Italian adaptation of the Pemberton Happiness Index

Abstract

Happiness is a multi-faceted phenomenon in individuals’ lives. It benefits our mental and physical health, social relations, employment, education, and environment. Pemberton Happiness Index (PHI) is a short and complete index covering general, hedonic, eudaimonic and social well-being. It considers the different timeframes of remembered and experienced well-being. The objective of the study is verifying if PHI, already validated in European and world countries is suitable for the Italian culture. The questionnaire was administered to 410 participants randomly divided into two groups to perform exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) analyses, to examine Pearson’s correlations with other scales, and to assess internal consistency (Cronbach ɑ ). Through EFA and CFA, aligning with the original validation, the best solution indicated a unidimensional structure composed of Remembered Well-being and the Experienced Well-being score. Pearson’s correlations evinced strong positive correlations with psychological well-being and satisfaction with life and negative correlations with negative affect. PHI proves to be a concise and solid scale, suitable to the Italian culture. The strong positive correlations between PHI and life satisfaction and positive well-being confirm that individuals’ evaluation of happiness is a crucial step and that in Italian culture well-being is strongly related to optimal functioning, both for individuals and for healthy working places.