Copyright 1999 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0O22-0167/99/$3.0O
Journal of Counseling Psychology 1999, Vol. 46, No. 3,342-352
The Asian Values Scale: Development, Factor Analysis, Validation, and Reliability Bryan S. K. Kim, Donald R. Atkinson, and Peggy H. Yang University of California, Santa Barbara Multicultural researchers and theorists have noted that client adherence to culture-of-origin values plays an important role in the provision of culturally relevant and sensitive psychological services. However, lack of instruments that measure ethnic cultural values has been a shortcoming in past research that attempted to examine this relationship. In this article, the development of the Asian Values Scale (AVS) is described, and the results of 4 studies investigating the psychometric properties of the AVS are reported. The results indicate that the AVS has adequate internal and 2-week test-retest reliability. Also, factor analysis and comparisons of AVS scores to scores on the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (H. Triandis, 1995) and the Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale (R. M. Suinn, K. Rickard-Figueroa, S. Lew & P. Vigil, 1987) provided evidence of convergent and divergent validity for the AVS.
involvement in Southeast Asia, Asian countries became the leading source of new immigrants to the United States between 1978 and 1995 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997). In 1996, Asians alone made up 34% (104,654 persons) of all immigrants coming into the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997). Furthermore, of the 25.8 million foreignborn Americans, 6.97 million (27%) are Asian Americans (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1998). Currently, Asian Americans who were born overseas make up over 50% of Asian groups in this country. The 150-year history of Asian immigration to the United States, and the current number of overseas-born Asian Americans have created an Asian American population that varies greatly in terms of their American and Asian values and behaviors. The differences and changes in values and behaviors that individuals make as they gradually adopt the cultural values of the dominant society are defined as acculturation (Graves, 1967). As a result of acculturation, one can anticipate that sixth-generation Asian Americans whose ancestors have lived in the United States for a century and a half will most likely have values and behaviors very similar to sixth-generation European Americans and very different from newly arrived first-generation Asian Americans. Even among first-generation immigrants, Asian Americans who entered the United States as children and have been educated and raised here may have values and behaviors that are very different from other first-generation Asian Americans who entered the United States as adults after being raised in an Asian country. Understanding and being able to assess acculturation is important to psychologists who serve the growing number of Asian Americans because Asian American acculturation has been shown to be significantly related to a number of psychological variables. For example, Smith (1985) and Wong-Rieger and Quintana (1987) found that biculturalism is predictive of Asian American psychological health. Other studies have shown that acculturation is related to preference for counselor ethnicity (Atkinson & Matsushita, 1991; Korsgaard,
Since the mid-1800s, Asians, like their European counterparts, have immigrated to the United States in search of economic freedom and a better life for future generations. Asian immigration to the United States began in 1848 with the arrival of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco to work in gold mines and continued with Japanese immigrants arriving in 1868, Koreans in 1903, Filipinos in 1906, and Asian Indians in 1907. However, this influx of Asian immigrants was sporadic as anti-Asian sentiments took hold across the United States and discriminatory legislation, including laws barring Asian immigrants from entering the United States (e.g., 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act), were passed by Congress (Chan, 1991). The anti-Asian sentiments culminated with the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924 that virtually ended all Asian immigration to the United States (Chan, 1991). Nonetheless, approximately 1 million Asians entered this country between 1848 and 1924. Immigration from Asia resumed after World War II with the arrival of a relatively small number of Asian women from China, Japan, and Korea who married American soldiers (Chan, 1991). This trend of limited entry of Asians into the United States continued until the mid-1960s, when large numbers of Asian immigrants, spurred by the passing of the Immigration Act of 1965 and the ending of the Vietnam War in 1975, began entering the United States. As a result of the Immigration Act of 1965 and the end of U.S. Bryan S. K. Kim, Donald R. Atkinson, and Peggy H. Yang, Department of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara. We thank Arlene Bugayong, Kelly Eun, Quynh Vu, Edward Wu, and Tsan Yang for their assistance in collecting and entering the data. We also thank Sehee Hong for his advice on structural equation modeling. Financial support for this project was provided by the University of California, Santa Barbara, Faculty Research Assistance Program. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bryan S. K. Kim, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106. Electronic mail may be sent to
