Measuring Happiness Orientations: Measurement Invariance and Latent Mean Differences Across Countries, Ages, and Sex

Emerging research highlights the significant role of happiness orientations (i.e., preferred and prioritized ways of pursuing happiness) in well-being and psychosocial functioning. Despite the increasing use of the Hedonic, Eudaimonic, and Extrinsic Motives for Activities (HEEMA) scale to measure happiness orientations across diverse populations, evidence is lacking regarding its measurement invariance, which leaves the validity of group comparisons in happiness orientation uncertain. Thus, we tested the measurement invariance of the HEEMA scale using data from 1,182 U.S. participants (ages 18–86) and 1,531 Chinese participants (ages 18–75). Results showed that the configural and metric invariance of the scale with four factors (i.e., pleasure, comfort, eudaimonic, and extrinsic orientations) was maintained across countries, age groups, and sex groups. Partial scalar invariance was established across countries, and full scalar invariance was established across age and sex groups. Among the invariant models, we found group differences in the levels of pleasure, comfort, eudaimonic, and extrinsic orientations. Moreover, these happiness orientations had differential associations with two criterion indicators: mental illness and proenvironmental behaviors. Our findings support the use of the HEEMA scale in U.S. and Chinese contexts and in different sex and age groups, and also demonstrate the distinction among four orientations.