Moreover, the results obtained from Principal Com-ponent Analysis (PCA) and the Scree test indicated that, in contrast to earlier findings, afour-factor solution provides a more parsimonious grouping of the items in the inventory.Having analyzed the items on the scale, we labeled the four factors as ‘Meaningful andPurposeful Life’, ‘Pleasures and Positive Emotions’, ‘Engagement in Life Activities’, and‘Interpersonal Connectedness’, hence the alignment of these new factors to Seligman’s(2002) conceptualization of authentic happiness.

Keywords Authentic happiness inventory . Persian translation . Reliability . Constructvalidity . Exploratory Factor Analysis . Principal Component Analysis . Scree plot

Curr PsycholDOI 10.1007/s12144-014-9217-6

R. Zabihi (*) : S. Ketabi :M. Tavakoli :M. GhadiriDepartment of English, Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Hezar Jirib Street,Isfahan 81746-73441, Irane-mail: zabihi@hotmail.com

Introduction

There is a substantial literature on how the construct of happiness is conceived. To citejust a few instances, Diener (1984) views happiness as one’s cognitive and affectiveappraisal of his or her own life. Pavot and Diener (1993) conceptualize happiness as aconglomeration of cognitive appraisal of life, positive affect and negative affect.Lyubomirsky and Lepper (1999) highlight the global measurement of whether one isa happy or unhappy person—subjective happiness. Veenhoven (2000) conceives ofhappiness as the extent to which a person enjoys life, or the degree to which thejudgment that he or she makes of his or her quality of life is favorable. Happiness, inthese senses, has therefore been referred to as ‘subjective well-being’ in scientificparlance, considering its relevance to how people evaluate their own lives and whatis most important to them.

A recent conceptualization of happiness pertains to Seligman (2002) three-componentmodel which blends experience of positive emotions, engagement in life activities, andachievement of a sense of purpose or meaning in life. The first subcomponent of authentichappiness, i.e. pleasure, considers happiness to be a pleasure-based feeling. These positivefeelings can be successfully obtained through the experience and practice of positiveemotions about (1) the past such as satisfaction, complacency, and pride, (2) the presentsuch as enjoyment from current pleasures, or (3) the future such as the feeling ofhopefulness and optimism (Seligman, 2002). The second subcomponent of authentichappiness, i.e. engagement, is characterized by feelings of absorption, engagement, andflow, and can be achieved through engagement in activities that facilitate the utilization ofone’s strengths (e.g., reading a novel or listening to music). Engagement is supposed tolead to flow, a psychological state which Csikszentmihalyi (1990) believes can beexperienced when we are engaged in activities described by a feeling of reinforcedconcentration, full immersion, and success in the process of the activity. The thirdsubcomponent of authentic happiness, i.e. meaning, relates to the utilization of one’ssignature strengths in order to serve a more worthwhile purpose (e.g., teamwork, loyalty,social intelligence) than merely the self’s pleasures (Seligman et al., 2005).

The authentic happiness model has been operationalized by Seligman et al. (2005)through the development of the Steen Happiness Index (SHI) which is a 20-item self-report scale. An updated 24-item version of the SHI, namely the Authentic HappinessInventory (AHI), was proposed by Peterson (2005). Similar to the SHI, the AHI wasdeveloped to capture Seligman et al.’s three-component conceptualization of happiness,though with a more emphasis on the Engagement and Meaning components of happi-ness that are currently more appreciated than the mere experience of pleasures andpositive emotions (Waterman, Schwartz, and Conti, 2008). Be that as it may, althoughthe AHI appears to have good internal consistency but offers little published validity data(Schiffrin, Rezendes, and Nelson, 2008). It was only very recently that Shepherd (2011)has made an attempt to investigate the validity of the English version of the AHI in aNew Zealand population and has confirmed the convergent validity and test retestreliability of the AHI. As Shepherd (2011) has pointed out, if the reliability and validityof the AHI can be established, it can be a proper measure of happiness when consideringthe interventions designed to increase happiness. Therefore, this study, which is part of alarger research project (Notice that the research project was inspired by Pishghadam(2011) notion of 'Applied English Language Teaching' which considers English learning

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classes as proper sites for the enhancement of several life skills as well as the study doneby Zabihi, Ketabi, and Tavakoli (2013) who point to the theoretical plausibility ofteaching happiness in second/foreign language teaching contexts) in assessing theeffectiveness of incorporating happiness intervention programs in the foreign languageteaching curriculum at private English institutes and universities in Iran, aimed to assessthe reliability and construct validity of the Persian (students’ native language) version ofAHI for use with language learners in Iranian universities and English language insti-tutes. More specifically, the present study intends to investigate the psychometric qualityof the translated (Persian) version of the AHI with a convenience sample of Iranian EFLlearners, and to explore the AHI-PV with exploratory factor analysis to find out if theitems on the scale align to Seligman (2002) conceptualization of authentic happiness.