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1990), attitudes toward professional psychological help (Atkinson & Gim, 1989; Tata & Leong, 1994), attitudestowardtype of counseling (Leong, Wagner, & Kim, 1995), and willingness to see a counselor (Gim, Atkinson, & Whiteley, 1990). Researchers have developed a number of instruments to assess ethnic group acculturation to the culture of the United States (Leong, Wagner, & Tata, 1995). A major criticism of current scales of acculturation is that they only measure the behavioral aspects of acculturation (e.g., food preference, friendship patterns, and language usage) and neglect to assess values acculturation (Betancourt & Lopez, 1993; Cuellar, Arnold, & Maldonado, 1995). In neglecting to assess cultural values, current acculturation scales fail to measure an important aspect of the acculturation construct. As Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) pointed out, "the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values" (p. 181). As such, adherence to ancestral values and the values of the dominant culture are essential components of an individual's acculturation. The distinction between behavior-focused and valuefocused measures of acculturation is particularly important because there is some evidence that behavioral and value acculturation processes occur at different rates. According to Szapocznik and his colleagues (Szapocznik & Kurtines, 1980; Szapocznik, Scopetta, Kurtines, & Arandale, 1978), the behavioral acculturation process occurs more rapidly than the value acculturation process. These authors posited that acculturating individuals acquire cultural behaviors of the dominant group more rapidly than they acquire the dominant group's cultural values because the behaviors are needed to survive economically within the dominant society, but there is no such equally compelling reason for these individuals to adopt the dominant group's values. LaFromboise, Coleman, and Gerton (1993) reemphasized this point, noting that the model of acculturation developed by Szapocznik and his colleagues "suggests that individuals will learn the behaviors needed to survive in a new culture before they acquire the values of the majority group" (p. 398). With regard to Asian Americans in particular, Sodowsky, Kwan, and Pannu (1995) have pointed out that Asian Americans may quickly adopt the behaviors of the U.S. culture, but maintain their Asian cultural values indefinitely. Values conflict arising from cultural differences between Asian American clients and non-Asian counselors is frequently cited as a reason why many Asian Americans avoid seeking mental health services and why they often terminate therapy prematurely (Atkinson, Lowe, & Matthews, 1995; Bui & Takeuchi, 1992; Leong, 1992; D. W. Sue & Sue, 1977; S. Sue & Morishima, 1982; Uba, 1994). Contemporary forms of mental health services are judged to be individualistic in orientation (Leong, Wagner, & Kim, 1995; Pedersen, 1987; Shertzer, & Stone, 1974), whereas Asian cultural values are generally collectivist in nature (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988). Individualistic concepts underlying counseling and psychotherapy, such as seeking help outside of the family unit, openly expressing feelings—especially feelings about one's family—focusing attention on oneself, and discussing family issues with an outsider, may be inconsistent with or
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directly oppose traditional Asian values (Lin & Lin, 1978; Leong, 1992; Leong, Wagner, & Tata, 1995; S. Sue & Morishima, 1982; Uba, 1994). The important role that values play in Asian American perceptions of counselors was underscored in a recent study by Atkinson, Wampold, Lowe, Matthews, and Ahn (1998). In this study, Asian American college students preferred a counselor with similar values over 11 other counselor characteristics, including ethnic similarity, for both personal and career problems. Thus, counseling psychologists not only need to be knowledgeable about Asian cultural values to better understand their Asian American clients and to provide them with more culturally sensitive counseling interventions, they may need to selectively express support for Asian cultural values to be seen as a credible source of help by Asian American clients who hold traditional values. