Adolescent self-construal across cultures

Despite the critical role of culture in understanding adolescent self and identity, there is a lack of cross-culturally validated measures of adolescent self-construal. The present study evaluated cross-national measurement invariance of the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire-IV (AIQ-IV), assessing four dimensions of self-construal: personal, relational, public, and collective. The sample included 16,795 adolescents aged 14–19 years from 30 countries across four continents. The four-factor structure of the AIQ-IV obtained using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) was supported in the vast majority of countries. Exact invariance testing using multi-group ESEM supported configural invariance, indicating that the overall structure of the AIQ-IV was similar across countries. Full scalar invariance was supported only on a subset of countries (i.e., when tests were conducted using European countries grouped by UN geographical regions). An alignment approach provided evidence for the approximate invariance of the ESEM model, with 15.6% of parameters showing noninvariance and allowing for comparison of latent means. The largest number of noninvariant parameters was evident in Asian countries, with items assessing collective-interdependent aspects of identity showing the most variation across countries. A comparison of mean levels of identity orientations across countries revealed that culture-level dimensions of collectivism–individualism do not translate simply into individual-level dimensions of self-construal.