Cross-ethnic Invariance of Self-esteem and Depression Measuresfor Chinese, Filipino, and European American Adolescents

摘要

Self-esteem and depression are fundamentalpsychological adjustment constructs in the study of ado-lescent well-being. Most measures of these constructs havebeen developed and validated using European Americansamples, and while the correlates and predictors of psy-chological adjustment have been examined in multiplecultural settings, no existing research explicitly comparesthe equivalence of measures of self-esteem or depressionfor contemporary Chinese, Filipino and European Ameri-can adolescents. Using data from the National LongitudinalStudy of Adolescent Health (the Add Health study), thisstudy examines the factorial invariance of self-esteem and depression measures for European American adolescentsand the two largest Asian American ethnic groups in theU.S.: Chinese and Filipino Americans. Results indicatestrong evidence for invariance of the measure of self-esteem; however, the often-used measure of depression(CES-D) does not satisfy basic tests of measurementinvariance for Asian Americans in this sample.