Abstract
The present study explored the psychometric properties of the Multi-Component Gratitude Measure (MCGM), in Spanish with a sample of Colombian children. The sample was composed of 540 schoolchildren between 8-12 years old (265 females, mean age 10.04 years; 75 males, mean age 10.08 years). The MCGM aims to examine more comprehensively the moral virtue of gratitude as a construct with 3 components (emotional, conative/attitudinal, and behavioral) distributed across 6 subscales. We translated the MCGM into Spanish and validated the factor structure in a principal component analysis, basing the analysis on the 6 subscales. We corroborated that gratitude can be understood as a complex, multi-component construct from children's perspectives. Overall, the MCGM subscales showed good reliability coefficients between 0.7 and 0.9. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a 4-factor model structure (obtained in the PCA) presented the best-adjusted fit indices. Factor 1 represented the feelings subscale, factor 2 represented the attitudinal component, and factors 3 and 4 the behavioral component. Convergent validity was evaluated with other instruments of gratitude, along with additional variables including positive emotion, prosocial behavior and wellbeing, in a subsample of 210 children. Multiple sources of evidence indicate that the translated and validated measure, the MCGM-Spanish Youth (MCGM-SY), is an instrument with good reliability and validity for measuring gratitude in Spanish-speaking children.