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Developing a Scale
Abstract
Peter Pan Syndrome is a concept that used to characterize the “never-growing” men
who have reached an adult age, but cannot face their adult sensations and respon-
sibilities. Individuals with Peter Pan Syndrome have difficulties in social and profes-
sional relationships because of their irresponsible behaviors and narcissistic
properties. The purpose of this study is to develop a scale in order to measure the
level of Peter Pen Syndrome in male individuals. In accordance with this purpose, the
draft form was sent to experts to get their feedback, and some statements have been
revised in accordance with the feedback. The Peter Pan Syndrome Scale is a twenty-
two-item self-report measurement, and each item is evaluated on five-point
Likert Type scale. Construct validity of the scale was determined by exploratory
factor analysis (EFA) and a three-factor model was created, namely, “Escape from
Responsibility”, “Power Perception,” and “Never Growing Child”. EFA results
shows that these three factors were describing 47.05% of the variance. Results of
EFA were verified by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The internal consistency
coefficient and the confidence coefficient of the split-half were used to determine
the reliability of the scale. The Cronbach’s alpha value was found to be 0.88 for the
total scale.
1
Faculty of Education, University of Ondokuz Mayıs, Samsun, Turkey
2
Samsun _Il Saglik Mudurlugu, Samsun, Turkey
3
TUBITAK Marmara Arastirma Merkezi, Gebze-Kocaeli, Turkey
Corresponding Author:
Melek Kalkan, Faculty of Education, University of Ondokuz Mayıs, Samsun 55270, Turkey.
Email: mkalkan@omu.edu.tr
2 Men and Masculinities XX(X)
Keywords
psychology, family, emotion, hegemonic masculinity, culture
One of the most important tasks of life is that an individual develops an appropriate
identity concept by passing through various developmental stages. Consistency and
continuity are important for the concept of identity, which can be defined as the
answer to the question “Who am I?”, especially when it becomes visible in interper-
sonal relations and externally observed behaviors. Erikson (1968) emphasizes the
importance of psychosocial wellness in the development of an individual’s identity.
According to him, the sense of belonging and the sense of acceptance by their relatives
helps an individual to acquire the appropriate identity concept (Arslan 2008).
Although the critical period for identity acquisition is adolescence, identity acqui-
sition is not a process that begins and ends with puberty (Ilhan and Özdemir 2012).
The concept of “emerging adulthood” developed by Arnett (1994) is a developmen-
tal period that includes the era between puberty and adulthood. People in emerging
adulthood state that they have completed puberty, but have not yet seen themselves
as adults (Dogan and Cebioğlu 2011). The word “adult” comes from the term “grow”
from the Latin word, and it includes physiological and psychological growth. Being
an adult is assumed to have mattered in these aspects. Arnett (2004) mentions
psychological determiners that are important in the transition to adulthood. The first
one is that the process of “completing separation-individualization” and the second
one is the process of “psychological maturity,” which includes features such as
impulse control, taking responsibility, and having a non-centralist perspective (Atak,
Desserts, Cokamay, Buyukpabuscu, and Much 2016).
Kiley (1997) used the concept of Peter Pan Syndrome to identify men who did not
comply with these adult characteristics; the concept comes from a hero form story.
Peter Pan, the hero James M. Barrie created, originally emerged from Barrie’s life
story. Barrie, who impersonated his deceased brother and never grew up in this role,
cannot assume responsibility for not growing up and cannot have a long-term emo-
tional relationship with a woman (Skinner 1957).
Peter Pan Syndrome, created from the story, is a concept used to describe the
“never-growing” men who have reached an adult age, but cannot face their adult
emotions and responsibilities. There is a noticeable mismatch between the age and
maturity levels of these men. Kiley (1997) portrayed this situation as “trapped in hell
between the man who no longer wants to be, and the child he cannot be.” The figure
of Peter Pan can also be seen as a conceptual filter-ambivalent condition for a
growing adolescent moratorium between childhood and adulthood (Fried and Van-
dereycken 1989). Mirkin (1983) also describes it as a syndrome that involves staying
as a child and thus sustaining protection of the parents.
