Validating the Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) in older adults and testing its cross-age measurement invariance

Abstract Psychological entitlement is often associated with maladaptive traits and negative behaviors and leads to interpersonal problems. This study examined the validity of the Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) in the older adult population and its equivalence across age groups. In Study 1, we surveyed 1826 older adults. and conducted item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Cronbach’s alpha, and McDonald’s omega. Building on Study 1, we surveyed an additional sample of 3730 adults and 2374 emerging adults in Study 2 to examine the measurement invariance of the PES across the adult lifespan. EFA extracted a single factor explaining 70.91% of the variance, with factor loadings ranging from 0.75 to 0.88 and communalities from 0.56 to 0.78. CFA showed that the single-factor model fit well (χ²/df = 4.821, RMSEA = 0.067, SRMR = 0.018, CFI = 0.988, IFI = 0.988, TLI = 0.978). In Study 2, we found that the PES exhibits measurement equivalence across different age groups. Moreover, the psychological privilege of older adults is significantly higher than that of adults and emerging adults. The PES has good reliability and validity and can be used as a valid tool to assess the psychological privilege of Chinese older adults.