Measurement validity of the six-factor model of psychological well-being in a military sample: Implications for measuring wellbeing in service members

Subjective wellbeing 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 wellbeing 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 wellbeing (PWB) in 1,333 U.S. Service Members prior to 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 wellbeing and propose novel theories, as well as measures, to assess this important construct. Implications are discussed.