Citation

Dong Y, Dumas D. Pers. Individ. Dif. 2020; 160: e109956.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.paid.2020.109956

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article aims to systematically review and synthesize the existing literature that has tested at least one of three types of measurement invariance (MI) of a personality measure: cross-cultural/ethnic invariance, gender invariance, and age-group invariance. A literature search was conducted using PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and PsycTESTS databases. The initial search yielded a total of 1,647 articles, and 95 studies derived from 75 peer-reviewed articles met all inclusion criteria. None of these studies achieved scalar or strict measurement invariance across cultural/ethnic groups, but many studies established scalar or strict invariance across gender (N = 13, 44.83%) or age (N = 10, 58.82%) groups. To further investigate patterns in this literature, an ordinal logistic regression revealed that age-group and gender invariance studies achieved significantly higher levels of invariance than cross-cultural MI studies, and confirmed that studies testing invariance across larger number of groups had significantly lower MI levels. Consequences and possible reasons for a lack of invariance, and suggestions for improving practices of investigating measurement invariance are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Cross-age invariance; Cross-cultural validity; Gender invariance; Measurement invariance; Personality assessment