Abstract
The purpose of this study was to expand internal construct validity and equivalence research of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI), as well as to investigate the nomological validity of the SAPI by examining its relationship with specific and relevant psychological outcomes. The internal and external validity of the SAPI was assessed within three separate samples (N = 936). Using the combined data from all three samples, Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM) indicated that the six-factor SAPI model fit proved to be excellent. Measurement invariance analyses showed that the SAPI dimensions in the ESEM model were invariant across gender and race groups. Next, two separate studies explored the associations of the SAPI factors with relevant psychological outcomes. An ESEM-within-CFA (set ESEM) method was used to add the factors into a new input file to correlate them with variables that were not part of the initial ESEM model. Both models generated excellent fit. In Study 1, psychological well-being and cultural intelligence were correlated with the SAPI factors within a sample of students and working adults. All of the psychological well-being dimensions significantly correlated with the SAPI factors, while for cultural intelligence, the highest correlations were between Meta-cognition and Openness and Meta-cognition and Positive Social-Relational Disposition. In Study 2, work locus of control and trait anxiety was correlated with the SAPI factors within a sample of adults from the general South African workforce. Work Locus of Control correlated with most factors of the SAPI, but more prominently with Positive Social-Relational Disposition, while Neuroticism correlated strongly with trait anxiety. Finding an appropriate internal structure that measures personality without bias in a culturally diverse context is difficult. This study provided strong evidence that the SAPI meets the demanding requirements of personality measurement in this context and generated promising results to support the relevance of the SAPI factors.
Highlights
Indigenous measures of personality have been developed over recent decades to meet local needs in various nonWestern cultures and to reduce the prevailing reliance on imported instruments (Fetvadjiev and Van de Vijver, 2015; Cheung and Fetvadjiev, 2016; Church, 2017)
The six-factor model of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) was fitted to the observed data using Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM)
An ESEMwithin-confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) method was used to add the SAPI factors into a new input file in order to be able to correlate the SAPI factors with variables that were not part of the ESEM model. This specification allows for the retention of the ESEM parameters for the SAPI model whilst not allowing any cross-loadings from the other variables’ items in the model, which retain their traditional CFA structure
Summary
Indigenous measures of personality have been developed over recent decades to meet local needs in various nonWestern cultures and to reduce the prevailing reliance on imported instruments (Fetvadjiev and Van de Vijver, 2015; Cheung and Fetvadjiev, 2016; Church, 2017). More recent lines of research have sought to expand the culturally specific focus of early studies by applying a broader comparative approach that includes both local and presumed universal (etic) elements in a combined emic–etic approach (Cheung et al, 2011). This approach is characterised by direct comparisons of indigenous instruments to universal concepts, an assessment of indigenous measures’ cross-cultural replicability, and examining the predictive value of indigenous instruments for locally relevant outcomes. The present study aims to examine the predictive value of an indigenously developed instrument, the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI; Fetvadjiev et al, 2015), for consequential outcome variables in the domains of cultural intelligence, well-being, and personal growth across three multi-ethnic samples in South Africa
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