Theoretical Framework

In this section, the readers are first provided with the introduction of positive psychol-ogy as an innovative movement in the 21st century psychological research. Next, insection 2.2, the notion of authentic happiness the theory put forth by Professor MartinSeligman is primarily considered in terms of its three subcomponents. In section 2.3,we consider the properties of the authentic happiness inventory and the reason forselecting this scale for investigation (Peterson, 2005). Finally, in 2.4, we shall explainthe objectives of this study alongside the relevant research questions.

Positive Psychology: A new Movement in the 21st Century

Clinical Psychology has traditionally placed emphasis on psychological deficits anddisabilities. On the contrary, it has infrequently highlighted individuals’ resourceful-ness, capacities and skills. This has been identified by the critical psychology traditionin the United Kingdom as a disadvantage of this approach (Johnstone, 2000; Newnes,Holmes, and Dunn, 1999; 2001). In the United States, Professor Martin Seligman, oneof the founders and leading figures within the positive psychology movement(Chafouleas and Bray, 2004), together with his colleagues, have begun laying thefoundations for a positive psychology (Seligman, 2002; Seligman andCsikszentmihalyi, 2000; Snyder and Lopez, 2002) to complement the traditionalpsychopathology-centered approaches that had been in vogue since the start of WorldWar II. As an outgrowth of the humanistic psychology movement that originated in the1960s and 1970s (Maslow, 1971), this new subfield of psychology is chiefly concernedwith the scientific study of human strengths and happiness as well as with identifyingfactors that promote well-being of individuals.

Positive psychologists have recurrently pointed to the idea that, although the studyof diseases, disorders, and abnormalities is important, it ignores other equally signifi-cant and more positive aspects of life, such as happiness and/or subjective well-being(Diener, 2000; Layard, 2005), positive affect and human flourishing (Fredrickson andLosada, 2005), exuberance (Jamison, 2004), wellness (Miller, Gilman, and Martens,2008), and character strengths and virtues (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). As a case inpoint, one of the main objectives of positive psychology is to understand and facilitatehappiness and well-being, rather than to remediate present deficits (Seligman, 2002).

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Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that positive psychology complements rather thanreplaces traditional clinical psychology.

Seligman himself used the framework of positive emotions, traits, and institutions inhis book ‘Authentic Happiness’ (2002) as well as other writings (e.g., Seligman andCsikszentmihalyi, 2000). This framework has been widely influential within the field ofpositive psychology and provides a useful heuristic structure for happiness. We nowfocus our discussion specifically on the notion of authentic happiness, in terms of itsdifferent subcomponents.

Authentic Happiness: A Three-Component Model

In his 2002 oft-cited book, Seligman depicts the ways through which one can achieveauthentic happiness. He argues that authentic happiness can be obtained through thecreation of positive emotions (the pleasant life), engagement in activities that facilitatethe utilization of one’s strengths (the engaged life), and serving a more worthwhilepurpose than merely the self’s pleasures (the meaningful life). In the following para-graphs, each component of authentic happiness is taken into consideration, respectively.

The experience of frequent positive emotions such feelings as joy, contentment,serenity, interest, vitality, and pride is the hallmark of happiness (Diener, Sandvik, andPavot, 1991; Urry et al., 2004). Seligman (2002) discusses positive emotions, and howwe can raise ours. There are three importantly different kinds of positive emotion (past,future, and present), and it is entirely possible to cultivate any one of these separatelyfrom the others. Positive emotion about the past (e.g., contentment) can be enhanced bygratitude, forgiveness, and freeing ourselves of imprisoning deterministic ideology.Moreover, positive emotion about the future (e.g., optimism) can be promoted bylearning to recognize and dispute automatic pessimistic thoughts. Finally, positiveemotion about the present can, in turn, be divided into two very different things, i.e.pleasures and gratifications. The pleasures are transient, and they are defined by feltemotion. Although the pleasant life component of authentic happiness can be success-fully attained through the experience and practice of positive emotions about thepresent, past, and future, these feelings are not much abiding.

