Reliability and validity of the oxford happiness inventory among iranians

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Ahmad  Alipour ¹ (PhD Payame Noor University)
Mojgan  Agah Heris ² (M. A. in General Psychology)

Received: 2015-06-06 Accepted : 2015-06-06 Published : 2007-06-22

Keywords: Reliability, validity, Oxford Happiness Inventory,

Abstract :

In order to test the reliability and validity of the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI; Argyle, 2001), a sample of 142 Iranian males and 227 Iranian females, age 18-53 (Mean = 25), completed the OHI, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck et al., 1979), and the Eysenk Personality Questionnaire (EPQ, 1999). Test of the internal con- sistency of the OHI revealed that all 29 items were highly correlated with the total score. The Cronbach’s alpha for the inventory was 0.91. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the OHI and the BDI and Extraversion and Neuroticism of EPQ subscales were respectively -0.48, 0.45, and -0.39, confirming their convergent and divergent validity. Factor analysis extracted five factors including life satisfaction, self-esteem, subjective well-being, self satisfaction, and positive affect, with an eigenvalue of greater than one that could explain 49.7% of the total variance. The Iranian participants’ mean score on the OHI (M = 42.07) differed from that of participants in the Ar- gyle’s study (M = 35.6). The results showed that the OHI is a reliable and valid inventory for measuring happiness among Iranians.