Discriminant validity of hedonic, social, and psychological well-being in two Italian samples

•The tripartite model of well-being was consistent with the data.•Latent factor correlations were weak to moderate.•Results support the discriminant validity of the 3 dimensions of the model.

Two large Italian samples (N1 = 2248 and N2 = 1439) were used to investigate the factor structure and discriminant validity of 3 dimensions of the tripartite model of mental well-being, i.e., hedonic, social, and psychological well-being. The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) was used to measure the well-being dimensions. The data were analyzed using both Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM). The results supported the tripartite model in both samples. In factor analysis, three distinct factors emerged with weak to moderate intercorrelations, indicating a large portion of unshared variance between the factors. The three factors also demonstrated largely different relationships with nine external variables. These results support the factorial and discriminant validity of the dimensions of the tripartite model.