As regards the second component of authentic happiness, i.e. engagement in lifeactivities, Seligman (2002) advocates the identification of one’s signature strengths andbuilding them and choosing to use them in the main realms of one’s life. Therefore,these are assumed to be more enduring than positive emotions and are not aboutmaximizing positive emotion. They are referred to as ‘gratifications’ and are typicallycharacterized by states of absorption, engagement, and flow. The gratifications comeabout through the exercise of one’s strengths and virtues; accordingly, Seligman in hisbook ‘Authentic Happiness’ lays out 24 universal strengths, and has provided tests forthe readers to identify their own signature strengths. These laid the groundwork for himto formulate his notion of the ‘good life’, which involves the utilization of one’ssignature strengths as frequently as possible in these domains to obtain authentichappiness and abundant gratification.

Having delineated the areas of positive emotion and engagement, Seligman (2002)turns to his third component, i.e. finding meaning and purpose in life. The meaningfulcomponent of authentic happiness has one additional feature: using your signaturestrengths in the service of something larger than the self’s pleasures or fulfillment. As a

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matter of fact, a meaningful life is attained when we strive hard to join ourselves withsomething larger than we are; and the larger that something is, the more meaning ourlives have. Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that, as the engaged lifedepends on obtaining happiness through using our signature strengths everyday in themain domains of life, the meaningful life transcends such an attempt, and adds one morecomponent by using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. Alife that does this is, in Seligman (2002) words, “pregnant with meaning” (p. 92).

The Authentic Happiness Inventory

As previously mentioned, Seligman and his colleagues (Seligman et al., 2005) arguethat the road to authentic happiness passes through (a) pleasure, (b) engagement and (c)meaning. Seligman (2002) refers to such a conglomerate construct as ‘authentichappiness’ . Following Seligman’s theory of happiness (Seligman andCsikszentmihalyi, 2000; Seligman et al., 2005), two instruments were devised in orderto capture the three components put forth by Seligman (2002).

The Steen Happiness Index (SHI) (Seligman et al., 2005) was developed to assessupward changes in happiness based on three subcomponents of positive emotions,engagement, and meaning in life. The instrument comprised 20 items on a five-pointLikert scale from which respondents had to choose one statement to describe theirpresent circumstances. The SHI was later updated from 20 items to 24 items and hasbeen renamed the Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI). The AHI has one advantageover the SHI in that, in comparison with the SHI, it has four additional items thatpurport to measure the Engagement (1 item) and Meaning (3 items) components ofhappiness the two components that are more in line with the eudaimonic philosophy ofhappiness which is currently more appreciated than the hedonistic philosophy ofhappiness (Waterman, Schwartz, and Conti, 2008).

This Study

It is vital to ensure that the instruments used to measure happiness are valid andreliable. However, within the field of positive psychology, happiness has been regardedas a highly subjective concept and thus the precise measurement of this construct hasbeen limited (McDowell, 2010). Therefore, there is no doubt that any attempt towardthe precise measurement of happiness and other positive psychological constructs isessential to secure the ongoing advancement of the field of positive psychology. Todate, only evidence for the convergent validity for the AHI and other tests of happinessusing Pearson’s correlation has been provided (r=0.79 with the General HappinessScale, r=0.74 with the Fordyce Happiness Scale) (Seligman et al., 2005).

Given that there is very little published research considering the psychometricqualities and the construct validation of the AHI, it was considered important by theauthors of this paper to carry out validity and reliability testing on this instrument. TheAHI was chosen to be examined in this research as it is a relatively new measure andthis study provides an opportunity to come up with a rigid understanding of theunderlying constructs of the scale and whether or not the scale measures the underlyingcomponents (proposed by Seligman, 2002) that it is supposed to capture. However, inthe present study the AHI was primarily translated into Persian to make certain that lack

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of understanding would not occur on the part of Iranian participants in dealing with theitems asking about their feelings, emotions, character strengths, and meaning orpurpose in life. The following research questions were addressed in this study:

Q1. To what extent is the AHI-PV reliable?Q2. What are the underlying factors of the AHI-PV?

