Feelings about culture scales: development, factor structure, reliability, and validity.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cultural Psychology
• Multicultural Psychology

Background:

• Existing measures of cultural identity, values, and behavior lack focus on affect.
• There is a need for tools assessing ethnic minority individuals' emotional responses to culture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate two new scales: the Feelings About Culture Scale--Ethnic Culture and the Feelings About Culture Scale--Mainstream American Culture.
• To assess the psychometric properties, including reliability and validity, of these novel affect-focused cultural measures.

Main Methods:

• Six studies were conducted involving scale piloting, factor analyses for structural clarity, and reliability/validity examinations.
• Psychometric properties such as convergent, discriminant, criterion-related, and incremental validity were assessed.

Main Results:

• Factor analyses revealed a two-dimensional structure for both scales, reflecting positive and negative affect.
• The scales demonstrated strong reliability and evidence of convergent, discriminant, criterion-related, and incremental validity.

Conclusions:

• The Feelings About Culture Scales are the first to measure both positive and negative affect toward ethnic and mainstream American cultures.
• These scales capture affective dimensions distinct from cognitive/behavioral cultural constructs, aiding research and counseling for ethnic minority individuals.