Measuring patriotic emotional granularity: task-based validation, brief scale development, and cross-method evidence

Research on patriotic emotion has predominantly relied on global self-report measures, leaving unclear whether individuals differ in how specifically they distinguish among multiple patriotism-related feelings. The present research introduces Patriotic Emotional Granularity (Patriotic-EG) and examines its measurement using both a task-based paradigm and a brief self-report scale.

In Study 1, we developed a Patriotic Photo Emotion Differentiation task to assess task-derived Patriotic-EG. In Study 2, we developed and validated a brief self-report scale of Patriotic-EG using item analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. A bridging subsample was used to examine the association between the brief scale and the task-derived Patriotic-EG index.

In Study 1, the task-derived Patriotic-EG index showed theoretically consistent associations with patriotic affect, national identity, and perceived social support, supporting its initial placement within a civic-affective nomological network. In Study 2, item analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported a brief 8-item scale with a one-factor structure, good internal consistency, and acceptable factorial validity. The scale was positively associated with patriotic affect and national identity, showed only weak associations with social desirability, and demonstrated incremental validity in predicting relevant civic-affective outcomes. In the bridging subsample, the brief scale was positively correlated with the task-derived Patriotic-EG index, providing initial cross-method evidence.

Overall, the findings suggest that Patriotic-EG is a measurable construct capturing individual differences in the differentiation of patriotic emotional experience. Patriotic-EG can be assessed using complementary task-based and self-report approaches, with meaningful but incomplete convergence between the two methods.