Method

Participants

The data for the exploratory factor analysis in this study were drawn from a conve-nience sample of 245 EFL learners from three universities (University of Isfahan,Sheikhbahaee University, and Khorasgan Islamic Azad University) and two privatelanguage institutes (Jahad Daneshgahi and Kish Language Institute) in Isfahan, Iran.Eleven (4.4 %) respondents were removed from the sample either due to non-completion of the AHI (n=4), or missing values in their completed AHI (n=7). Thefinal sample for conducting EFA (n=234) comprised 100 (42.7 %) male and 134(57.3 %) female learners of English as a foreign language, with an age range of 17 to47 years and a mean age of 20.2 years. Full participant characteristics are shown inTable 1.

Instrumentation

The AHI has been developed to test overall happiness based on 24 items whererespondents have to select 1 of 5 statements regarding the feelings they have had inthe previous week (see the Appendix). The 24 items scores for five statements wereassigned values from ‘1’ to ‘5’, being summed up, and divided by 24, resulting in atotal score for each respondent. No items on AHI are reverse scored. As can be seen inthe Appendix, the respondents are required to tick the letter (A to E) of one statement ineach group which best represents the way they have been feeling in the past week,including the day of completing the self-report scale (e.g., A = I feel like a failure, B = Ido not feel like a winner, C = I feel like I have succeeded more than most people, D =

Table 1 Distribution of Participants

Sex Age Degree Language learning experience

Male 100 Below twenties 122 Diploma 13 Less than one year 112

Female 134 Twenties 89 BA/BS 199 1–2 years 63

Thirties 15 MA/MS 19 2–4 years 36

Forties 8 PhD 3 4–6 years 17

6–8 years 6

Total 234 234 234 234

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As I look back on my life, all I see are victories, E = I feel I am extraordinarilysuccessful).

Procedure

To prevent lack of comprehension on the part of Iranian participants in dealing with theAHI items, after having consulted English translation experts we realized that somestructures such as, among others, ‘I have a hint about …’, ‘by objective standards…’,‘in the grand scheme of things…’, ‘If I were keeping score in life…’, and ‘… theoutside world practically ceases to exist’, could better be understood by native Englishspeakers (where the inventory was originally developed) than by non-native Iranianstudents who typically learn English as a foreign language. Therefore, the first phase ofthe study involved the English-Persian translation of AHI by two bilingual scholars inthe faculty of psychology at University of Isfahan, Iran. Where there were inconsis-tencies, we consulted both translators. Besides, in order to achieve equivalence acrossthe two languages we obtained the opinions of four specialists in the area of Englishtranslation. Moreover, before using the translated AHI with the main group of partic-ipants we cognitively tested it in a pilot study of 15 EFL learners whose characteristicswere similar to those of the target population. They were invited to read the translatedAHI and to express their understanding of its items. Minor amendments were made andthe final version was subsequently administered to 245 EFL learners in differentuniversities and private language institutes in Isfahan, Iran. Informed consent wasgained from all respondents and ethical confirmation was granted by the hostinstitutions.

Next, given the high utility of Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951) for determiningthe internal consistency of items in survey instruments (Santos, 1999), the reliability ofthe AHI was examined with the Cronbach Alpha reliability estimate. Further, usingCronbach Alpha, the reliability of each factor constructing the validated AHI was alsoexamined. Besides, to validate the AHI, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) wasemployed to the data. In view of this, it has been recommended that, initially, thesuitability of the data for conducting factor analysis should be investigated (Williams,Brown, and Onsman, 2010). To this end, Measures of Sampling Adequacy (MSAs), i.e.the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of Sampling Adequacy (Kaiser, 1970) andBartlett’s Test of Sphericity (Bartlett, 1950) were used to examine the factorability ofthe intercorrelation matrix. While the KMO examines whether the sum of the partialcorrelation coefficients among pairs of variables is small, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity isused to test the strength of the relationship among variables in the correlation matrix(Pett, Lackey, and Sullivan, 2003).

Subsequently, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which is a widely used methodfor factor extraction, was utilized to extract the factors by calculating the eigenvalues ofthe matrix greater than 1.0. The number of factors to be retained for rotation wasidentified through Kaiser’s criterion (i.e. Eigen-values over 1) and analysis of Cattell’sScreeplot (through the investigation of notable drops). Next, for conducting factorrotation, Varimax (orthogonal rotation) with Kaiser Criterion was used. With factorrotation, we came up with a rotated component matrix and a transformation matrix. Therotated component matrix demonstrated the variables loaded on each factor so that wecould come up with the new factors.

