Short Communication
The stability of the morning affect scale across age and gender

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Abstract

A limitation of the morningness–eveningness literature is the assumption that morningness is a ‘fixed’ construct. Morningness–eveningness scales are often developed on young adult samples, yet studies report that eveningness peaks in young adults with a shift to morningness from the age of 25 to 35 years of age. This age related change in morningness–eveningness may explain why these scales have limited success when applied in older samples. We tested this argument by developing a measurement model based on the Composite Scale of Morningness using a sample aged <30 years of age. Tucker’s congruence coefficient and confirmatory factor analysis indicated this solution was not a good fit in three older age groups. In contrast, we repeated this assessment using the ‘morning affect’ scale. This scale comprises items that measure morningness preference only. Model fit indicators suggested the ‘morning affect’ scale was a good fit across four age groups and gender.

Highlights

► Changes in morning–evening preference appears to be age dependent. ► Correlation supported the age related changes in morningness. ► Morningness scales are based on young samples and thus, fail to fit adult groups. ► Results based on the Composite Scale of Morningness support this argument. ► The morning affect scale was successfully replicated across age bands and gender.

Introduction

Morningness and eveningness (ME) represents a continuum along which individuals may be placed to reflect their preference for activity either earlier or later in the day (Natale & Cicogna, 2002). This behavior may also be influenced by a genetic component (Dijk & Archer, 2010). Many studies have focused on improving the psychometric properties of ME scales (Caci et al., 2009, Smith et al., 2002) and setting cut-off points to identify extreme types (Natale & Cicogna, 2002). A remaining limitation is the assumption that ME is ‘fixed’ at some point in time and therefore, that scales that are typically developed on young student samples can be used with older groups. There is mounting evidence that ME scores are age dependent and it may be desirable to develop measures that are not biased by age (Caci et al., 2005, Paine et al., 2006).

Studies that draw upon adolescent samples demonstrate a shift from morningness to eveningness until approximately 20 years of age (Roenneberg et al., 2004). An evening orientation is reported in many studies of young adults (Adan et al., 2005, Chelminski et al., 1997) and subsequently, a shift back to morningness is reported in several countries (Di Milia and Muller, 2012, Paine et al., 2006). In Australia and France this change is reported to begin at approximately 25 and 35 years of age, respectively (Caci et al., 2009, Di Milia and Bohle, 2009).

ME scales are typically developed using convenience samples of university aged students and many have a strong female bias. For example, in a study of the Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM) in six countries the mean age ranged from 19 to 23 years and females accounted for 61–79% of the samples (Smith et al., 2002). Similarly, in a five nation study the mean age ranged from 18 to 23 years and females comprised 60–74% of the samples (Caci et al., 2005).

The age and gender bias associated with ME studies may in part explain the inability to replicate the posited factor structure in older working samples that are predominately male. For example, one study developed a model structure based on a student sample that contained 66% females and a mean age of 19 years was unable to be replicated in a working sample with a mean age of 40 years and contained 90% males (Di Milia, Folkard, Hill, & Walker, 2011). Monk and Kupfer (2007) identified a three factor solution using the Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ, Horne & Östberg, 1976) in a gender balanced sample with a mean age of 35 years. However, in an older sample four items failed to load leading Monk and Kupfer to suggest the ‘morning alertness’ factor is more age related while the ‘evening sleepiness’ factor is less age dependent.

The present study has two goals. The first is to test whether a factor structure developed on a young sample is applicable across older age groups. We first develop a factor solution using a sample aged <30 years and then use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the fit in three older age groups. We also calculate Tucker’s congruence coefficient as an additional indicator of how well the factors fit across the age groups. The second goal is to test the applicability of the ‘morning affect’ (MA) scale across the age groups. The MA scale is made up of a subset of items (3, 4, 5, 12) from the CSM (Smith, Reilly, & Midkiff, 1989) and may be considered a ‘pure’ measure of morning preference. These items only refer to morning activity and the factor has been found in French (Caci et al., 2009) and Australian students (Di Milia & Bohle, 2009), as well as a working sample (Di Milia & Muller, 2012).

Section snippets

Sample

We pooled data from several German samples reported elsewhere (Randler, 2008) to obtain a sample with a wide age range (20–79 years). The data did not contain missing values. These data were collected following approval from the Ethics committee at the University of Education and informed consent from the participants. Participants were not paid for their participation.

The participants provided demographic data and completed a number of measures including the German version of the CSM (Randler,

Results

The sample comprised of 198 males and 629 females (75%). The overall mean age was 36.65 years (SD = 12.43) and gender differences were not found. The students’ (n = 356) mean age (M = 26.62, SD = 6.24) was significantly lower (p < .001) than the worker (n = 471) group (M = 44.43, SD = 10.25). Statistical tests for normality are not appropriate in large samples but skewness (−.28) and kurtosis (−.21) were not excessive (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010). Controlling for age we found that females had a higher

Discussion

We proposed that age related changes in morningness may explain why scales developed on young adult samples are less useful when applied in older adult samples. Our results appear to be consistent with this argument and provide additional support for Monk and Kupfer (2007) findings. First we showed that the two component CSM model based on a young sample was not a good fit in the older age groups. One explanation is that this model contains an evening component which is less applicable in older

Acknowledgement

The first author acknowledges the support provided by the University of Education during his sabbatical visit.

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