A Unified Latent Curve, Latent State-Trait Analysis of the Developmental Trajectories and Correlates of Positive Orientation

Abstract

Literature documents that the judgments people hold about themselves, their life, and their future are important ingredients of their psychological functioning and well-being and are commonly related to each other. In this article, results from a longitudinal study (N = 298, 45% males) are presented. Using an integrative Latent Curve, Latent State-Trait Model (Tisak & Tisak, 2000), results corroborated (a) the impressive mean level and rank-order stability of positive orientation across a 4-year period, (b) the traitlike nature of positive orientation, and (c) the strong association of positive orientation with intrapersonal (i.e., quality of daily emotional experiences) and interpersonal (i.e., quality of friendships) adolescents' areas of functioning and on psychological resilience. These results attest to the utility of the new construct as a critical component of individuals' optimal well-functioning.

Notes

¹The LISREL syntax for the best fitting model can be requested from the corresponding author.

²The correlation matrix used in this study can be requested from the corresponding author.

³Parenthetically, because ego resiliency, positive and negative affectivity, and quality of friendships were scale scores, the unique, e, was not present for these scales; however, it was possible to constrain the intercepts and slopes for these scales to be equal across time.

⁴The base multivariate regression and the base latent curve models are statistically equivalent models. Statistically equivalent models are ones that have different parameterizations but have identically fit statistics.

*Indicates significance.

⁵This 49% represents the average of explained percentage of variance or R ² across the four outcomes and the two genders.