Aim
Aim of the study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) by exploring its construct validity and the comparison with the original scale.
Methods
The scale was administrated to 588 (315 males and 273 females) students attending the last years of the high schools. Exploratory factor analysis (Principal Component Analysis with Varimax Rotation) was used.
Results
5 factors which explained 47.7% of the total variance has been found. On the basis of the item content analysis the factors could be labelled as “Anticipatory pleasure”, “Contextual anticipatory pleasure”, “Consummatory pleasure” and “Abstract pleasure”. One item only charged on the fifth residual factor. The factor analysis scree plot observation led us to identify a more parsimonious three factor solution which explained 36.07% of the total variance. The item content analysis permitted the confirmation of the first three factors of the previous factorial solution: “Anticipatory pleasure”, “Contextual anticipatory pleasure”, “Consummatory pleasure”.
Discussion
The study confirms the multifactorial structure of the “pleasure” construct, in line with most recent psychopathological and neurobiological studies.