Bridging East and West: Validating the Tripartite Model of Meaning in a Cross-Cultural Study of the Meaning in Life Scale

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-954-4_23How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Meaning in life; Positive Psychology; Confirmatory factor analysis; measurement invariance; non-Western

Abstract

This study examines the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the adopted Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale in a non-Western context using data from 861 undergraduate students. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to evaluate the scale’s factorial structure, reliability, and validity across three dimensions: coherence, purpose, and mattering. The results revealed satisfactory model fit indices (RMSEA = 0.065, CFI = 0.941, TLI =0 .929, SRMR = 0.039), with most items demonstrating acceptable factor loadings. Composite reliability (CR) values ranged from 0.74 to 0.86, and average variance extracted (AVE) values indicated strong internal consistency and convergent validity across all dimensions. Additionally, measurement invariance was assessed across gender groups to examine the scale’s structural stability and cross-group comparability. Configural, metric, and scalar models all demonstrated acceptable changes in fit indices, supporting measurement invariance across genders. These findings suggest that the adopted MiL scale is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing meaning in life across gender groups within this cultural context. The study highlights the utility of the MiL scale as a robust tool for cross-cultural research on meaning in life. Future research should further explore demographic and cultural influences to enhance the scale’s applicability and theoretical grounding.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Talal Alzabidi
AU  - Haniza Binti Rais
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/29
TI  - Bridging East and West: Validating the Tripartite Model of Meaning in a Cross-Cultural Study of the Meaning in Life Scale
BT  - Proceedings of the Positive Psychology 2.0 International Conference 2025 (PP 2.0 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 304
EP  - 314
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-954-4_23
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-954-4_23
ID  - Alzabidi2025
ER  -