Investigating Longitudinal and Cross Cultural Measurement Invariance of Inglehart's Short Post-materialism Scale

• Published in: Social indicators research Vol. 115; no. 3; pp. 919 - 932
• Main Authors: Ippel, Lianne, Gelissen, John P. T. M., Moors, Guy B. D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01.02.2014; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Belgium; Comparative analysis; Consumer research; Covariance matrices; Cross cultural studies; Cross-cultural analysis; Crosscultural Differences; Cultural studies; Denmark; Determinants; Factor Analysis; France; Freedom of speech; Germany; History, theory and methodology; Human Geography; International; Ireland; Italy; Longitudinal studies; Luxembourg; Materialism; Methodology; Microeconomics; Modeling; Netherlands; Post-materialism; Public Health; Quality of Life Research; Ratings & rankings; Research methods; Scalars; Self Actualization; Social indicators; Social Sciences; Sociology; Statistical analysis; Structural Equation Models; Europe; Ranking data; Post-materialism; Structural equation modeling; Measurement invariance; Ipsative data; Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis; Validity; Rank variable; Rating Scale; Factor analysis; Cross-cultural comparison; Post-Materialism; Psychometrics
• ISSN: 0303-8300; 1573-0921
• DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0241-y

Inglehart applies a four item ranking scale to measure post-materialism which is used for cross-cultural and cross-temporal comparative purposes. The aim of this research is to test measurement invariance of the scale to establish to what extent the scale produces comparable results in time and between countries. We use Eurobarometer data to test longitudinal comparability for ten countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, West-Germany, Luxembourg, Denmark, Ireland, Great Britain and North Ireland) over a period of 20 years (1976–1997). With the exception of Denmark the within-country longitudinal comparisons indicate that measurement invariance is a tenable assumption. However, the findings of the cross-cultural analyses indicate that the meaning assigned to the four items differs slightly between countries, indicating a lack of comparability of the average level of post-materialism between countries. Findings also suggest that a lack of unidimensionality of the scale might cause this incomparability.