Journal of Happiness and Health
  • Register
  • Login

Journal of Happiness and Health

  • Home
  • Journal Info
    • Journal Description
    • Aims & Scope
    • Editorial Team
    • Abstracting & Indexing
    • Publication Policy
    • Open Access Policy
    • Review Guidelines
    • Journal Sponsorship
  • Issues
    • Current
    • Archives
  • Author Guidelines
    • Instructions for Authors
    • Peer Review Process
    • Publication Ethics
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Statement
  • Journal Updates
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Contact
Advanced Search
  1. Home
  2. Archives
  3. Vol. 2 No. 1 (2022)
  4. Research Articles

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2022)

April 2022

Measuring Personal and Social Responsibility: An Existential Positive Psychology Approach

  • Gökmen Arslan
  • Paul T P Wong

Journal of Happiness and Health, Vol. 2 No. 1 (2022), 10 April 2022 , Page 1-11
https://doi.org/10.47602/johah.v2i1.5 Published: 29-09-2021

  • View Article
  • Download
  • Cite
  • References
  • Statastics
  • Share

Abstract

Responsibility was regarded as essential for wellbeing, and measuring this construct is warranted to develop strategies that promote people’s mental health and well-being. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the initial development and validation of the Responsibility Scale (RS) to measure the sense of responsibility of individuals. Participants included two independent samples, comprising of 284 adults, ranging in age between 18 and 84 years. Sample 1 was used to conducted the exploratory factor analysis and comprised of 152 adults (65% female), ranging in age from 18 to 82 years (M = 43.18, SD = 14.68). Sample 2 was used to conduct the confirmatory factor analysis. The sample consisted of 132 adults (56% female), ranging in age from 18 to 84 years (M = 29.08, SD = 12.45). Findings from exploratory factor analysis revealed the RS provided a two–factor solution comprising of 8 items that accounted for 46% of the variance, with equal items targeting characteristics of both personal and social responsibility. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two–factor latent structure, providing good data-model fit statistics. Further results also showed that the internal reliability of the scale and its subscales were strong.  Finally, the latent path model revealed that the first– and high–order measurement model had positive and significant predictive effects on life satisfaction and negative predictive effects on psychological distress, accounting for the approximately large variance in the variables. Overall, the results suggest that the RS could be used to assess personal and social responsibility among adults.

Keywords:
  • Responsibility, reliability, validity, rating scale, positive psychology, second-wave positive psychology
  • PDF

How to Cite

Arslan, G., & Wong, P. T. P. (2021). Measuring Personal and Social Responsibility: An Existential Positive Psychology Approach. Journal of Happiness and Health, 2(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.47602/johah.v2i1.5
  • ACM
  • ACS
  • APA
  • ABNT
  • Chicago
  • Harvard
  • IEEE
  • MLA
  • Turabian
  • Vancouver
  • Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)
  • BibTeX

References

Arslan, G. & Yıldırım, M. (2021). Perceived risk, positive youth-parent relationships, and internalizing problems in adolescents: Initial development of the Meaningful School Questionnaire. Child Indicators Research, 14, 1911–1929. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-021-09841-0

Austen, I. (2021, September 3). Vaccine passports roll out, and so do unruly anti-vaccine protests. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/world/canada/vaccine-passports-protests.htm

Ball, P. (2020, May 13). Anti-vaccine movement could undermine effors to end coronavirus pandemic, researchers warn. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01423-4

Chen, C., Chang, S., & Wu, H. (2021). discovering and approaching mature happiness: The implementation of the CasMac Model in a university english class. Frontiers in Education, 6, 648311. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.648311

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioralsciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum.

De Ruyter, D. (2002). The virtue of taking responsibility. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 34(1), 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2002.tb00283.x

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01

DeVellis, R. F. (2017). Scale development: Theory and applications. Sage Publications, Inc.

Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75.

Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS. Sage publications.

Frankl, V. E. (1985). Man’s search for meaning. Washington Square Press (Originally published in 1946)

George, L. S., & Park, C. L. (2016). Meaning in life as comprehension, purpose, and mattering: Toward integration and new research questions. Review of General Psychology, 20(3), 205–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000077

Giacalone, R. A., Jurkiewicz, C. L., & Deckop, J. R. (2008). On ethics and social responsibility: The impact of materialism, postmaterialism, and hope. Human Relations, 61(4), 483–514. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726708091019

Guignon, C.(1998). Freedom and responsibility. In Existentialism. In T. Crane (Ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780415249126-N020-1

Hanson, J. A. (2020, November 4). Meaning in life, imagination, and Søren Kierkegaard by Jeffrey A. Hanson. The Harvard Human Flourishing Program. https://hfharvard.medium.com/meaning-in-life-imagination-and-s%C3%B8ren-kierkegaard-by-jeffrey-a-hanson-2be72f0953ee

Hooper, D., Coughlan, J., & Mullen, M. R. (2008). Structural Equation Modelling: Guidelines for Determining Model Fit. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 6(1), 53–60.

