Non-invariance? An Overstated Problem With Misconceived Causes

Christian Welzel, Lennart Brunkert, Stefan Kruse and Ronald F. Inglehart

Sociological Methods & Research, 2023, vol. 52, issue 3, 1368-1400

Abstract: Scholars study representative international surveys to understand cross-cultural differences in mentality patterns, which are measured via complex multi-item constructs. Methodologists in this field insist with increasing vigor that detecting “non-invariance†in how a construct’s items associate with each other in different national samples is an infallible sign of encultured in-equivalences in how respondents understand the items. Questioning this claim, we demonstrate that a main source of non-invariance is the arithmetic of closed-ended scales in the presence of sample mean disparity. Since arithmetic principles are culture-unspecific, the non-invariance that these principles enforce in statistical terms is inconclusive of encultured in-equivalences in semantic terms. Because of this inconclusiveness, our evidence reveals furthermore that non-invariance is inconsequential for the cross-cultural functioning of multi-item constructs as concerns their nomological linkages to other variables of interest. We discuss the implications of these insights for measurement validation in cross-cultural settings with large sample mean disparity.

Keywords: measurement equivalence; item response; multigroup confirmatory factor analysis; compositional substitutability; emancipative values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:52:y:2023:i:3:p:1368-1400

DOI: 10.1177/0049124121995521

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