VALIDATION OF THE EMOTIONAL STABILITY SCALE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN PERSONALITY ...

142 Pages·2013·1.17 MB·English

VALIDATION OF THE EMOTIONAL STABILITY SCALE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN
PERSONALITY INVENTORY
by
Farren Morgan Cohen
MINOR DISSERTATION
Submitted in the fulfillment of the requirements of the degree
MAGISTER PHILOSOPHIAE
in
INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY
in the
FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT
at the
UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

Supervisor: Prof. Deon de Bruin
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Carin Hill
April 2013
ii

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT

DECLARATION OF THE CORRECTNESS OF THE FINAL SUBMISSION OF
ELECTRONIC COPY OF MINOR DISSERATION/DISSERTATION/THESIS AFTER
EXAMINATION

DECLARATION BY STUDENT
STUDENT NUMBER ID NUMBER
I, Miss Farren Morgan Cohen hereby declare that the digital/electronic format of the minor
dissertation/dissertation/thesis submitted for the degree M Phil Industrial Psychology is a true
reflection of the examined minor dissertation/dissertation/thesis and incorporates any corrections
that may have been requested by the examiners. The printed and electronic copies correspond in
all respects. I am aware that the making of a false statement could render me liable for criminal
prosecution.

SIGNATURE OF STUDENT DATE
iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people without whom this dissertation would not have been
possible:
My mother, Elaine, and father, Frank, for providing me with this opportunity. Your patience and
wisdom guided me through this journey. Your unconditional support will forever be
remembered.
To my sisters, Cara and Tia, for their support and encouragement throughout my studies.
To my boyfriend, Robin. Words cannot express my gratitude for all your support, encouragement
and unwavering belief in me. I am truly blessed to have you in my life.
My supervisor, Prof. Deon de Bruin, for affording me the opportunity to be part of such a
significant project. Thank you for your patience, guidance and support but most importantly your
belief in my ability.
My co-supervisor, Dr Hill, for your advice and support.
My mentor, Caron Hall, for your guidance throughout my studies and for the numerous
opportunities you have provided.
All collaborators of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) project for their time, ideas
and constructive input.
The participants of the study without whom this research would be incomplete.
The University of Johannesburg for the merit bursary and supervisor-linked bursary.
The library staff, namely Joyce Makhubedu, Timothy Valoyi and Daniel Moloisane, for their
continuous facilitation throughout my studies.
iv

ABSTRACT

The equivalent cross-cultural assessment of personality has long been a debatable subject in
psychological research. Personologists remain divided as to the universality of personality traits,
and as such, their cross-cultural applicability. This argument remains valid within the South
African multicultural and multilingual context. In addition to the applicability of various
imported personality measures, South Africa’s past misuse of psychological assessments for
unfair discriminatory purposes has created many negative perceptions of their utility. This was
further corroborated with the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 that
stipulates that all psychological assessments used in South Africa need to meet the criteria of: a)
being scientifically shown to be valid and reliable; b) can be applied fairly to all employees; and
c) not biased against any employee or group (Government Gazette, 1998).
Currently no validated indigenous model and measure of personality exists in South Africa.
Psychological assessments are mainly imported from the United States of America (US) and
United Kingdom (UK) and normed to the South African population. Foxcroft, Roodt and
Abrahams (2005) acknowledge that many of these assessments, in addition to many locally
developed measures, have not been tested for bias nor have they been cross-culturally validated.
Furthermore, the theories, models and taxonomies on which these measures are based were
developed within a Western context and as such, have not incorporated the unique intricacies of
the South African context and its array of cultures and languages. Therefore, the accurate and
appropriate measure of personality within South Africa has been impeded.
v

The present study aimed to determine the structural and item equivalence of the Emotional
1
Stability scale of the SAPI (South African Personality Inventory) , a project commenced in 2006
to create an indigenous model and measure of personality in all the 11 official languages. The
Emotional Stability (ES) cluster is comprised of six sub-facets namely: Balance; Courage; Ego
Strength; Emotional Control; Emotional Sensitivity, and Neuroticism. The scale further contains
33 items.
The complete SAPI was administered to 891 participants from various organisations and
industries across South Africa. Responses to the ES scale were isolated, on which several
statistical analyses were performed. Factor retention criteria aided in determining that five
factors be extracted. Three comparison groups were created to assess the psychometric properties
of the indigenous ES scale across the following language groups: Germanic (English and
Afrikaans), Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele), and Sotho (Sepedi, Sesotho and Setswana).
Factor equivalence was demonstrated across all language groups assessed, indicating that ES has
the same psychological meaning across the different language groups. Tuckers’ phi attained for
ES for each language group was Germanic (pxy = 0.99), Nguni (pxy = 10.96), Sotho (pxy = 0.98).
The congruence coefficients for the group factors across the language groups did not fare as well
as the general factor. Only one group factor was above the cut-off for the Nguni group, while no

