Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DOI 10.1007/s12646-010-0027-0
ASSESSMENT
Received: 27 July 2009 / Accepted: 13 July 2010 / Published online: 1 October 2010
# National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2010
Introduction
As positive psychology gathers momentum across the
world, the desire to investigate and document related
K. Singh : S. D. Jha (*)
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology,
Delhi, Hauz Khas,
New Delhi 110016, India
e-mail: shaliniduggal@gmail.com
K. Singh
e-mail: singhk@hss.iitd.ac.in
S. D. Jha
A8/15, Vasant Vihar,
New Delhi 110057, India
constructs appears to be getting more focused and structured. So even though research related to areas in positive
psychology was being carried out for many years before the
term was formally coined in 1998 by Martin Seligman, the
recent emphasis on positive psychology seems to have
spurred relevant theory and research in this area (Seligman
and Csikszentmihalyi 2000).
The emphasis on positive psychology also appears to
have renewed psychologys interest in strengths of character, and research literature is increasingly being devoted to a
variety of positive traits (McCullough and Snyder 2000).
Good character has been described as being essential for
individuals and societies to thrive (Park et al. 2006), and its
classification includes 24 different strengths of character
classified under six core virtues (Park et al. 2006).
In the West, measures have been developed to capture
positive traits, one of the most commonly used instrument
is the Value In Action, Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS), and
much effort has been undertaken to identify universally
recognized strengths of character and ways of assessing
them, led by the point of view of positive psychology
(Peterson and Seligman 2004).
The growing concern however appears to be regarding
how each of the strengths is ranked in different societies.
One way of viewing this is to see human nature as
pervasive, showing a small set of common values and
virtues that are visible in most people and societies as these
are core for survival and for groups to thrive (Bok 1995;
Schwartz 1994). A different way of looking at this is to say
that cultural and historical reasons determine which
strengths are predominant in which place. It seems obvious
that people in different parts of the world differ from one
another on a host of specific values, attitudes, and
behaviors (Park et al. 2006) and thus, cultural factors may
impinge on individuals, and cross-cultural differences that
Method
Participants
Three different samples were used in this study, the first
was used to develop the items, the second was used to
construct the positive personality traits questionnaire
(PPTQ) and later the third sample was used to evaluate
the psychometric properties of the PPTQ. The details of the
samples are as follows:
Sample 1: It consisted of 400 participants (200 male, 200
female) ranging in age from 17 to 24 (mean=
19.16, SD=1.16 years). They were selected
249
250
Table 1 Mean, standard deviations and corrected item total correlations of retained items (N=395)
Items
Mean
SD
Items
Mean
SD
3
4
5
6
8
9
10
18
20
4.00
4.03
4.11
3.81
3.97
3.99
3.81
4.12
3.86
1.04
1.08
1.03
1.00
0.97
1.08
1.08
1.03
1.09
0.46
0.46
0.50
0.51
0.51
0.49
0.47
0.52
0.50
60
61
63
66
68
70
71
73
74
3.91
3.79
3.76
4.15
3.69
3.96
3.60
4.03
3.95
1.05
1.02
1.08
1.01
1.06
0.99
1.11
0.93
0.95
0.50
0.43
0.39
0.53
0.44
0.54
0.46
0.29
0.47
22
26
31
34
36
40
41
44
45
49
54
55
58
3.58
3.67
3.68
3.93
3.93
3.56
3.81
3.40
3.51
3.78
3.72
3.88
3.59
1.04
1.21
1.14
1.12
1.04
1.09
1.02
1.05
1.01
1.05
1.11
1.14
1.15
0.39
0.32
0.40
0.57
0.29
0.36
0.46
0.40
0.37
0.41
0.38
0.49
0.47
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
86
87
89
3.67
3.58
3.79
4.03
4.05
4.13
3.93
3.41
3.73
4.18
3.99
3.48
1.09
1.04
1.03
0.98
1.04
0.97
1.01
1.04
1.09
0.99
1.01
1.33
0.41
0.31
0.41
0.44
0.57
0.43
0.44
0.40
0.52
0.53
0.42
0.28
251
252
Items
Factors
1
Positive self
image
2
Commitment
3
Outward/People
orientation:
4
Culture
identification
60
I am an optimist
0.52
41
0.52
58
0.48
31
0.47
54
0.46
61
0.46
0.45
49
0.41
63
0.40
20
0.40
18
0.40
81
89
0.54
80
0.54
0.54
86
0.53
82
0.51
0.45
0.45
87
0.45
74
0.44
79
0.40
76
0.62
83
0.60
44
0.60
84
My life is exciting
0.54
73
The decisions that I have made so far in my life have lead to success
0.51
0.51
45
0.50
22
0.49
36
0.47
78
0.47
77
0.47
0.59
70
0.57
26
0.54
71
0.50
0.56
10
0.45
34
0.45
55
0.44
66
0.44
40
0.43
68
Eigen values
% of variance (total=30.72%)
0.42
14.45
21.24%
2.75
4.05%
1.90
2.80%
1.79
2.63%
253
Results
Data collected through the questionnaires were analyzed
using SPSS 15.0.