John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big-Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 102–138). Guilford Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1983). Fear and trembling (Trans. H. V. Hong). Princeton University Press (Originally published in 1843)

Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. Guilford .

Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W., & Lowe, B. (2009). An Ultra-Brief Screening Scale for Anxiety and Depression: The PHQ-4. Psychosomatics, 50(6), 613–621. doi: 10.1176/appi.psy.50.6.613

Lopez, S. J., & Snyder, C. R. (2009). The Oxford handbook of positive psychology. Oxford University Press.

Martela, F., & Steger, M. F. (2016). The three meanings of meaning in life: Distinguishing coherence, purpose, and significance. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(5), 531–545. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137623

Martins, P., Rosado, A., Ferreira, V., & Biscaia, R. (2015). Examining the validity of the personal-social responsibility questionnaire among athletes. Motriz: Revista de Educação Física, 21(3), 321–328. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1980-65742015000300014

Martins, P., Rosado, A., Ferreira, V., & Biscaia, R. (2017). Personal and Social Responsibility Among Athletes: the Role of Self-Determination, Achievement Goals and Engagement. Journal of Human Kinetics, 57(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1515/hukin-2017-0045

Mergler, A. (2017). Personal responsibility: an integrative review of conceptual and measurement issues of the construct. Research Papers in Education, 32(2), 254–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2016.1225801

Mergler, A., & Shield, P. (2016). Development of the Personal Responsibility Scale for adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 50–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.011

Moeinikorbekandi, F. (2013). Kierkegaard’s View on the Suffering Aspects of Life and the Role of Love in Decreasing the Suffering of Life. In A. A. Drautzburg & J. Oldfield (Eds.), Making sense of suffering: A collective attempt. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848881235_003

Mueller, R. O., & Hancock, G. R. (2008). Best practices in structural equation modeling. In J. Osborne (Ed.), Best practices in quantitative methods (pp. 488–510). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (1993). Review of the Satisfaction With Life Scale. Psychological Assessment, 5(2), 164–172. doi: 10.1037/1040-3590.5.2.164

Peck, M. S. (2012). The Road Less Travelled. Rider (Originally published in 1978)

Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.

Peterson, J. B. (2018). 12 rules for life: An antidote to chaos. Vintage Canada.

Rise, J., & Halkjelsvik, T. (2019). Conceptualizations of Addiction and Moral Responsibility. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1483. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01483

Ryan, R. M., Legate, N., Niemiec, C. P., & Deci, E. L. (2012). Beyond illusions and defense: Exploring the possibilities and limits of human autonomy and responsibility through self-determination theory. In P. R. Shaver & M. Mikulincer (Eds.), Meaning, mortality, and choice: The social psychology of existential concerns. (pp. 215–233). https://doi.org/10.1037/13748-012

Sartre, J.-P. (1973). No exit, and three other plays. Vintage Books.

Sheldon, K. M., Gordeeva, T., Leontiev, D., Lynch, M. F., Osin, E., Rasskazova, E., & Dementiy, L. (2018). Freedom and responsibility go together: Personality, experimental, and cultural demonstrations. Journal of Research in Personality, 73, 63–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.11.007

Stevens, J. P. (2009). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. Routledge.

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2013). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Pearson.

Tay, L., & Jebb, A. (2017). Scale development. In S. Rogelberg (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of industrial and organizational psychology. Sage publications.

Trivedi-Bateman, N. (2020, May 15). Why young people commit crime and how moral education could help – new research. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/why-young-people-commit-crime-and-how-moral-education-could-help-new-research-131855

Wong, L. C. J., Thompson, G. R., & Wong, P. T. P. (Eds.) (2013). The positive psychology of meaning and addiction recovery: Selected papers from Meaning Conferences. Purpose Research.

Wong, P. T. P. (2008). Freedom and responsibility. In K. Shelton, & D. L. Bolz (Eds.), Responsibility 911: With great liberty comes great responsibility (p. 31-34). Executive Excellence.

