Measurement Validity of the Six-Factor Model of Psychological Well-Being in a Military Sample: Implications for Measuring Well-Being in Service Members

Subjective well-being is a positive psychological construct that has important implications for the U.S. Military's goal to develop service members' strengths and support their overall thriving and downstream resilience. Despite this, the concept of well-being has not been well studied in military populations who have unique work demands, stressors, and autonomy/agency in daily life compared to civilians. To address this shortcoming in the literature, the present study assessed Ryff's measures of psychological well-being (PWB) in 1,333 U.S. service members prior to the deployments in the Middle East. Various methods attempting to validate the theoretical model purported by Ryff were unsuccessful, and exploratory factor analyses did not result in a novel model for this population. Future research should continue to evaluate proposed models of soldier well-being and propose novel theories, as well as measures, to assess this important construct. Implications are discussed. Public Significance Statement The present article employed several modeling techniques in an attempt to validate an enduring model of well-being used in the psychological literature. Findings suggest that the purported psychological well-being model is not accurately defined by the measure items in a military sample. This is a critically important finding as this measure is used throughout the scientific literature and specifically in military populations to evaluate wellness programs and policies.