A Measurement Invariance Investigation of the Polish Version of the Dual Filial-Piety Scale (DFPS-PL): Student-Employee and Gender Differences in Filial Beliefs.

Joanna Różycka-Tran,Paweł Jurek,Michał Olech,Tadeusz Dmochowski

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713395

Abstract

Filial beliefs are defined as a cognitive script or even a contextualized personality construct for social exchanges, which shapes the attitudes of individuals. In the given study, we investigate the factorial structure of the Polish version of the Dual Filial Piety Scale (DFPS-PL) and verify whether measurement of filial piety is invariant among students and employees, and among men and women. Two studies were conducted on different age samples: 489 students aged 18–24 and 849 employees aged 25–64. In order to verify the hypotheses, the DFPS-PL was administered. As a result of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), it has been demonstrated that the structure of filial piety measured by the DFPS-PL among students and employees, and men and women, could be interpreted as two-factorial, and that there is partial scalar measurement invariance for the tested model across these groups (MGCFA). The comparison of the average latent mean scores suggests that employees declare a lower level of AFP (Authoritarian Filial Piety; need of social belonging and collective identity) than students. There were no significant differences between students and employees when RFP (Reciprocal Filial Piety; need of interpersonal relatedness) was compared. In addition, the results showed that women score higher in RFP than men. The given findings are discussed in the context of values transition in non-Asian countries. The main contribution is to confirm the factorial structure of the DFPS-PL and introduce the novel Eastern concept of Filial Piety to Western culture.

Highlights

Traditional views of filial beliefs refer to the attitudes of children toward how they should treat their parents, as well as an emphasis on respect and care for elders, containing important ideas about social relations (Ho, 1986; Yeh, 2003)
In order to perform tests of mean differences, the invariance of the Polish version of the Dual Filial Piety Scale (DFPS-PL) must be evaluated across different social groups, so we investigated if filial piety could be explained by two dimensions in the Polish culture and if DFPS-PL demonstrates scalar measurement invariance across student-employee and gender groups
The current paper aims to: (1) investigate the factorial structure of the DFPS-PL; (2) verify whether measurement of filial piety is invariant among students and employees, as well as among men and women; and (3) test the student-employee and gender differences in filial beliefs in the Western culture

Summary

Introduction

Traditional views of filial beliefs (filial piety) refer to the attitudes of children toward how they should treat their parents, as well as an emphasis on respect and care for elders, containing important ideas about social relations (Ho, 1986; Yeh, 2003). The most popular model is the Dual Filial Piety Model (DFPM; Yeh, 2003), composed of two higherorder factors that correspond to the two focal filial piety attributes in the parent-child interaction: horizontal reciprocal filial piety (RFP), i.e., need of interpersonal relatedness, and vertical authoritarian filial piety (AFP), i.e., need of social belonging and collective identity, which have been shown to have distinct implications for social adaptation and psychological functioning of individuals (see: Yeh and Bedford, 2004; Yeh, 2017; Truong et al, 2020, for review). Reconceptualizing filial piety has had numerous benefits: It reveals the vertical-horizontal duality of parent-child relationship and at the same time, highlights individual differences in patterns of interaction with parents— as a specific personality trait that is recorded as a response to kin relationships early in the life of a child (the social relationship matrix), enables research in the field of crosscultural psychology

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