Examining the Factor Structure and Structural Invariance of the PANAS Across Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

Abstract

It is unclear what factor structure best represents the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) from childhood to adulthood. The PANAS structure was examined in a sample of 555 children (M age = 11.66, SD = 1.24), 608 adolescents (M age = 15.45, SD = 1.09), and 553 young adults (M age = 18.75, SD = 1.00). A partially invariant model consisting of Positive Affect, Fear, and Distress factors best represented the PANAS across all age groups, indicating that the underlying constructs are the same across age but that the factors become increasingly interrelated with increasing age.

Funding

Preparation of this work was supported, in part, by grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (R305B04074, R305B090021) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD052120). Views expressed herein are solely those of the authors and have not been reviewed or approved by the grantors.

Notes

¹ Models were also conducted in which factors were scaled with the first item fixed to one and the results were not substantively different.

² For consistency across models, residuals for the ashamed and guilty adjective pairs, the scared and afraid adjective pairs, the excited and enthused adjective pairs, and the attentive and alert adjective pairs were allowed to covary within groups.