There are few valid measures of subjective well-being adapted to the Brazilian population. In this study, several items were elaborated for the development of an instrument to measure the three major components of subjective well-being: satisfaction with life, positive affect and negative affect. The Subjective Well-Being Scale (EBES) was answered by 795 participants (mean age = 35.6 years old; standard deviation = 4.83). Principal components and factor analysis of their answers (extratcion of principal components - PAF and direct oblimin rotation) revealed the expected three factors: positive affect (21 items, explaining 24.3% of the variance, alpha = 0.95); negative affect (26 items, 24.9% of the variance, alpha = 0.95) and satisfaction-dissatisfaction with life (15 items, 21.9% of the variance, alpha = 0.90). Together, these three factors explained 44.16% of the total variance of the construct. The 69 items of the EBES were further analyzed using Item Response Theory (IRT). All the results supported the construct validity of the Subjective Well-Being Scale.
subjective well-being; validation; scale