1
“The SAPI, an acronym for South African Personality Inventory, is a project that aims to develop an indigenous
personality measure for all 11 official language groups in South Africa. Participants are Byron Adams (University of
Johannesburg), Deon de Bruin (University of Johannesburg), Leon Jackson (North-West University), Carin Hill
(University of Johannesburg), Deon Meiring (University of Pretoria), Alewyn Nel (North-West University), Michael
Temane (North-West University), Velichko Valchev (Tilburg University, the Netherlands), and Fons van de Vijver
(North-West University and Tilburg University, the Netherlands).”
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factors met this criterion for the Sotho group. There was an exception for the Germanic group,
which had all five group factors > 0.90, indicating strong agreement.
A Schmid-Leiman transformation indicated that only 14 of the 33 items of the ES scale loaded
robustly on the general factor. This led to the culling of items which did not load on the general
factor, resulting in a reduced ES scale.
Factor retention criteria utilised indicated that three factors should be retained in the reduced ES
scale. As with the whole ES scale, the three language groups were compared. The congruence
coefficients of the general factor for the language groups were: Germanic = 0.99; Nguni = 0.95;
and Sotho = 0.96. The Tucker’s phi for the group factors did not improve in comparison to the
whole ES scale with all group factors showing agreement for the Germanic group, no group
factorial agreement for the Nguni group, and only one factor in the Sotho group displaying good
agreement.
Schmid-Leiman transformations revealed that all 14 items of the reduced scale loaded robustly
on the general factor. Furthermore, the reliability of the reduced ES scale (0.81) remained above
the cut-off of 0.70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).
A conditional anova was later performed on the reduced scale, indicating the presence of
uniform Differential Item Functioning (DIF), and a sparing amount of non-uniform DIF. Lastly,
differential item and test analyses were conducted on all the respective language groups in
comparison to one another. The results revealed that three items were biased in the comparison
of the Germanic and Nguni language groups and the Germanic and the Sotho-speaking groups.
On the contrary neither DIF nor Differential Test Functioning (DTF) was observed between the
Nguni and Sotho language groups.
vii

The present study is the first to assess Emotional Stability as it manifest indigenously in the
SAPI. The theoretical construct of ES was identified in all the language groups, corroborating the
traits’ universality. The results further revealed a reliable and valid indigenous ES scale across
the three language groups. Despite the limited number of items comprising the reduced ES scale,
this study signifies the progression of indigenous personality research, contributing to the
progress towards establishing an indigenous, cross-culturally applicable personality inventory.

Key words: Personality, Neuroticism, Emotional Stability, SAPI, Traits Approach, Cultural
Psychology, Cross-cultural Psychology
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DECLARATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
ABSTRACT iv
LIST OF TABLES xii
LIST OF FIGURES xiv
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Problem statement 1
1.3 Objectives of the current study 5
1.4 Chapter overview 5
1.5 Conclusion 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE STUDY 8
2.1 Introduction 8
2.2 Trait approach 8
2.3 The lexical hypothesis 9
2.4 Neuroticism versus Emotional Stability 17
2.4.1 Eysenck hierarchical model of personality 17
2.4.2 Five factor model 19
2.4.3 The Big Five 20
2.5 Cross-cultural applicability of the Five Factor Taxonomy 21
ix

2.6 Conclusion 25

CHAPTER 3: PERSONALITY AND CULTURE 26
3.1 Introduction 26
3.2 Emic and etic approaches to personality 26
3.3 Individualism versus collectivism 28
3.4 Status of personality testing in South Africa 31
3.5 Bias and equivalence 37
3.6 South African Personality Inventory 42
3.7 Emotional Stability 44
3.8 Ethical considerations 48
3.9 Conclusion 48

CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY 49
4.1 Introduction 49
4.2 Participants and procedures 49
4.3 Instrument 52
4.4 Statistical analyses 55
4.4.1 Data screening 55
4.4.2 Factor analysis 56
4.4.3 The Schmid-Leiman transformation 56
4.4.4 Differential item functioning and differential test functioning analysis 57
4.4.5 Differential test functioning 59
x

4.4.6 Reliability 60
4.5 Conclusion 60

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS 61
5.1 Introduction 61
5.2 Data screening 61
5.3 Deciding the number of factors to retain 63
5.4 Hierarchical factor analysis 66
5.5 Coefficient of congruence for the whole Emotional Stability scale 69
5.5.1 Group factors across language groups 70
5.6 Reduced Emotional Stability scale 77
5.6.1 Deciding the number of factors to retain 77
5.6.2. Hierarchical factor analysis 78
5.6.3 Coefficient of congruence for reduced Emotional Stability scale 81
5.7 Conditional analysis of variance of item responses across groups 87
5.8 Differential item functioning and differential test functioning analysis 89
5.9 Conclusion 95

CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION 96
6.1 Introduction 96
6.2 Emotional Stability in South Africa 97
6.3 Emotional Stability across language groups 97
6.4 Hierarchical Schmid-Leiman factor solution 100