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Results

Internal Consistency (Research Question 1)

The Cronbach alpha coefficient for the AHI in the total sample (n=234) was 0.93. Thiswas far greater than the value of 0.70 which was recommended by Nunnally (1978) todescribe adequate internal consistency. Most of the four factors yielded good internalconsistency estimates ranging from 0.54 to 0.90 (Table 2).

Construct Validation of the Scale (Research Question 2)

The overall number of participants (n=234) was included for the exploratory factoranalysis. As can be seen in Table 3, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value obtained inthis study was equal to 0.94, exceeding the required value of 0.6, as recommended byKaiser (1970) and Tabachnick and Fidell (2007). Further, Kaiser (1974) has consideredKMO values above .90 to be ‘marvelous’. More specifically, the large KMO valueobtained in the present study explains clearly that the sum of the partial correlationcoefficients among pairs of variables is small, hence the suitability of conducting factoranalysis. Moreover, as another measure of the strength of the correlation amongvariables, Bartlett’s test of Sphericity reached statistical significance (p<0.05). Thisfinding demonstrates that the strength of the relationship among variables in thecorrelation matrix is strong enough to proceed with a factor analysis for the data.

The underlying factor structure of AHI was investigated through EFA. Primarily,PCA showed the presence of 4 components with eigenvalues exceeding 1.0 whichexplained 56 % of the variance. Moreover, the results achieved through analyzing theScree Test supported a four-factor solution as a proper grouping of the items in the AHI(Fig. 1). As can be seen in Fig. 1, from the fourth factor on, the line is almost flat,pointing to the fact that, in Fabrigar et al. (1999) words, next factors are accounting forsmaller and smaller amounts of the total variance.

We then examined orthogonal rotation. The outcome of Varimax with KaiserNormalization was a rotated component matrix. Factor loadings of 0.4 or greater wereconsidered. In view of this, two items (i.e. Q5 and Q11) were deleted because theirfactor loadings were lower than 0.4 (Kline, 1994). The results of this analysis areshown in Table 4. The results revealed that the first factor consisted of 11 items; thesecond factor consisted of 4 items; factor 3 consisted of 5 items; and factor 4 consistedof 2 items. The total number of items was 22.

Finally, we analyzed the items representing each component and named the fourcomponents as (1) Meaningful and Purposeful Life, (2) Pleasures and Positive

Table 2 Reliability of the AHI-PVand Its Underlying Factors

Factors N of Items Cronbach’s Alpha

Factor 1 12 .898

Factor 2 4 .816

Factor 3 6 .802

Factor 4 2 .542

Total 24 .934

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Emotions, (3) Engagement in Life Activities, and (4) Interpersonal Relationships. Itemscomprising each factor are shown in Table 5, and the validated questionnaire is given inthe Appendix.

Discussion

With respect to the first research question that asked about the internal consistencyof the inventory and its underlying factors, results from the reliability analysisshowed initial support for the AHI-PV as a highly reliable measure of authentichappiness. In other words, an overall internal consistency of 0.93 obtained in thepresent study was far greater than the cut off value of 0.70 which was recommendedby Nunnally (1978) to describe adequate internal consistency. Most of the under-lying factors yielded good internal consistency estimates: 0.90 (factor 1), 0.80(factor 2), and 0.82 (factor 3). The only factor which showed lower internalconsistency than the cut off value was factor 4 (Cronbach’s alpha=0.54); this mightbe due to the fact that factor 4 consisted of only two items, as it has been argued byNunnally and Bernstein (1994) and Streiner (2003) that the value of alpha can bereduced if the length of the test is too short.

