Measurement invariance of big-five factors over the life span: ESEM tests of gender, age, plasticity, maturity, and la dolce vita effects
TLDR
ESEM, an integration of CFA and exploratory factor analysis, overcomes problems with the 15-item Big Five Inventory administered as part of the nationally representative British Household Panel Study and showed that women had higher latent scores for all Big Five factors except for Openness and that these gender differences were consistent over the entire life span.Abstract:
This substantive-methodological synergy applies evolving approaches to factor analysis to substantively important developmental issues of how five-factor-approach (FFA) personality measures vary with gender, age, and their interaction. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) conducted at the item level often do not support a priori FFA structures, due in part to the overly restrictive assumptions of CFA models. Here we demonstrate that exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), an integration of CFA and exploratory factor analysis, overcomes these problems with the 15-item Big Five Inventory administered as part of the nationally representative British Household Panel Study (N = 14,021; age: 15-99 years, Mage = 47.1). ESEM fitted the data substantially better and resulted in much more differentiated (less correlated) factors than did CFA. Methodologically, we extended ESEM (introducing ESEM-within-CFA models and a hybrid of multiple groups and multiple indicators multiple causes models), evaluating full measurement invariance and latent mean differences over age, gender, and their interaction. Substantively the results showed that women had higher latent scores for all Big Five factors except for Openness and that these gender differences were consistent over the entire life span. Substantial nonlinear age effects led to the rejection of the plaster hypothesis and the maturity principle but did support a newly proposed la dolce vita effect in old age. In later years, individuals become happier (more agreeable and less neurotic), more self-content and self-centered (less extroverted and open), more laid back and satisfied with what they have (less conscientious, open, outgoing and extroverted), and less preoccupied with productivity.read more
Citations
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Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling: An Integration of the Best Features of Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis
TL;DR: ESEM, an overarching integration of the best aspects of CFA/SEM and traditional EFA, provides confirmatory tests of a priori factor structures, relations between latent factors and multigroup/multioccasion tests of full (mean structure) measurement invariance.
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Bayesian structural equation modeling: A more flexible representation of substantive theory.
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TL;DR: This article proposes a new approach to factor analysis and structural equation modeling using Bayesian analysis, which replaces parameter specifications of exact zeros with approximate zeros based on informative, small-variance priors.
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A Bifactor Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling Framework for the Identification of Distinct Sources of Construct-Relevant Psychometric Multidimensionality
TL;DR: In this paper, two sources of construct-relevant psychometric multidimensionality present in many complex multidimensional instruments routinely used in psychological and educational research are related to the fallible nature of indicators as perfect indicators of a single construct, and the hierarchical nature of the constructs being assessed.
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Short assessment of the Big Five: robust across survey methods except telephone interviewing
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined measurement invariance and age-related robustness of a short 15-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-S) of personality dimensions, which is well suited for applications in large-scale multidisciplinary surveys.
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Passion: Does one scale fit all? Construct validity of two-factor passion scale and psychometric invariance over different activities and languages.
Herbert W. Marsh,Robert J. Vallerand,Marc-André K. Lafrenière,Philip D. Parker,Alexandre J. S. Morin,Noémie Carbonneau,Sophia Jowett,Julien S. Bureau,Claude Fernet,Frédéric Guay,Adel S. Abduljabbar,Yvan Paquet +11 more
TL;DR: Strong measurement partial invariance over 5 passion activity groups indicates that the same set of items is appropriate for assessing passion across a wide variety of activities--a previously untested, implicit assumption that greatly enhances practical utility.
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