The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), supported in Self-Determination Theory, has been applied in recent decades as well in high school as in college education. Although several versions in Spanish are available, the underlying linguistic and cultural differences raise important issues when they are applied to Latin-American population. Consequently an adapted version of the AMS was developed, and its construct validity was analyzed in Argentine students. Results obtained on a sample that included 723 students from Buenos Aires (393 high school and 330 college students) verified adequate psychometric properties in this new version, solving some controversies regarded to its dimensionality.

The present research aimed at studying the psychometric properties of the Mental Health Continuum–Short Form (MHC–SF; Keyes, 2005) in a sample of 1,300 Argentinean adults (50% males; 50% females). Their mean age was 40.28 years old (SD = 13.59). The MHC–SF is a 14 item test that assesses three components (i.e., emotional, social, and psychological) of well-being. Convergent and divergent evidence of construct validity was assessed by conducting confirmatory factor analysis, cross-validation, factorial invariance, and correlations with external criteria. Internal consistency was studied using Cronbach’s alphas. Results indicated an adequate fit of a three-dimensional model. This structure was also confirmed, and was invariant throughout sex and age. The emotional well-being scores converged with life satisfaction and positive affect measures; the psychological well-being scale had a positive association with the presence of meaning in life; and the social well-being scores showed a positive and strong correlation with an external measure of well-being. Also, all scores were negatively associated with negative affect, search of meaning in life, and presence of depression symptoms. Internal consistency was .89 for the MHC–SF. Furthermore, the findings supported the two - continua model of mental health.

El incremento de estudios exploratorios y confirmatorios en psicometría debido al avance tecnológico obliga a revisar su metodología. Generalmente estos estudios utilizan el coeficiente de correlación r de Pearson, diseñado para variables continuas y extendido posteriormente a las categóricas (dicotómicas o politómicas). Los paquetes estadísticos actuales permiten aplicar procedimientos robustos ideados específicamente para variables categóricas, entre los que se destacan las correlaciones tetracóricas y policóricas, cuya relevancia metodológica radica en que la mayoría de las escalas psicométricas se compone de reactivos dicotómicos y politómicos (principalmente formatos Likert). El presente trabajo expone en primer lugar particularidades vinculadas al uso de estos estadísticos, softwares que facilitan su ejecución, problemas asociados a su aplicación y posibles soluciones a los mismos. En segundo término se ejemplifican ambas metodologías tanto en análisis factorial exploratorio como confirmatorio.

The aim of this paper is to explore a new framework for personality assessment that may function as sanity nosology of personality traits: the Positive Personality Model (PPM). The recent publication of DSM-5 created the opportunity to assess personality traits as dimensional constructs (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In Section III, five maladaptive personality traits are proposed as the maladaptive versions of Five Factor Model (FFM) traits (Costa and McCrae, 1985). This approach draws on the existing idea of conceptualizing pathological and typical personality traits as part of a continuum. It places DSM-5′s maladaptive traits in a sickness pole and FFM’s traits in a “typical” pole. This spectrum, however, does not include a positive perspective that represents healthy behavior: a sanity nosology. The Positive Traits Inventory-5 (PTI-5; de la Iglesia and Castro Solano, 2018) is a measure designed to assess the positive reverse of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Adult (PID-5; Krueger et al., 2013). The 220 positive personality criteria were studied psychometrically using a sample of 1902 Argentinean adults from the general population (Mage = 39.10, SD = 13.81, Min = 18, and Max = 83; 50.1% females, 49.9% males). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a five-factor solution. The dimensions were labeled Sprightliness, Integrity, Serenity, Moderation, and Humanity and subsumed under the denomination of PPM. Analyses of convergent validity provided some grounds for interpreting the five positive traits as positive versions of the pathological traits and the typical traits. When tested for its predictive capability on mental health, the PPM outperformed the variance explained by the FFM. It is concluded that the PPM may constitute a positive pole in the continuum of personality traits –possibly functioning as a sanity nosology– and that it is somewhat more related to optimal functioning than typical trait models. The PPM should be confirmed in other populations, its predictive capability ought to be tested with other relevant variables, and longitudinal studies should be done to analyze the stability of the traits over time.