Validity Evidence of the Vanity Scale: Adaptation to Brazil and Relations with Personality

Vanity can be understood as a relatively stable characteristic that varies between individuals and encompasses four dimensions: a concern for physical appearance, a positive (possibly inflated) view of physical appearance, a concern for achievement, and a positive (possibly inflated) view of achievement. The present study aimed to adapt to Brazilian context and search for validity evidence of a scale to measure vanity. Participants were 623 adults, 65% women. Confirmatory factorial analyses showed appropriate adjustment indices for the four-factor structure. The levels of reliability for the factors were satisfactory. Personality characteristics correlated with the vanity in the expected directions, for example, conscientiousness showed positive correlation with personal achievement dimensions of vanity; neuroticism correlated positively with concern dimensions of vanity. Still, the physical appearance dimensions of vanity correlated positively with sexual attractiveness. The results also showed that people with higher education levels presented higher means in dimensions of vanity that refer to personal achievements. We suggest that the instrument grouped evidence of validity that makes it suitable for the Brazilian context.