The purpose of this study was to examine measurement invariance of the Subjective Happiness Scale across countries, gender, and age groups and across time by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Altogether, 4,977 participants from nine European, American, and Australian countries were included in the study. Our results revealed that both configural and metric invariance held across countries, but scalar invariance was only partially confirmed with one item yielding varying intercepts in different countries. Measurement invariance was also confirmed across gender and age groups. Longitudinal measurement invariance was examined on a subsample of 478 English-speaking participants and was fully confirmed across five consecutive assessment points. Factor means were compared between groups and across time, and good convergent validity of the Subjective Happiness Scale was found in relation to a measure of temporal satisfaction with life. Overall, our results demonstrate that self-reported happiness was measured similarly in nine different countries, gender and age groups and over time, and provide a solid foundation for meaningful cross-group and cross-time comparisons in subjective happiness.

本研究的目的是通过多组验证性因素分析检查主观幸福感量表在国家、性别和年龄组之间以及跨时间的测量不变性。共有来自欧洲、美国和澳大利亚九个国家的 4,977 名参与者参与了这项研究。我们的结果表明，配置不变性和度量不变性在国家间保持不变，但标量不变性仅部分得到证实，其中一项在不同国家产生不同的截距。跨性别和年龄组也证实了测量不变性。纵向测量不变性在 478 名讲英语的参与者的子样本上进行了检查，并在五个连续的评估点上得到了充分证实。因子平均值在组间和跨时间进行比较，主观幸福感量表的收敛效度与衡量对生活的暂时满意度有关。总体而言，我们的结果表明，在九个不同的国家、性别和年龄组以及随着时间的推移，自我报告的幸福感得到了类似的衡量，并为主观幸福感的有意义的跨群体和跨时间比较提供了坚实的基础。