Assessing intergenerational cultural conflict among Asian Americans: Comparing psychometric properties of key measures.


Intergenerational cultural conflict and acculturation mismatch have been shown to predict mental health outcomes among Asian Americans from immigrant families. The observed relations between intergenerational cultural conflict and adjustment have not been consistent across studies, however, which likely was because these studies used different measures to assess acculturation-based intergenerational conflict. Thus, understanding the impact of intergenerational cultural conflict on adjustment requires reliable, valid, and precise measurement. Two studies compared the psychometric properties of four major scales assessing this conflict among Asian American emerging adults in college (Study 1: N = 190, 58.2% women, Mage = 20.81; Study 2: N = 412, 54.6% women, Mage = 17.96): Asian American Family Conflicts Scale (FCS), Intergenerational Conflict Inventory (ICI), Intergenerational Congruence in Immigrant Families (ICIF), and Intergenerational Conflict Scale (ICS). This investigation directly compared these four scales in terms of factor structure, reliability, and validity. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated support for the a priori factor solutions for all four measures. Whereas the FCS and the ICIF tapped a general intergenerational conflict latent factor, the ICI contained parent—offspring disagreements over family expectations, education and career, and dating and marriage. The ICS organized the construct across behavioral acculturation conflicts and value/expectations conflicts. ICI and ICS were shown to be more robust predictors of mental health outcomes, including depression and self-esteem. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)