Abstract
This study sought to develop a new scale of irrational happiness beliefs (IHB) and test its reliability and validity across two British samples. The participants were subjected to a series of happiness, rationality, irrationality, and subjective and psychological well-being measures. The exploratory (n = 207) and confirmatory factor analyses (n = 157) suggested that the IHB scale was unidimensional with three items demonstrating a good internal consistency reliability estimate. The IHB also showed significant positive correlations with measures of valuing happiness, negative affect, perceived stress and irrational thinking, and that significant negative correlations with measures of satisfaction with life, subjective happiness, positive affect, psychological well-being, and rational thinking. Additionally, the IHB scale was found to be discriminated from the valuing happiness measure. The results thus suggest that the IHB is a valid and reliable measure that can be used to assess one’s irrational happiness beliefs and that can readily be placed within wider psychology by contributing to individual well-being.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1981). Attention and self-regulation: A control theory approach to human behavior. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Cattell, R. B. (1966). The scree test for the number of factors. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1(2), 245–276.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 155–159.
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24, 386–396.
Courtney, M. G. R., & Gordon, M. (2013). Determining the number of factors to retain in EFA: Using the SPSS R-menu v2.0 to make more judicious estimations. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 18(8), 1–14.
Diener, E. D., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 276–302.
Ellis, A. (1957). Rational psychotherapy and individual psychology. Journal of Individual Psychology., 13(1), 38–44.
Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart.
Ellis, A. (1987). Ask Dr. Ellis. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 5, 135–137.
Ellis, A. (1991). The revised ABC’s of rational-emotive therapy (RET). Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 9, 139–172.
Ellis, A., & Ellis, D. J. (2014). Rational emotive behavior therapy. In: G. R. VandenBos, E. Meidenbauer, & J. Frank-McNeil (Eds.), Psychotherapy Theories and Techniques: A Reader (pp. 289–98). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272–299.
Ford, B. Q., Shallcross, A. J., Mauss, I. B., Floerke, V. A., & Gruber, J. (2014). Desperately seeking happiness: Valuing happiness is associated with symptoms and diagnosis of depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 33(10), 890–905.
Ford, B. Q., Mauss, I. B., & Gruber, J. (2015). Valuing happiness is associated with bipolar disorder. Emotion, 15(2), 211–222.
Gruber, J., Mauss, I. B., & Tamir, M. (2011). A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 222–233.
Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135.
Horn, J. L. (1965). A rationale and test for the number of factors in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 30(2), 179–185.
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cut-off criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55.
Joshanloo, M. (2013). The influence of fear of happiness beliefs on responses to the satisfaction with life scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(5), 647–651.
Kaiser, H. F. (1960). The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20(1), 141–151.
Kaiser, H. F. (1974). An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika, 39(1), 31–36.
King, L. A., & Napa, C. K. (1998). What makes a life good? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 156–165.
Kline, P. (1986). A handbook of test construction: Introduction to psychometric design. New York: Methuen & Co..
Lindner, H., Kirkby, R., Wertheim, E., & Birch, P. (1999). A brief assessment of irrational thinking: The shortened general attitude and belief scale. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 23(6), 651–663.
Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46(2), 137–155.
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803–855.
MacCallum, R. C., Widaman, K. F., Zhang, S., & Hong, S. (1999). Sample size in factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 4(1), 84–99.
Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., & Savino, N. S. (2011a). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807–815.
Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., & Savino, N. S. (2011b). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807–815.
Mauss, I. B., Savino, N. S., Anderson, C. L., Weisbuch, M., Tamir, M., & Laudenslager, M. L. (2012). The pursuit of happiness can be lonely. Emotion, 12(5), 908–912.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069–1081.
Ryff, C. D. (1995). Psychological well-being in adult life. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4(4), 99–104.
Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. M. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719–727.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5–14.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using Multivariate Statistics (4th Edn). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well Being Scale (WEMWBS): Development and UK validation. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 5, 63.
Voorhees, C. M., Brady, M. K., Calantone, R., & Ramirez, E. (2015). Discriminant validity testing in marketing: An analysis, causes for concern, and proposed remedies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44, 119–134.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070.
Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the authenticity scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(3), 385–399.
Yu, C. H., Popp, S. O., DiGangi, S., & Jannasch-Pennell, A. (2007). Assessing unidimensionality: A comparison of Rasch modeling, parallel analysis, and TETRAD. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 12(14), 1–18.
Acknowledgements
This study is a part of PhD thesis entitled “Irrational Happiness Beliefs: Conceptualization, Measurement and its Relationship with Well-being, Personality, Coping Strategies, and Arousal” of the first author under the supervision of Prof John Maltby.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Ethics approval has been obtained before conducting the research.
Informed Consent
Consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Irrational Happiness Beliefs Scale
Instructions: Below are three statements that you may agree or disagree with. Using the 1 (strongly disagree)–7 (strongly agree) scale below, please indicate your agreement and disagreement with each item by circling the appropriate number on the line following that item.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Strongly disagree | Somewhat disagree | A little disagree | Neither Agree nor Disagree | A little agree | Somewhat agree | Strongly agree |
1. I should always be happy in all aspects of my life. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
2. I must always be happy in all aspects of my life. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
3. I ought always to be happy in all aspects of my life. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Note: There is no reverse item on the scale. Sum all responses to create a total score. A high score indicates a greater level of irrational happiness beliefs
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yıldırım, M., Maltby, J. Irrational Happiness Beliefs Scale: Development and Initial Validation. Int J Ment Health Addiction 20, 2277–2290 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-021-00513-2
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-021-00513-2