Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, 210 Hauser Hall, Hempstead, New York 11549, USA.
Psychol Assess. 2011 Jun;23(2):311-24. doi: 10.1037/a0021590.
Before the developmental trajectory, outcomes, and related interventions of gratitude can be accurately and confidently studied among the youth, researchers must ensure that they have psychometrically sound measures of gratitude that are suitable for this population. Thus, considering that no known scales were specifically designed to measure gratitude in youth, this study aimed to answer an important question: Are the existing gratitude scales used with adults valid for use with youth? The present study is an empirical investigation, based on a large youth sample (N = 1,405) with ages ranging from 10 to 19 years old, of the psychometric properties of scores of the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ-6; M. E. McCullough, R. A. Emmons, & J.-A. Tsang, 2002), the Gratitude Adjective Checklist (GAC; M. E. McCullough, R. A. Emmons, & J.-A. Tsang, 2002), and the Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test (GRAT)-short form (M. Thomas & P. Watkins, 2003). Single-group and multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the factor structures of these gratitude scales resemble those found with adults and were invariant across age groups. Scores of all three gratitude scales revealed acceptable internal consistency estimates (i.e., >.70) across age groups. Results showed that whereas scores of all three gratitude scales were positively correlated with each other for 14- to 19-year-olds, GRAT-short form scores tended to display relatively low correlations with scores of the other two measures for younger children (10-13 years old). Furthermore, the nomological network analysis showed that scores of all three gratitude scales were positively correlated with positive affect and life satisfaction scores across the age groups. The relationships with negative affect and depression scores, however, seemed dependent on the child's age. Pending results from subsequent research recommendations for researchers interested in studying gratitude in youth are offered.
在能够准确和自信地研究青少年感恩的发展轨迹、结果和相关干预措施之前，研究人员必须确保他们拥有适合该人群的、经过心理测量学验证的感恩测量工具。因此，鉴于没有专门为青少年设计的衡量感恩的量表，本研究旨在回答一个重要问题：现有的用于衡量成年人感恩的量表是否适用于衡量青少年？本研究是一项基于大量青少年样本（N=1405，年龄范围为 10 至 19 岁）的实证研究，旨在研究 Gratitude Questionnaire-6（GQ-6；McCullough，Emmons 和 Tsang，2002）、Gratitude Adjective Checklist（GAC；McCullough，Emmons 和 Tsang，2002）以及 Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test（GRAT）-short form（Thomas 和 Watkins，2003）的得分的心理测量特性。单组和多组验证性因素分析表明，这些感恩量表的结构与成年人的结构相似，且在年龄组之间具有不变性。所有三个感恩量表的得分在各个年龄组均显示出可接受的内部一致性估计值（即>.70）。结果表明，对于 14 至 19 岁的青少年而言，所有三个感恩量表的得分彼此之间呈正相关，而对于年龄较小的儿童（10-13 岁），GRAT-short form 的得分与其他两个量表的得分之间的相关性相对较低。此外，效标网络分析表明，所有三个感恩量表的得分与各个年龄组的积极情绪和生活满意度得分呈正相关。然而，与消极情绪和抑郁得分的关系似乎取决于儿童的年龄。针对对研究青少年感恩感兴趣的研究人员，提出了一些后续研究建议。
