Measurement Invariance of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience Across 13 Countries

Abstract

The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) is widely used to measure emotional experiences, but not much is known about its cross-cultural utility. The present study evaluated the measurement invariance of the SPANE across adult samples ( N = 12,635; age range = 18-85 years; 58.2% female) from 13 countries (China, Colombia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States). Configural and partial scalar invariance of the SPANE were supported. Three items capturing specific negative emotions (sad, afraid, and angry) were found to be culturally noninvariant. Our findings suggest that the SPANE’s positive emotion terms and general negative emotion terms (e.g., negative and unpleasant) might be more suitable for cross-cultural studies on emotions and well-being, whereas caution is needed when comparing countries using the SPANE’s specific negative emotion items.

Cross-Cultural Measurement of Positive and Negative Emotions in Adolescence: Evidence from Three Countries

“…This modified two-factor model provided an adequate fit to the data across the three countries. Similar results were obtained in a recent study on cross-cultural measurement invariance of the SPANE among adults across 13 countries (Jovanović et al, 2021 ), in which the original two-factor model fit well in ten countries, but correlated residuals between pairs of opposite items had to be added in three countries (Colombia, Turkey, and Spain) in order to achieve a good fit. These two items are semantic opposites and capture oppositely valenced, general emotional experiences, and thus can be expected to be strongly negatively associated with one another (Russell, 2017 ).…”

“…Specifically, we hypothesized that the basic two-factor model of the SPANE is similar across groups (configural invariance) and that the correlations between SPANE items and their underlying dimensions of positive and negative emotions are equivalent across groups (metric invariance; Milfont & Fischer, 2010 ), replicating recent cross-cultural invariance findings for adult populations (Jovanović et al, 2021 ). This hypothesis was based on the fact that the SPANE includes six general descriptors of feelings and six specific emotions that are expected to have a high degree of universality across cultures (Diener et al, 2010 ), and which have previously formed two equivalent factor structures of positive and negative feelings (Jovanović et al, 2021 ). However, we expected that scalar invariance (equivalent factor loadings and item intercepts across groups) does not hold as this level of invariance is rarely obtained in cross-cultural research (Marsh et al, 2018 ).…”

“…For example, the SPANE reflects different arousal levels (e.g., sad and contented are low-arousal, whereas joyful and angry are high-arousal emotions), in contrast to the PANAS which focuses exclusively on high arousal emotions. Furthermore, the use of general feeling terms (viz., positive/negative, good/bad, and pleasant/unpleasant), which have a high degree of universality across languages and cultures, could make this scale more suitable for the assessment of emotional experiences in cross-cultural research (Jovanović et al, 2021 ). Finally, the SPANE uses the frequency-based instead of intensity-based response format used in the majority of emotion questionnaires, because frequency in considered more suitable than intensity for the assessment of affective well-being (see Garcia & Erlandsson, 2011 , for details).…”

“…Inconsistent results of past studies did not allow us to pose the specific hypotheses regarding the associations between positive and negative emotions, and their relations with life satisfaction across the three countries. For example, some studies found that negative associations between positive and negative emotions were stronger in more individualistic cultures (Jovanović et al, 2021 ; Miyamoto et al, 2017 ), and that negative emotions and hedonic balance were more closely associated with life satisfaction in individualistic than in collectivistic countries (Kuppens et al, 2008 ; Schimmack et al, 2002 ). On the other hand, Busseri ( 2018 ) found that correlations between life satisfaction (as measured by the SWLS), positive emotions, and negative emotions (as measured by the SPANE) did not vary significantly across countries.…”

Psychometric Properties of the Ukrainian Version of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (Spane)

“…These instruments have been validated in many countries and they have shown good psychometric properties. Due to this, transnational and cross-cultural studies of the SWB affective component have recently gained popularity [7]. Such studies require the scale to show evidence of measurement invariance [8][9][10].…”