Internal Consistency
Analyses of the PPTQ data indicated internal consistency
coefficients of the four factors ranging between 0.77 and
0.80 (Positive self image =0.77, Commitment =0.80,
Outward/People orientation =0.79 and Culture identification =0.79) and 0.91 for the overall questionnaire. The
details of this analysis are given in Table 3. The inter
correlations among the four factors were uniformly positive
and moderate in size, ranging from r=0.46 to r=0.62. The
inter correlations among the four components were uniformly positive, ranging from r=0.46 to r=0.52. These
results indicate that the factors each capture unique portions
of the variance in positive personality traits.
Validity
The concurrent validity of the scale was computed by
correlating the scores on the scale to the participants scores
on three other measures namely the big five factors inventory,
grit scale and PANAS (independent criterion measures). To
this end, PPTQ was administered to Sample 3. It was
hypothesized that the four factors of PPTQ would show
positive correlations with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, interest, effort, grit and positive
affect and would correlate negatively with negative affect and
neuroticism.
Pearsons correlation was performed on the PPTQ
factors and factors on others instruments. Significant
correlations were found that indicated both convergent
and discriminant validity.
Table 4 summarizes the finding regarding convergent
and discriminant validity. Positive self image showed
significant positive correlations with extraversion (r=
0.174, p<0.05), agreeableness (r=0.42, p<0.01), conscientiousness (r=0.29, p<0.01), openness (r=0.44, p<0.01),
positive affect (r=0.22, p<0.01), interest (r=0.19, p<0.01),
effort (r=0.33, p<0.01) and grit (r=0.34, p<0.01). It
showed a significantly negative correlation with neuroticism (r=0.22, p<0.01) and negative affect (r=0.24,
p<0.01). Commitment demonstrated a significant positive
correlation with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, positive affect, effort and grit and significantly negative correlation with neuroticism (r=0.30,
P<0.01) and negative affect (r=0.28, p<0.01). Culture
identification showed a significantly positive correlation
with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, positive affect, effort and grit and significantly
negative correlation with neuroticism and negative affect.
And finally Outward/ people orientation had a significant
positive correlation with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, positive affect, interest, effort and
grit and significantly negative correlation with neuroticism
(r=0.38, p<0.01).
Discussion
The positive personality traits questionnaire was devised to
assess the prevalence and meaning of positive personality
Table 3 Descriptive data, alpha reliability and intra factor correlations for PPTQ
Factors
M
SD
No. of items
Correlations
Positive self image
Commitment
Outward/ People Orientation
Culture identification
Total
** p<.01
Commitment
41.91
6.91
0.80
11
Outward/People orientation
40.05
6.56
0.79
11
.59**
Culture identification
37.05
6.61
0.79
10
.52**
.46**
Total
39.88
6.89
0.91
43
.60**
.62**
.49**
.83**
.83**
.75**
.83**
1
1
23.11
5.02
0.33**
0.39**
0.38**
0.25**
0.45**
22.20
3.44
.19**
0.11
.19**
0.12
.20**
23.84
8.17
0.24**
0.28**
0.12
0.19**
0.26**
31.95
8.79
0.22**
0.31**
0.27**
0.24**
0.32**
33.10
5.40
0.44**
0.42**
0.32**
0.34**
0.47*
22.67
4.50
0.22**
0.31**
0.38**
0.23**
0.35**
28.53
5.82
0.29**
0.36**
0.38**
0.20**
0.38**
30.21
5.26
0.42**
0.53**
0.36**
0.31**
0.50**
25.97
5.62
0.17*
0.17*
0.28**
0.19**
0.25**
Mean
SD
Positive self image
Commitment
Outward/People orientation
Culture identification
Overall test
Effort
Interest
Negative affect
Positive affect
Openness
Neuroticism
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Extraversion
Constructs
Table 4 Details of Pearsons correlation analysis between PPTQ factors & other measures (N=198)
45.30
6.84
0.34**
0.34**
0.38**
0.24**
0.43**
254
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