Development of an Implicit Well-Being Measure for Youths Using the Implicit Association Test

In this study, 358 primary and secondary school students answered the WB-IAT-Y, the Psychological Well-being Scales, and the World Health Organization – Five Well-Being Index. Finally, an expert conducted a semi-structured interview with each participant, asking about satisfaction with life in the main domains for children (i.e., family life, friends, school, and overall life satisfaction). The WB-IAT-Y showed good internal consistency and adequate construct validity. Factorial analyses indicated that this measure acted as an indire ct measure. As in previous research, the WB-IAT-Y correlated weakly with the two well-being direct measures, and it showed the strongest correlation with the semi-structured interview conducted by an expert. To conclude, the new WB-IAT-Y instrument is a useful measure to assess indirect well-being f or youths. We suggest that it is important to evaluate children’s and adolescents’ well-being using both direct and indirect measures in order to assess conscious and unconscious processing of self-relevant information.
Source: Child Indicators Research - Category: Child Development Source Type: research