The Strathclyde Inventory Intercultural Project An investigation of intercultural differences in congruent functioning using three different language versions of the Strathclyde Inventory

Description

The Strathclyde Inventory (SI) is a brief self-report instrument designed to measure ‘congruent functioning’, a contemporary re-framing of Rogers’ concept of the fully functioning person. This concept is relevant not only for clients of PCE but also for our ongoing development as therapists and as persons-in-the-world.

The SI was originally developed in English and has been translated into several languages including French, German, Korean and Russian. Person-centred theory is often criticised as representing Western concepts that may not ‘translate’ in other cultures. The SI offers an opportunity to investigate this claim, albeit within the limitations of a positivist research paradigm.

The Strathclyde Inventory Intercultural Project (SIIP) is an international collaboration that aims to:
• support the development of different language versions of the SI,
• support investigations of their psychometric properties using data collected from clinical and non-clinical populations in a range of cultural contexts, and
• use this data in comparative studies to investigate intercultural differences in congruent functioning.

We launched SIIP with ethical approval granted by the University of Strathclyde for a series of different language studies that collected data from non-clinical populations using the SI (20-item version), Authenticity Scale, the Mini-IPIP (a 20-item version of the International Personality Item Pool, a measure of the ‘big five personality factors’) and the Social Desirability Response Scale. In this presentation, we will report the results of our first three studies, conducted in Arabic, Chinese and Spanish: what the data tell us about each version of the SI and what we have learned from our comparative analyses.

Our preliminary results indicate that all three language versions of the SI have good internal consistency and good/acceptable test-retest reliability. We found that relationships between congruent functioning (as measured by the SI) and other constructs were generally as predicted. In summary, we found that all three versions have demonstrated good validity and appear fit for purpose.

Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that different models best fit the three language-speaking groups. This suggests that language and cultural contexts may significantly influence how respondents interpret and relate to SI items. We are investigating this finding further using Rasch modelling.

This presentation is relevant for all PCE therapists interested in understanding how a key theoretical concept ‘translates’ across cultures.

Period	9 Sept 2024 → 13 Sept 2024
Event title	PCE 2024 Conference
Event type	Conference
Degree of Recognition	International