Development and Validation of Social Motivation Questionnaire

Background and Objectives: Information-seeking (IS) and emotion-regulatory (ER) motivation play meaningful roles in age-related changes in social interaction across adulthood. This study aimed to develop and validate the Social Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ) to assess these two types of motivation. Research Design and Methods: Ten items were selected from a pool as the candidate items of SMQ and were administered to 480 German adults (20-91 years old) for validation. These items were also administered to 150 U.S. (18-40 years old) and 131 Hong Kong younger adults (18 to 26 years old) for cultural-invariance examination. Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that a two-factor, eight-item structure fits the German adults' data well with satisfactory reliability. Multigroup comparisons showed cross-age invariance among younger, middle-aged, and older German adults, as well as cross-cultural invariance among German, U.S., and Hong Kong younger adults. Discussion and Implications: A new questionnaire, SMQ, was developed and validated to measure IS and ER social motivation across adulthood and across cultures.