Subjective Well-Being at Waves 5 and 6 was a latent variable with three indicators. First, teens’ degree of life satisfaction (e.g., enjoying things, being happy, feeling relaxed) over the past month was assessed with responses to 6 questionnaire items on a scale ranging from (1) “All of the time” to (6) “None of the time.” Items were reverse coded and summed to compute a life satisfaction scale (average α = .89). Second, teens completed the 10-item Rosenberg (1979) self-esteem scale, with response options ranging from (1) “Strongly disagree” to (5) “Strongly agree” (average α = .90). Finally, depressed mood was the average of 8 items (e.g., unhappy, sad, or depressed) from the Child-Behavior Checklist-Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991); average alpha reliability was .85. Note that depressed mood was allowed to load negatively on the subjective well-being factor in the SEM analyses.