Table 3 KMO and Bartlett’s Test

KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy .939

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 2.611E3

df 276

Sig. .000

Fig. 1 Screeplot of Eigenvalues and AHI Item Numbers

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Moreover, to study the construct validity of the AHI (research question 2), we madeuse of exploratory factor analysis as an efficient tool for examining the underlyingcomponents of the scale to find out if the 24 items in the AHI adequately captureSeligman et al. (2005) conceptualization of authentic happiness. Our results showedthat four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00 explained 56.1 % of the variance inthe data set. Put another way, the findings indicated that a mixture of four componentsmight best represent the underlying structure of the AHI-PV. Having analyzed the itemson the scale, we named the factors as (a) Meaningful and Purposeful Life, (b) Pleasures

Table 4 Rotated ComponentMatrixa

Extraction Method: PrincipalComponent AnalysisRotation Method: Varimax withKaiser Normalizationa. Rotation converged in 8iterations

Item No. Component

1 2 3 4

Q21 .688

Q18 .649

Q17 .633

Q10 .592

Q12 .592

Q16 .581

Q9 .580

Q20 .510

Q4 .500

Q13 .462

Q1 .447

Q6 .784

Q24 .720

Q22 .698

Q23 .564

Q19 .694

Q14 .637

Q7 .583

Q15 .574

Q3 .569

Q2 .851

Q8 .596

Table 5 Four Factors of the Inventory

Factors Statements N of items Percentage

1. Meaningful and Purposeful Life 1, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 11 50%

2. Pleasures and Positive Emotions 6, 22, 23, 24 4 18.18%

3. Engagement in Life Activities 3, 7, 14, 15, 19 5 27.72%

4. Interpersonal Connectedness 2, 8 2 8.33%

Total 22 100%

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and Positive Emotions, (c) Engagement in Life Activities, and (d) InterpersonalConnectedness. In what follows, we explain the reasons for the selection of such terms.

Meaningful and Purposeful Life is the label chosen for the first factor whichcomprises 11 items. It pertains to one’s attempt to serve a more worthwhile purposethan the self’s pleasures so that the life becomes truly meaningful and purposeful. Morespecifically, items 1, 9, 13, 17, and 21 ask about individuals’ perceptions of their ownachievements and accomplishments in the past; items 4 and 20 inquire about the degreeto which individuals think their lives are meaningful and that they have spent time onthings that are important; items 10 and 18 elicit answers as to whether one is proud of,or happy with, oneself; and, finally, items 12 and 16 respectively seek individuals’opinions on their perceived status in the world and the extent to which they areoptimistic about their own future. As can be seen in the Appendix, a clear exampleof the items that loaded on this factor is item 4 that prompts the respondents to selectthe letter of an option from A (My life does not have any purpose or meaning) to E (Ihave a very clear idea about the purpose or meaning of my life).

The second factor is called Pleasures and Positive Emotions which refers to theexperience of frequent positive emotions such as joy, contentment, serenity, interest,vitality, pride, and so forth. This factor consists of 4 items. In this connection, items 6and 22 seek to elicit individuals’ perceptions of the contrast of joy and sorrow as well aspleasure and pain in their lives; item 23 asks about individuals’ routine life activitiesand whether or not they enjoy their daily routines; finally, item 24 is a general questionasking about the respondents’ perceived quality of life. To give but one single exampleof the items that loaded on the second factor of AHI-PV is item 23 that asks therespondents to select the letter of an option from A (I do not enjoy my daily routine) toE (I like my daily routine so much that I almost never take breaks from it).

Factor 3 which is named Engagement in Life Activities relates to people’s states ofabsorption, interest, engagement, and flow. This factor consists of 5 items. Two itemsask about the degree of attention a person pays to his or her daily works (item 3), and theextent to which he or she is challenged by the situations they encounter (item 19).Moreover, three items elicit the respondents’ answers as to whether they feel interestedin what they are doing (item 7), have a good amount of enthusiasm in their daily works(item 14), and have affection or fondness for everything they do (item 15). As a case inpoint, item 3 asks the respondents to select the letter of an option from A (When I amworking, I pay more attention to what is going on around me than to what I am doing) toE (When I amworking, I pay somuch attention to what I am doing that the outside worldpractically ceases to exist).

Interpersonal Connectedness is the label we selected for the fourth factor of theAHI-PV which includes 2 items characterizing the respondents’ perceived ability topromote social development through interpersonal bonds and effective communication.In this connection, items 2 and 8 ask about the respondents’ general mood and thedegree of connectedness they feel when they are in a social milieu. To better illustrate,as a notable example of the items loaded on this factor, item 8 asks the respondents toselect the letter of an option from A (I feel cut off from other people) to E (I feel close toeveryone in the world).

