The current study aims to test the psychometric properties of the Existence Subscale of the Purpose in Life Questionnaire (EPIL) for early adolescence. The Purpose in Life Questionnaire (PIL), originally created by Craumbaugh and Maholick, is a 20-item scale measuring different dimensions of life purposes. The current study selected seven items representative of the existence dimension to form another scale, the EPIL. The analysis was based on 2842 early adolescents, ranging from 11 to 14 years old. Principal axis factoring found one factor, with 60% variance being explained. Cronbach’s alpha for the EPIL was 0.89, which was high. The factor structure was stable across genders. Criterion-related validity was determined when the scale was used to differentiate volunteers and nonvolunteers. Construct validity was found when the scale was associated with life satisfaction. The results give support to the fact that the EPIL could be used alone to measure the psychological well-being of early adolescents and the appropriateness of the EPIL in adolescent research.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, attributed the August 2011 social unrest in London to one fundamental reason, the lack of morality. The drive provided by the life purpose (or life meaning) is one avenue toward human morality and meaningful existence [
The concept of purpose in life has been researched extensively. Ryff [
Most of the studies were conducted in the West and utilized adults as subjects [
One problem related to the studies of life purposes and early adolescents is the measurement issue. Generally, the most common scale used is the Purpose in Life Questionnaire (PIL) [
The scale is relatively reliable, in terms of Cronbach’s alpha (0.84) [
Direct use of the PIL on early adolescents may be problematic. Some items, such as the clarity of life goals, are too abstract for early adolescents. Several items, such as a reason for existence and whether the respondent has a sense of meaning in the world, may be beyond the lived experience of early adolescents. One dimension proposed by Shek [
In view of the issues arising from item relevance to early adolescents and the categories of subscales, studies related to PIL and early adolescents practically do not exist. Thus, if we want to adopt the PIL for early adolescents, the constraints cited previously should be addressed. One solution is to select relevant domains and choose the items with reference to those domains. Subscales have been used independently in personality research, such as the Big Five [
The current study explores the psychometric properties of the Existence Subscale of the PIL (EPIL). As suggested by Shek [
The current paper focused on the validation of the EPIL. Based on a large-scale survey in Hong Kong, the reliability, validity (criterion-related validity and construct validity), and factor structure of the scale were examined. The analyses were performed with IBM SPSS Statistics version 19.0.
A total of 2,842 high school students from Grades 7 to 9 in Hong Kong (ages range from 11 to 14) participated in the convenience sampling study. Among the participants, 1747 (61.5%) were girls, whereas 1095 (38.5%) were boys. The mean age of the participants was 13.33 (SD = 0.73).
Both parental and participant consents were obtained. All respondents completed the scales and demographic characteristics in a self-administration format, with adequate time provided.
Craumbaugh and Maholick [
The current EPIL selected items related to the existence domain from Shek’s study (PIL 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 19). A group of adolescents in a secondary school was asked to evaluate the content of the EPIL during a pilot study. PIL 5 and PIL 19 were suggested to be removed because they thought that the meaning was very similar to PIL 2. Both statements are about the excitement of everyday life. The meaning of PIL 2 was direct and easy to grasp. Item 11 was selected because some adolescents did not get the meaning very well, that is, I often wonder why I exist. Seven items were used as the foundation of EPIL (PIL 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16). The original numbering of the items is adopted for sake of clarity.
Diener et al. [
The principal axis factoring with varimax rotation resulted in a one-factor solution which explained a 60.09% variance (Table
Total variance explained and eigenvalues.