Although the roots of the syndrome are based on childhood, the symptoms show
up around the age of twelve years. According to Kiley, there is a pronounced
Kalkan et al. 3
context of not being responsible, not behaving like an adult, and having narcissistic
properties. The number of studies on Peter Pan Syndrome is very small when the
literature is examined. In Turkey, there is no scientific study on this issue. In the
present study, a Turkish version of the Peter Pan Syndrome Scale was developed,
and validity and reliability studies of the developed scale were done. It is thought
that determining the level of having Peter Pan Syndrome is important for psycho-
logical assistance to individuals, and it can be used in psychological symptoms,
romantic relations, and career research. In this context, a measurement tool was
developed, and the validity-confidence level was determined in the study.
Method
Participants
This study was performed with male individuals over eighteen years of age, deter-
mined by a random sampling method. About 60.6% of respondents were single (n ¼
241), 35.4% were married (n ¼ 141) and 4% were divorced. The parents of 84.2% of
the men participating in the study are both alive, and the parents of 89.9% are
together. The average age of the participants is 29.85 (Ss ¼ 7.99).
In the process of developing the Peter Pan Syndrome Scale, two working groups
were created: In the first study group, data was collected from 190 male individuals,
and with this data, item analysis and the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were
conducted. The second working group consisted of 208 male individuals who were
reached for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Procedure
The first stage of the development process of the Peter Pan Syndrome Scale is
reviewing the literature for Peter Pan Syndrome. Then, an item pool consisting of
thirt-one expressions, which is considered to cover all the features of Peter Pan
Syndrome, is prepared. The statements in the generated item pool are presented to
three faculty members, whose specialty is psychological counseling and guidance.
Some statements have been revised in accordance with feedback from these experts
in terms of subject, scope, and language use. A 5-point Likert-type trial scale was
created for thirty-one items (1-Strongly disagree, 2-Partially agree, 3-Moderately
agree, 4-Mostly agree, 5-Strongly agree).
In the second stage, a thirty-one-item trial scale has been applied to 190 male
participants, and the item analysis and EFA was conducted. Item total correlation
values have been taken into consideration with six items. According to EFA findings
on the remaining twenty-five items, three items were extracted and twenty-two items
were obtained.
In the third stage, a twenty-two-item scale was applied to 208 male participants,
and CFA on the data was calculated and the adaptation values of the model were
computed. Finally, the reliability coefficients of the scale are calculated.
6 Men and Masculinities XX(X)
Results
Exploratory Factor Analysis
The scale consisting of thirty-one items was applied to the 190 male participants, and
correlations of item-total scores were calculated. Item-total test correlation is one of
the item analysis techniques used in item selection when developing a scale, and it is
recommended that the correlation value be higher than 0.30 (Büyüköztürk, Kılıç-
Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz, and Demirel 2012). In light of this information, six
items with item-total test correlation values below 0.30 were removed and twenty-
five items were left on the trial scale.
In order to determine the construct validity of the scale, first, conformity of the
data to the factor analysis was examined with the Barlett Sphericitiy test and the
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) coefficient. The value of the KMO is greater than sixty,
and the significance of the Barlett test suggests that the data is suitable for factor
analysis (Büyüköztürk 2011). In this study, the KMO sample coefficient and the
Barlett Sphericitiy test w2value were founded to be 0.839 and 1,706,295 (p < 0.001)
respectively. These results indicate that the data is suitable for factor analysis.
To determine the factor structure and sub-dimensions of the twenty-five-item trial
scale, the EFA has been conducted and varimax vertical rotation technique has been
applied. By examining the factor load values in the sub-dimensions of each item,
items with factor load less than 0.30 are removed (Brown 2014). In addition, the
difference between the two highest factor loads of an item should not be less than
0.10 (Büyüköztürk et al. 2012). Accordingly, three items with less than 0.10 differ-
ences between the factor loadings in the sub-dimensions have been extracted. Then,
EFA was conducted again for the remaining twenty-two items and their values were
examined. In this regard, the value of the first factor is 6,668 and the value of the
second factor is calculated as 2,127. The values of the third, fourth, and fifth factors
were 1,556, 1,307, and 1,080 respectively. When the literature is taken into consid-
eration and the scree plot given in Figure 1 is examined, it can be said that the data is
more suitable for the three-factor structure.
