When Less is More: A Short Version of the Personal Optimism Scale and the Self-Efficacy Optimism Scale

Vesna Gavrilov-Jerković, Veljko Jovanović (), Dragan Žuljević and Dragana Brdarić

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2014, vol. 15, issue 2, 455-474

Abstract: The past few years have seen increased theoretical and applied research on the relations between constructs related to positive expectations. However, instruments capable of distinguishing positive expectancy constructs are still lacking. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the 18-item Personal Optimism Scale and Self-Efficacy Optimism Scale. Two student samples from the University of Novi Sad in Serbia were recruited for the present research, with a total of 728 participants. The results of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses did not support the theoretically expected structure. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis and content validity support shortening the scale to 9 items. The short versions of the scales demonstrated adequate reliability in internal consistency and adequate concurrent and convergent validity by significant correlations with dispositional optimism, general self-efficacy, hope, resilience and subjective well-being. The analyses lead us to conclude that a shorter 4-item Personal Optimism Scale and a 5-item Self-Efficacy Optimism Scale provide a clear, precise measures of two types of positive expectations. The authors argue that the limitations of the original scales emanate from their vague theoretical-substantive validity, and call for future research to replicate these findings. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: POSO-E; Positive expectancies; Personal optimism; Self-efficacy optimism; Reliability; Validity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-013-9432-0 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:15:y:2014:i:2:p:455-474

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... fe/journal/10902/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-013-9432-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Happiness Studies is currently edited by Antonella Delle Fave

More articles in Journal of Happiness Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().