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. 2019 Nov 16;59(6):e664-e673.
doi: 10.1093/geront/gny121.

Development and Validation of Social Motivation Questionnaire

Xianmin Gong  1   2 , Kendra L Seaman  3 , Helene H Fung  1 , Corinna Loeckenhoff  4 , Frieder R Lang  5
Affiliations

Development and Validation of Social Motivation Questionnaire

Xianmin Gong et al. Gerontologist. .

Abstract

Background and objectives: Information-seeking (IS) and emotion-regulatory (ER) motivation play meaningful roles in age-related changes in social interaction across adulthood. This study aimed to develop and validate the Social Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ) to assess these two types of motivation.

Research design and methods: Ten items were selected from a pool as the candidate items of SMQ and were administered to 480 German adults (20-91 years old) for validation. These items were also administered to 150 U.S. (18-40 years old) and 131 Hong Kong younger adults (18 to 26 years old) for cultural-invariance examination.

Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that a two-factor, eight-item structure fits the German adults' data well with satisfactory reliability. Multigroup comparisons showed cross-age invariance among younger, middle-aged, and older German adults, as well as cross-cultural invariance among German, U.S., and Hong Kong younger adults.

Discussion and implications: A new questionnaire, SMQ, was developed and validated to measure IS and ER social motivation across adulthood and across cultures.

Keywords: Cross-cultural invariance; Emotion regulation; Information seeking; Social motivation.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Structural equation model for the social-motivation questionnaire. IS = information-seeking social motivation; ER = emotion-regulatory social motivation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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