This study examines the factorial invariance of the Optimization in Primary and Secondary Control (OPS) scale and its associations with subjective well-being among older couples in Japan and the US. To this end, 200 older couples in Japan and 220 in the US were recruited through paid vendors and completed the questionnaire online. Couples were eligible if husbands were 70 years or older and wives were 60 years or older. A six-factor model, in which Compensatory Primary Control was subdivided into two factors, fit the data best; its factorial invariance was confirmed among the four subsamples. Compensatory Secondary Control was more strongly associated with subjective well-being in American couples than in Japanese couples, although the associations between well-being and the other five OPS factors were similar in the two countries. Future research on this six-factor model will be able to examine how these control strategies function in different cultures.
Keywords: OPS scale; control strategies; cross-cultural comparison; factorial invariance; subjective well-being.