A cross-cultural evaluation of Diener’s tripartite model of subjective well-being across 16 countries

Abstract

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a multidimensional construct with three components (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) comprising the tripartite model. Yet, despite numerous studies in the field of SWB, the cross-cultural validity of the tripartite structure is still largely unknown. The present study evaluated competing models of SWB’s structure across 16 countries (N = 8860 undergraduate students; age range = 18–29 years; 63.6% female) and examined its measurement invariance using both exact and approximate approaches. The exploratory structural equation model (ESEM) of tripartite SWB that allowed small cross-loadings provided the best fit to the data in the majority of countries, and it demonstrated a high level of approximate invariance, which allows for a comparison of means across countries. A bifactor model with an omitted Positive Affect factor also fit well in all samples making the measurement of the general SWB possible; however, it was less robust for cross-cultural comparisons. The correlations between the three latent SWB factors were consistent across most countries, with a few meaningful exceptions. We conclude that ESEM model represents the tripartite structure of SWB robustly both within and across countries.