Establishing Racial-Ethnic Measurement Invariance for the Parental Reactions to Children’s Positive Emotions Scale

• In Event: Parent Positive Affect Socialization Responses Vary Across Cultural Identities and Contexts

Abstract

Parental socialization of positive emotion, or how parents respond to children’s expressions of positive affect (e.g., contentment, joy, pride), is a critical component of children’s emotion skill development and regulation and has historically been underexamined in the literature (Ladouceur et al., 2002; Fredrick et al., 2018). Importantly, cultural attitudes and values surrounding positive emotions and emotion expression shape parents' responses to such emotional displays by their children (Yi et al., 2016). Thus, it is critical to consider racial-ethnic differences in socialization practices to ensure greater cultural awareness and sensitivity when examining the impact of parental emotion socialization on child development. As one of the most widely used self-report measures of positive emotion socialization, the Parental Reactions to Children’s Positive Emotions Scale (PRCPS; Yap et al., 2008) has been used across racially diverse samples. However, existing measures of positive emotion socialization have been examined for measurement invariance across different racial-ethnic groups of parents, which precludes use of the measure for inter-group comparisons. As such, we tested the PRCPS’s measurement invariance in a sample of 1148 parents (n = 322 Asian American, 356 African American, 470 European American) using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis method of measurement invariance testing (Vandenburg & Lance, 2000). Chi square difference tests were utilized to determine whether freeing an item’s factor loading or intercept across groups significantly improved fit (Byrne et al., 1989), with the requirement of a minimum of two items in each exhibiting full invariance in order to declare partial metric and scalar invariance and render the scale suitable for comparing factor means, variances, and covariances (Colwell & Noseworthy, 2008). Configural, metric, and scalar invariance were examined across each subscale of the PRCPS (Encouragement, Teaching, Reprimand, and Discomfort). To first establish configural invariance, four vignettes in the original measure were identified that did not fit well across racial-ethnic subgroups (vignettes 7, 8, 9, and 11). The remaining measure consisted of 8 vignettes (4 items per vignette for a total of 32 items) and each subscale achieved configural invariance (i.e., factor-level) invariance across racial-ethnic groups (CFIs = .93 - .99; RMSEAs = .02 - .08; SRMRs = .02 - .04). Partial metric invariance was established by allowing the factor loadings of between 0 and 2 items within each subscale to vary (see Table 1). Finally, partial scalar invariance for each subscale was established by allowing the intercepts of between 3 and 5 items to vary (see Table 2). Our results indicate that the PRCPS in its current form is not invariant across racial-ethnic identities and researchers should be cautious in using the PRCPS to make inter-group comparisons. However, with additional validation, a modified version of the PRCPS could potentially meet invariance standards for such use.

Authors

• Chelsea Reaume, University of Guelph
  Presenting Author

• Kristel Thomassin, University of Guelph