The three-factor structure was formed by taking into consideration the literature,
the values, and the Scree plot. These three factors explain the 47.05% of the total
variance. The value of the first factor was calculated as 6,668, which explains the
17.81% of the variance of the Peter Pan Syndrome variable. The value of the second
factor is calculated as 2,127, which explains the 15.53% of the variance of Peter Pan
Syndrome. The value of the third factor is calculated as 1,556, which explains the
Kalkan et al. 7
13.71% of the variance of the Peter Pan Syndrome variable. Item factor load values
vary between 431 and. 759 (See Table 1).
1 0.720
3 0.729
4 0.549
5 0.747
6 0.559
16 0.641
17 0.669
21 0.532
2 0.551
8 0.457
12 0.736
13 0.607
14 0.477
15 0.707
18 0.759
22 0.486
7 0.596
9 0.441
10 0.629
11 0.686
19 0.719
20 0.431
Eigenvalue 6,668 2,127 1,556
Variance 17.81% 15.53% 13.71%
Total Variance: 47.05%
and the third factor includes six items. There are no reverse items on the scale. The
lowest score to be obtained from the scale is 22 and the highest score is 110. The
higher the total score taken from the scale indicates that the level of Peter Pan
Syndrome is high.
Kalkan et al. 9
Item-Total Test
Item No Correlations
1 0.595
2 0.321
3 0.571
4 0.526
5 0.530
6 0.375
7 0.421
8 0.442
9 0.471
10 0.520
11 0.599
12 0.396
13 0.334
14 0.486
15 0.388
16 0.504
17 0.410
18 0.303
19 0.650
20 0.497
21 0.552
22 0.421
According to these results, it can be said that the reliability of the Peter Pan Syn-
drome Scale is sufficient.
The Peter Pan Syndrome Scale is a 5-point Likert-type scale consisting of twenty-
two items. In order to determine the construct validity of the scale, EFA was con-
ducted, and the results showed that there are three factors describing 47.05% of the
variance. As a result of the CFA, the goodness of fit index values for the model have
been determined to be in good fit and acceptable fit limits. In other words, the three-
factor model created with EFA is confirmed by the CFA.
The reliability of the Peter Pan Syndrome Scale was calculated by the internal
consistency coefficient and the confidence coefficient of the split-half. The internal
consistency coefficient was found as 0.88 for total scale, and split-half reliability coef-
ficient for the first part was found as 0.83 and for the second half was found as 0.79.
These results show that the reliability of the Peter Pan Syndrome Scale is adequate.
In the Peter Pan Syndrome Scale, there are eight items in the first factor, “Escape
from Responsibility”; eight items in the second factor, “Power Perception”; and six
items in the third factor, “Never Growing Child”. The lowest score to be obtained
from the scale is 22 and the highest score is 110. A high the total score taken from the
scale indicates that the level of Peter Pan Syndrome is high.
The Peter Pan Syndrome Scale was developed on men over eighteen years of age
without the separation of marital status. In future studies, it may be suggested that
Peter Pan Syndrome be examined for men’s marital status, their romantic relation-
ship, whether their parents are together or are separated, and the age they lost their
parents. Considering the effect of Peter Pan Syndrome on the romantic relationships
of men, both in individual psychological counseling and psychotherapies, and in
marriage and double consultation, the scale can be used to evaluate male clients
because of its good psychometric properties.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
12 Men and Masculinities XX(X)
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Kalkan et al. 13
Author Biographies
Melek Kalkan is a professor in Psychological Counseling and Guidance department at 19
Mayıs University. Her research interests are mostly related to marriage and family counseling.
Meryem Vural Batık has completed her PhD at 19 Mayıs University. Her research interests
include marriage and family counseling and psychological counseling for families of children
with special needs.
Leyla Kaya is currently a PhD candidate in Psychological Counseling and Guidance depart-
ment at Hacettepe University. She also provides individual counseling services to adolescents
and adults in a public institution.