This study aims to evaluate a number of procedures that have been proposed to enhance cross‐cultural comparability of personality and value data. A priori procedures (anchoring vignettes and direct measures of response styles (i.e. acquiescence, extremity, midpoint responding, and social desirability), a posteriori procedures focusing on data transformations prior to analysis (ipsatization and item parcelling), and two data modelling procedures (treating data as continuous vs as ordered categories) were compared using data collected from university students in 16 countries. We found that (i) anchoring vignettes showed lack of invariance, so they were not bias‐free; (ii) anchoring vignettes showed higher internal consistencies than raw scores where all other correction procedures, notably ipsatization, showed lower internal consistencies; (iii) in measurement invariance testing, no procedure yielded scalar invariance; anchoring vignettes and item parcelling slightly improved comparability, response style correction did not affect it, and ipsatization resulted in lower comparability; (iv) treating Likert‐scale data as categorical resulted in higher levels of comparability; (v) factor scores of scales extracted from different procedures showed similar correlational patterning; and (vi) response style correction was the only procedure that suggested improvement in external validity of country‐level conscientiousness. We conclude that, although no procedure resolves all comparability issues, anchoring vignettes, parcelling, and treating data as ordered categories seem promising to alleviate incomparability. We advise caution in uncritically applying any of these procedures. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology

Building on Rai and Fiske’s (2011) Relationship Regulation Theory, we argue that violation of relational motives will predict the perception of the moral wrongness of moral transgressions better than violation of harmlessness or purity. We also argue that “metarelational threat” plays an important role in determining the degree of moral wrongness of a particular act. To test our propositions, we conducted 6 studies, 3 with Turkish and American respondents. Scenarios where a relational component was present were perceived as more morally relevant (Study 1, N = 199). We found that relational motive violations predicted perceived moral wrongness better than violations of harmlessness or purity (Study 2, N = 261) and that metarelational threat partially mediated this relationship (Study 3, N = 357). Turkish participants generally based their judgments on the principle of unity, whereas the Americans tended to base theirs on the principle of equality. Study 4 (N = 138) confirmed the key findings and indicated that harmfulness was not related to moral wrongness when relational motive violation was low, but it did predict perceptions of moral wrongness when relational motivation was high. Study 5 (N = 152), by contrast, showed that harmfulness and impurity were superior to violations of relational motives in predicting the perceived moral wrongness of severe harmful and impure behaviors. Study 6 (N = 134) addressed this inconsistency and confirmed that relational motivations matter for perceptions of moral wrongness. Implications of the current research for understanding morality are discussed, and avenues for future research are recommended.

There is hardly any cross-cultural research on the measurement invariance of the Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scales (BMSLSS). The current article evaluates the measurement invariance of the BMSLSS across cultural contexts. This cross-sectional study sampled 7,739 adolescents and emerging adults in 23 countries. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit of configural and partial measurement weights invariance models, indicating similar patterns and strengths in factor loading for both adolescents and emerging adults across various countries. We found insufficient evidence for scalar invariance in both the adolescents' and the emerging adults' samples. A multi-level confirmatory factor analysis indicated configural invariance of the structure at country and individual level. Internal consistency, evaluated by alpha and omega coefficients per country, yielded acceptable results. The translated BMSLSS across different cultural contexts presents good psychometric characteristics similar to what has been reported in the original scale, though scalar invariance remains problematic. Our results indicate that the BMSLSS forms a brief measure of life satisfaction, which has accrued substantial evidence of construct validity, thus suitable for use in cross-cultural surveys with adolescents and emerging adults, although evaluation of degree of invariance must be carried out to ensure its suitability for mean comparisons.

The present research investigates the applicability of prominent Western volunteering frameworks in Hong Kong. Two cross-sectional surveys involving a total of 268 respondents were conducted. In Study 1, we tested a model of volunteering among 149 Hong Kong Chinese adult individuals (Mage = 34.8 years; 51.7% female) that examines antecedents and outcomes of voluntary engagement. Results show that prosocial motivation relates to volunteering, and that volunteering in turn predicts life satisfaction. Unexpectedly, and unlike studies in Western settings, other-oriented empathy was not related to volunteering. Study 2 tests the propositions of the Volunteer Process Model (VPM) among 119 Hong Kong Chinese volunteers (Mage = 36.9 years; 58.0% female). Findings largely support the VPM: our results indicate that the link between motives, voluntary service length and frequency is mediated by satisfaction with volunteering. Moreover, findings suggest that a fit between motives and experience seems relevant for increasing volunteers' satisfaction with their service. Results of both studies suggest that Western volunteering models can be applied to volunteering in East Asian cultures when culturespecific adaptations are considered.

There is a growing recognition of the need to examine religiousness and conduct research on its influence on acculturation and adjustment among ethnic minorities (Güngör et al. in Int J Behav Dev 36:367–373, 2012. doi:10.1177/0165025412448357). The present study compares Turkish minority youth in Bulgaria and Germany by examining relationships among religious identity, acculturation orientations (i.e., cultural maintenance and adoption) and acculturation outcomes (i.e., life satisfaction and socio-cultural adjustment to the Turkish and mainstream cultures). Participants were 161 youth in Bulgaria and 155 in Germany who completed measures on religious identity, acculturation orientations and adjustment. Results revealed that religious identity and Turkish culture maintenance are more important for Turkish-German, than for Turkish-Bulgarian youth. A multigroup path model showed that for both samples acculturation orientations partially mediated the link between religious identity and adjustment to the Turkish culture, whereas religious identity was directly related both to adjustment to the mainstream culture and to life satisfaction. Findings highlight the centrality of religious identity and Turkish domains of acculturation for positive adjustment outcomes for Turkish youth in Bulgaria and Germany.