Conceptualising and Measuring Adolescents’ Hedonic and Eudemonic Wellbeing: Discriminant Validity and Dimensionality Concerns

There is a gap between the theoretical assumptions of wellbeing and its associated empirical constructs. Three measurement models (a correlated factors model, a second-order two-factor model, and a bifactor model) were analysed using a large sample of English adolescents (n = 37, 630) to test whether the theoretical separation between hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing is empirically supported, and whether there is the possibility of essential unidimensionality. Evidence of a general factor of wellbeing was found in the bifactor model, challenging the de-facto distinction often made between hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing.