Abstract
The present research was conducted to develop and validate an indigenous self-report measure of happiness, named as Happiness Scale (HS). A conceptual referent theory of happiness (CRT) proposed by Rojas (2005) guided the development of HS. This happiness scale requires cognitive evaluations only. Items were empirically generated with the help of psychologists and young adults. A sample of 800 young adults (400 men and 400 women, with age range 19 to 34 years) from various educational institutes of Lahore and Gujranwala were recruited. The factor analysis was used to determine construct validity of HS, which resulted in 32-items scale with eight factors. These eight factors were labeled (a) Cheerfulness (b) Satisfaction (c) Virtue (d) Familial attachment (e) Self-fulfillment (f) Sociability (g) Altruism and (h) Selfefficacy. The alpha coefficient (α = .90) and item-total correlation (ranging from r = .36 to .66, p<.01) supported the high internal consistency of the HS. Moreover, the convergent and discriminant validity was also assessed by correlating HS with Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ - Hills & Argyle, 2001) and with the Siddiqui Shah Depression Scale (SSDS - Siddiqui& Shah, 1997) respectively, to establish construct validity. A significant positive correlation of .61 of HS, p< .01 was found with OHQ and significant negative correlation coefficient of -.54, p< .01 with SSDS, which provided strong evidence for the construct validity of HS. Further implications of the study were discussed.

Uzma Qayyum, Iffat Batool, Shah Rukh Tariq. (2020) Development and Validation of Happiness Scale for Young Adults, Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Volume-30, Issue-2.
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