In sum, unlike Shepherd (2011) study where the analysis of PCA and the screeplotindicated that the items on AHI could be represented by one general factor, in this studyour analysis of the PCA and inspection of the screeplot supported a four-factor solution

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as the best grouping of the items on AHI. That is to say, Seligman (2002) pleasant lifecomponent of authentic happiness was best explained in our analysis by four items(items 6, 22, 23, 24) that fell under the rubric ‘pleasures and positive emotions’; theengaged life component best represented five items (items 3, 7, 14, 15, 19) under thecategory of ‘engagement in life activities’; and the meaningful life component was bestcharacterized by 11 items (items 1, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21) that fell underthe ‘meaningful and purposeful life’ factor. Besides, in this study we found two items(items 2 and 8) which loaded on another fourth factor which we opted to name‘interpersonal connectedness’. Although on the surface this factor might feel differentfrom the discussion of Seligman (2002) framework, together with the first factor (i.e.meaningful and purposeful life), the interpersonal connectedness factor well capturesthe third component in Seligman’s conceptualization of happiness in that both factorsadvocate connecting with other people and trying to help them rather than merelyattending to one’s own pleasures and emotions.

Taken together, this study has gone some way towards understanding the utility of theauthentic happiness inventory in the reliable and valid measurement of the differentcomponents put forth by Seligman and his colleagues. More specifically, the results ofour study clearly put into question the earlier findings (Shepherd, 2011) that advocated theuse of a single item as a self-contained measure of authentic happiness. Simply put, thefactor structure obtained in the present study seems to be more reflective of the threecomponents of authentic happiness (i.e. the pleasant life, the engaged life, and themeaningful life) as delineated by Seligman (2002), and may thus function as a reliableand valid measurement tool in the intervention programs that purport to increase authentichappiness among students. That being said, the findings of this study imply that whenutilizing the AHI for the intention it was developed it is appropriate not to consider it in itstotality and, instead, take into account the measurement and interpretation of all threecomponents. To illustrate, an authentic happiness intervention programmight well exploita variety of activities and tasks specifically designed to boost each component of authentichappiness. In view of this, the effectiveness of these activities and tasks can only bemeaningfully interpreted if separate (and not unitary) measurements of each component ofauthentic happiness are carried out in the post-intervention session.

Finally, it is important not to overlook that the findings of this study should beinterpreted within certain limitations and reservations. Primarily, considering our needto translate the AHI and make modifications to avoid ambiguity for Persian speakers,one cannot ensure full comprehension of questionnaire items on the part of respondentsbecause, not only is translating a scale from a foreign language to the native language across-linguistic undertaking, but it might also involve a theoretical enterprise; what wecould do to mitigate this problem in this research project was to try to minimizetheoretical discrepancies between the original inventory and the translation thereof byinviting teams of professional English to Persian translators and bilingual psychologyexperts. Moreover, a frequently cited limitation of exploratory factor analysis is itsdegree of subjectivity due to several methodological decisions and interpretations thatone needs to make within a particular research context (Henson and Roberts, 2006;Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). Therefore, future validation studies can employ explor-atory structural equation modeling (SEM) which allows the simultaneous utilization ofexploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Furthermore, what the study is unable tosay is the extent to which these results might have wider applications and implications

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for different types of participants. The sample used in the present study was small andcomprised a convenience sample of language learners which could be considered tolack variability. As such, the results of this study would carry more weight if furtherevaluation of the psychometric properties and underlying factors of AHI were carriedout with larger samples and different populations. Moreover, further validation in theform of simultaneous convergent and discriminant validity, examinations of concurrentvalidity as well as behavioral validations warrant further investigation.

Appendix

The Validated Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI) and Its Underlying FactorsDirections: Please read each group of statements carefully. Then pick the ONE

statement in each group that best describes the way you have been feeling for the pastweek, including today. Be sure to read all of the statements in each group beforemaking your choice by circling the letter next to it.

Item Statement

FACTOR 1: Meaningful and Purposeful Life

1 A. I feel like a failure.B. I do not feel like a winner.C. I feel like I have succeeded more than most people.D. As I look back on my life, all I see are victories.E. I feel I am extraordinarily successful.

4 A. My life does not have any purpose or meaning.B. I do not know the purpose or meaning of my life.C. I have a hint about my purpose in life.D. I have a pretty good idea about the purpose or meaning of my life.E. I have a very clear idea about the purpose or meaning of my life.

9 A. By objective standards, I do poorly.B. By objective standards, I do neither well nor poorly.C. By objective standards, I do rather well.D. By objective standards, I do quite well.E. By objective standards, I do amazingly well.

