Development and validation of the Knowing Sufficiency Scale (KSS)

BackgroundWe proposed knowing sufficiency as a psychological construct comprising knowing what and how much is sufficient for one's well-being, not seeking beyond that point, and feeling content with what is already present in one's life. Existing psychological measures related to sufficiency primarily assess affective aspects such as dispositional contentment, but not the cognitive and behavioral aspects of recognizing what is enough and refraining from further pursuit. We therefore developed and validated the Knowing Sufficiency Scale (KSS) to assess individual differences across these cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions among Japanese adults.MethodsFollowing item generation and evaluation by experts and the target population, we collected two independent online survey samples, with final analytic sample sizes of n = 443 and n = 455. We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and examined internal consistency, construct validity through correlations with related measures, and incremental validity. A further assessment was conducted approximately 2 weeks later, with 294 participants included in the test–retest analysis.ResultsThe resulting KSS comprised 19 items across three subscales: Knowing What Is Enough, Stopping at Enough, and Felt Sufficiency. A higher-order three-factor model showed acceptable fit on CFI, TLI, and SRMR, but not RMSEA, and fitted better than a one-factor model. Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω in both samples and test–retest ICCs were all at least .70, indicating acceptable to good reliability. The KSS overall and subscale scores generally showed positive associations with contentment, life satisfaction, savoring, gratitude, and psychological well-being, and negative associations with materialism, depressive symptoms, and ability-related social comparison orientation. Adding Knowing What Is Enough and Stopping at Enough to a model including age, gender, savoring, and gratitude increased the explained variance in contentment by 7.55 percentage points.ConclusionsThe findings provide initial evidence for the reliability and validity of the KSS. The scale offers a means of studying knowing sufficiency in terms of its cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions. Further research is needed to establish generalizability across languages and populations and to examine validity through associations with behavioral measures.