Wong, P. T. P. (2010). Meaning therapy: An integrative and positive existential psychotherapy. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 40(2), 85–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-009-9132-6

Wong, P. T. P. (2011). Positive psychology 2.0: Towards a balanced interactive model of the good life. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 52(2), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022511

Wong, P. T. P. (2012). Toward a dual-systems model of what makes life worth living. In P. T. P. Wong (Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 3-22). Routledge.

Wong, P. T. P. (2014). Viktor Frankl’s meaning seeking model and positive psychology. In A. Batthyany & P. Russo-Netzer (Eds.), Meaning in existential and positive psychology (pp. 149-184). Springer.

Wong, P. T. P. (2016). Meaning centered positive group intervention. In P. Russo-Netzer, S. E. Schulenberg, & A. Batthyany (Eds.), Clinical perspectives on meaning: Positive and existential psychotherapy. (pp. 423–445). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41397-6_21

Wong, P. T. P. (2017). Existential theoretical framework. In A. Wenzel (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of abnormal and clinical psychology (pp. 1375-1378). Sage.

Wong, P. T. P. (2019a). Second wave positive psychology’s (PP 2.0) contribution to counselling psychology. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 32(3–4), 275–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2019.1671320

Wong, P. T. P. (2019b). What is the Greatest Need Today? Responsibility is the Key to Surviving and Thriving in Dangerous Times. Dr Paul Wong. http://www.drpaulwong.com/what-is-the-greatest-need-today-responsibility-is-the-key-to-surviving-and-thriving-in-dangerous-times /

Wong, P. T. P. (2020). You need CasMac to get through the Covid-19 crisis stronger and happier. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/psuwq

Wong, P. T. P. (2021). Existential Positive Psychology (PP 2.0) and global wellbeing: Why it is Necessary During the Age of COVID-19. International Journal of Existential Positive Psychology, 10(1), 1-16. https://www.meaning.ca/ijepp-article/vol10-no1/what-is-existential-positive-psychology-pp-2-0-why-is-it-necessary-for-mental-health-during-the-pandemic/

Wong, P. T. P., & Wong, L. C. J. (2012). A meaning-centered approach to building youth resilience. In P. T. P. Wong (Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed.) (pp. 585–617). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

Wong, P. T. P., Mayer, C.-H., Arslan, G. (Eds.). (in press). COVID-19 and existential positive psychology (PP2.0): The new science of self-transcendence. Frontiers.

Wong, P. T. P., Pattakos, A., & Arslan, G. (2020). The role of responsibility in wellbeing & public policy in the age of COVID-19 [Abstract]. http://www.drpaulwong.com/the-role-of-responsibility-in-wellbeing-public-policy-in-the-age-of-covid-19

Worthington, R. L., & Whittaker, T. A. (2006). Scale development research. The Counseling Psychologist, 34(6), 806–838. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006288127

Wray-Lake, L., & Syvertsen, A. K. (2011). The developmental roots of social responsibility in childhood and adolescence. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2011(134), 11–25. https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.308

Zimmerman, B. J., & Kitsantas, A. (2005). Homework practices and academic achievement: The mediating role of self-efficacy and perceived responsibility beliefs. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30(4), 397–417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2005.05.003

  • Abstract Viewed: 1656 times
  • PDF Downloaded: 1447 times

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Download Statastics

  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google Plus
  • Telegram

Information

  • For Readers
  • For Authors
  • For Librarians
Keywords
Most Downloaded (the last 90 days)
  • Examining staff and faculty work–life balance and well-being using the dual continua model of mental health during COVID-19
    356
  • School belongingness in academically at-risk adolescents: Addressing psychosocial functioning and psychological well-being
    325
  • Measuring Personal and Social Responsibility: An Existential Positive Psychology Approach
    201
  • Child Mental Health and Bullying within the Exposure to Domestic Violence: Literature Review
    186
  • Transforming stress to happiness: Positive couple therapy with distressed couples
    156
  • Home
  • Archives
  • Submissions
  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Team
  • Contact

Journal of Happiness and Health (JOHAH) is a peer-reviewed journal covering happiness and provides an international forum for the science of happiness and health. The JOHAH, which is published two times a year, is an open-access that publishes research outcomes with significant contributions to the understanding and improvement of happiness and health and publishes research regarding the happiness of populations across the life span

Journal of Happiness and Health is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.