Factor | Eigenvalues | Variance explained |
---|---|---|
1 | 4.21 | 60.09% |
2 | 0.74 | 10.54% |
3 | 0.61 | 8.71% |
4 | 0.43 | 6.16% |
5 | 0.42 | 5.92% |
6 | 0.32 | 4.50% |
7 | 0.29 | 4.08% |
Items statistics of existence subscale of purpose in life scale (
Items equivalent to PIL | mean | SD | median | mode | SE | Corrected item-total correlation | Squared multiple correlation | Cronbach’s alpha if item deleted | Factor loading |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(1) I am usually completed | 5.02 | 1.38 | 5.00 | 5 | 0.03 | 0.74 | 0.60 | 0.85 | 0.80 |
Bored—enthusiastic | |||||||||
(2) Life to me seems always | 4.97 | 1.41 | 5.00 | 5 | 0.03 | 0.70 | 0.58 | 0.86 | 0.77 |
Exciting—completely routine | |||||||||
(6) If I could choose, I would | 5.14 | 1.74 | 5.00 | 7 | 0.03 | 0.71 | 0.51 | 0.85 | 0.76 |
prefer never to have been— | |||||||||
embrace my current life | |||||||||
(8) I achieving life goals, I made | 4.47 | 1.29 | 5.00 | 5 | 0.02 | 0.59 | 0.40 | 0.87 | 0.64 |
no progress—progressed to | |||||||||
complete fulfillment | |||||||||
(9) My life is empty, filled with | 4.99 | 1.54 | 5.00 | 5 | 0.03 | 0.78 | 0.62 | 0.85 | 0.84 |
despair, running over with good | |||||||||
things | |||||||||
(12) As I view the world in | 4.62 | 1.55 | 5.00 | 5 | 0.03 | 0.71 | 0.52 | 0.85 | 0.77 |
relation to my life, the world | |||||||||
completely confuses me—fits | |||||||||
meaningfully with my life | |||||||||
(16) With regard to suicide, I have | 5.15 | 1.97 | 6.00 | 7 | 0.04 | 0.49 | 0.35 | 0.88 | 0.52 |
thought of it seriously as a way | |||||||||
out—never given it a second | |||||||||
thought |
Based on Cronbach’s alpha, the reliability of EPIL was 0.89, which is very high. The reliabilities for boys’ and girls’ samples are 0.88 and 0.89, respectively. The Squared Multiple Correlations (SMCs) range from 0.35 to 0.62. The item-total correlations range from 0.49 to 0.74, which are in general high. The scale showed good internal consistency. Cronbach’s alpha if one item is deleted ranges from 0.85 to 0.87. Table
Interitem correlation matrix.
PIL 1 | PIL 2 | PIL 6 | PIL 8 | PIL 9 | PIL 12 | PIL 16 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PIL 2 | .71*** | ||||||
PIL 6 | .59*** | .58*** | |||||
PIL 8 | .48*** | .46*** | .48*** | ||||
PIL 9 | .66*** | .64*** | .63*** | .57*** | |||
PIL 12 | .58*** | .56*** | .58*** | .53*** | .65*** | ||
PIL 16 | .40*** | .35*** | .45*** | .32** | .44*** | .42*** | |
LS | .47*** | .45*** | .42*** | .45*** | .50*** | .46*** | .31** |
PIL: purpose in life items; LS: satisfaction with life scale.
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Purpose in life is associated with prosocial behavior; hence, criterion-related validity was determined along this line of thinking. Two groups of respondents were identified. The first group included those who have volunteered in the past 12 months (volunteers), and the second comprised those who have not volunteered in the past 12 months (nonvolunteers). The mean of the EPIL for volunteers was 4.99 (SD = 1.14), whereas that for nonvolunteers was 4.75 (SD = 1.28). The univariate analysis showed that the mean EPIL of volunteers is significantly higher than that of the nonvolunteers (
Psychological well-being is associated with life satisfaction [
The current study selected seven conceptually linked items from Shek’s original Chinese version of the PIL [
The major difference between EPIL and PIL is that EPIL is a subset of the PIL. The EPIL consists of seven items from the existence domain of PIL. The psychometric properties are empirically validated in this study.
The existence dimension refers to an individual perception of his or her life. Life has meaning under all circumstances. Frankl contended that our main motivation for living is the will to find a life meaning. We have the freedom to find meaning in what we do and in what we experience. The existence dimension of the purpose in life includes whether life is perceived to be enthusiastic versus boring, exciting versus monotonous, or new versus unchanged. Youth researchers can use the scale to examine the concept of life meaning among early adolescents. A norm table can be designed to examine the trend of the purpose in life among early adolescents as well as for cross-cultural comparison. The EPIL provides an avenue for unique and down-to-earth application of measuring life purposes. The
The current study has several limitations. First, the research findings are based on the perceptions of early adolescents in Hong Kong. There is a need to replicate the current study in adolescents with different ethnicities and contexts. Second, the respondents are from convenience sampling and not from sampling, although the sample size is large. The application of the findings to other adolescent populations should be interpreted with caution because of questionable generalizability. Third, items specifically related to early adolescents’ purposes in life are not included. One example is the inclusion of the importance of the academic achievement, which is demonstrated to be one of the utmost concerns among adolescents [