Factor-analytic structures in the English and Japanese versions of the Objective Measure of Ego-Identity Status (OMEIS)

Abstract

This research describes an exploratory factor analysis for the purposes of factorial validation for both the English and Japanese versions of the Objective Measure of Ego-Identity Status (OMEIS)--Ideological version (Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989). The Japanese OMEIS is a direct translation of the English OMEIS (Ohnishi, 1998). The study reports the factor structure of the OMEIS--Ideological version in English and Japanese. A principal factor analysis (PFA) with both oblique and orthogonal solutions was performed. Alpha reliabilities for the factors are presented. The present research compares and contrasts the factor structures of OMEIS--Ideological version, derived from a U.S. sample and a Japanese sample, comprising women from late adulthood to middle age. Cultural differences between the two sample populations are explored.Over the decades, a number of Western psychological instruments have been translated into several languages for assessing individuals from different cultures. These instruments have included the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

African American Undergraduate Students’ Wisdom and Ego-Identity Development

“…In contrast, Korean college students’ ego-identity achievement is positively related to wisdom and no relationship is found between moratorium and wisdom. According to Ohnishi et al (2001), moratorium and diffusion is in the same construct, which may lead to such results among American students. As Waterman (1999) claimed, although diffusion is considered the least mature, identity statuses are not on a continuum and diffusion, moratorium, and foreclosure have strengths and weakness, which might also explain the results.…”

“…The domains were assessed with a Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 to 5 with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree ). Because of some challenges, wherein some individuals may reveal more than one identity status and similar constructs between moratorium and diffusion (Ohnishi, Ibrahim, & Owen, 2001), the identity statuses were adopted as latent variables rather than categorizing the participants in each ego-identity status group. Because the ego-identity items include multiple domains and each domain has a small number of items (two), RV-EOM-EIS has low internal consistencies: Cronbach’s alpha greater than .60, except for interpersonal moratorium, which was .58 (Bennion and Adams).…”

“…This present study also yielded similar Cronbach’s alpha scores ranging from .55 to .65. Although with some challenges, RV-EOM-EIS has been widely used not only because of the objective nature of the measure but also because it was created to capture the original conceptualization of ego-identity by Erikson and Marcia (Bishop, Weisgram, Holleque, Lund, & Wheeler-Anderson, 2005; Ohnishi et al, 2001).…”

Wisdom and Ego-Identity for Korean and American Late Adolescents

“…Thus, we treat identity status as latent variables rather than analyzing membership. Nonetheless, even with this challenge, RV-EOM-EIS has been widely used because of the quantitative nature of the measure based on Marcia’s ego-identity status theory (Bishop, Weisgram, Holleque, Lund, & Wheeler-Anderson, 2005; Ohnish, Ibrahim, & Owen, 2001).…”

Identity Exploration, Commitment, and Distress: A Cross National Investigation in China, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States

“…One of the few studies to pursue a cross-national study of Eastern versus Western identity (Rhee et al 1995) found that Europeans used traits and emotional states more than Koreans to describe themselves, whereas Koreans were more likely to use specific attributes and global descriptions. Ohnishi et al (2001) attempted to compare the factor structure of a North American measure of identity formation (the Objective Measure of Ego-Identity Status; Adams et al 1989) between American and Japanese samples of adult women. They found that the factor structures were not equivalent, and suggested that American concepts of identity development may not be completely relevant to the Japanese context.…”