10 A. I am ashamed of myself.B. I am not ashamed of myself.C. I am proud of myself.D. I am very proud of myself.E. I am extraordinarily proud of myself.

12 A. In the grand scheme of things, my existence may hurt the world.B. My existence neither helps nor hurts the world.C. My existence has a small but positive effect on the world.D. My existence makes the world a better place.E. My existence has a lasting, large, and positive impact on the world.

13 A. I do not do most things very well.B. I do okay at most things I am doing.C. I do well at some things I am doing.D. I do well at most things I am doing.E. I do really well at whatever I am doing.

16 A. I am pessimistic about the future.B. I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the future.

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C. I feel somewhat optimistic about the future.D. I feel quite optimistic about the future.E. I feel extraordinarily optimistic about the future.

17 A. I have accomplished little in life.B. I have accomplished no more in life than most people.C. I have accomplished somewhat more in life than most people.D. I have accomplished more in life than most people.E. I have accomplished a great deal more in my life than most people.

18 A. I am unhappy with myself.B. I am neither happy nor unhappy with myself–I am neutral.C. I am happy with myself.D. I am very happy with myself.E. I could not be any happier with myself.

20 A. I spend all of my time doing things that are unimportant.B. I spend a lot of time doing things that are neither important nor unimportant.C. I spend some of my time every day doing things that are important.D. I spend most of my time every day doing things that are important.E. I spend practically every moment every day doing things that are important.

21 A. If I were keeping score in life, I would be behind.B. If I were keeping score in life, I would be about even.C. If I were keeping score in life, I would be somewhat ahead.D. If I were keeping score in life, I would be ahead.E. If I were keeping score in life, I would be far ahead.

FACTOR 2: Pleasures and Positive Emotions

6 A. I have sorrow in my life.B. I have neither sorrow nor joy in my life.C. I have more joy than sorrow in my life.D. I have much more joy than sorrow in my life.E. My life is filled with joy.

22 A. I experience more pain than pleasure.B. I experience pain and pleasure in equal measure.C. I experience more pleasure than pain.D. I experience much more pleasure than pain.E. My life is filled with pleasure.

23 A. I do not enjoy my daily routine.B. I feel neutral about my daily routine.C. I like my daily routine, but I am happy to get away from it.D. I like my daily routine so much that I rarely take breaks from it.E. I like my daily routine so much that I almost never take breaks from it.

24 A. My life is a bad one.B. My life is an OK one.C. My life is a good one.D. My life is a very good one.E. My life is a wonderful one.

FACTOR 3: Engagement in Life Activities

3 A. When I am working, I pay more attention to what is going on around me than to what I am doing.B. When I am working, I pay as much attention to what is going on around me as to what I am doing.C. When I am working, I pay more attention to what I am doing than to what is going on around me.D. When I am working, I rarely notice what is going on around me.E. When I am working, I pay so much attention to what I am doing that the outside world practically

ceases to exist.

7 A. Most of the time I feel bored.B. Most of the time I feel neither bored nor interested in what I am doing.C. Most of the time I feel interested in what I am doing.

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D. Most of the time I feel quite interested in what I am doing.E. Most of the time I feel fascinated by what I am doing.

14 A. I have little or no enthusiasm.B. My enthusiasm level is neither high nor low.C. I have a good amount of enthusiasm.D. I feel enthusiastic doing almost everything.E. I have so much enthusiasm that I feel I can do most anything.

15 A. I do not like my work (paid or unpaid).B. I feel neutral about my work.C. For the most part, I like my work.D. I really like my work.E. I truly love my work.

19 A. My skills are never challenged by the situations I encounter.B. My skills are occasionally challenged by the situations I encounter.C. My skills are sometimes challenged by the situations I encounter.D. My skills are often challenged by the situations I encounter.E. My skills are always challenged by the situations I encounter.

FACTOR 4: Interpersonal Connectedness

2 A. I am usually in a bad mood.B. I am usually in a neutral mood.C. I am usually in a good mood.D. I am usually in a great mood.E. I am usually in an unbelievably great mood.

8 A. I feel cut off from other people.B. I feel neither close to nor cut off from other people.C. I feel close to friends and family members.D. I feel close to most people, even if I do not know them well.E. I feel close to everyone in the world.

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