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and psychometric evaluation of a scale designed to assess adherence to Asian cultural values. We describe the methodology and results of four studies, then discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the new instrument. In the first study, Asian Americans and European Americans indicated their agreement with 112 Asian values statements. We identified 36 items that discriminated between European Americans and first-generation Asian Americans as the Asian Values Scale (AVS) and subjected them to an exploratory factor analysis to study the latent variables underlying the scale. In the second study, the AVS was administered to an Asian American sample to further examine the internal consistency of the instrument. The third study examined the construct validity for the AVS by investigating its relationship with other measures of acculturation. In the fourth study, we examined the stability of the AVS across time by using a test-retest reliability analysis. Study 1: Instrument Development and Exploratory Factor Analysis In this study, we used multiple sources to generate a list of 112 Asian cultural values. A total of 303 Asian American and 63 European American participants rated how much they agreed with each of the 112 items. We compared the ratings of all 83 first-generation Asian Americans from the Asian American sample with the European American ratings to determine those items on which first-generation Asian Americans scored significantly higher than did European Americans; a total of 36 items were so identified. Using data from all 303 Asian Americans, we subjected ratings on the 36 items to an exploratory factor analysis. We then computed Alpha coefficients for the entire 36 items as well as for the latent variables.
Development of Items to Assess Adherence to Asian Cultural Values We generated items for an initial list of Asian cultural values in the following three ways, as recommended by Crocker and Algina (1986): (a) by reviewing the literature on Asian cultural values; (b) by using a nationwide survey of Asian American psychologists; and (c) in three focus-group
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discussions. The literature review covered journal articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations by scholars and researchers of Asian cultural values and Asian American acculturation. The review generated 10 Asian value dimensions (i.e., brief descriptions of an aspect of Asian cultural values) and 60 statements (i.e., sentences operationalizing Asian value dimensions). We used this initial list to generate additional value dimensions and statements through the survey of psychologists and focus-group discussions. For the national survey of psychologists, 103 Asian American members of the American Psychological Association's Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) were identified by their surnames from the membership directory and sent a questionnaire packet. The questionnaire packet consisted of a cover letter, two copies of the response form, and two return envelopes. The cover letter described the study and requested participation in the study. The response form listed a sample of 10 Asian value dimensions and 10 corresponding statements based on the review of literature and asked participants to generate and list additional statements that describe Asian cultural values. Recipients were also asked to distribute copies of the response form to their Asian American associates (e.g., graduate students, colleagues), particularly first-generation Asian Americans who might be most familiar with Asian cultural values, and request their input in the identification of these values. Twenty-eight Asian American psychologists and their associates returned the response form, resulting in 111 value statements that were collated and categorized under the 10 Asian value dimensions generated from the literature review. We used two focus discussion groups to generate Asian cultural value dimensions and statements describing each dimension. The first group comprised three (one Asian Indian American woman, one Chinese American man, and one Korean American man) doctoral students in the social sciences whose research interests included Asian cultural values and Asian American acculturation. The second group consisted of six (one Chinese American woman, one Chinese American man, and four Korean American women) doctoral students with similar academic credentials. Each group met for 1 hr; participants were given a sample list of 10 Asian cultural value dimensions and 10 corresponding statements that were generated from the literature review (this list was identical to the one that was sent to Asian American psychologists). During a 5-min period, everyone was asked to individually identify and record additional statements describing Asian cultural values. We then asked the participants to share with the group the statements that they generated and, as a group, to brainstorm additional statements and Asian cultural value dimensions. This process (literature review, survey of Asian American psychologists, focus discussions with Asian American doctoral students) generated a total of 180 statements describing 12 Asian cultural value dimensions. To determine the accuracy of the pairings between the value dimensions and their corresponding statements and to determine additional dimensions that had not been identified during the previous step, we formed a third focus group.
This group comprised three doctoral students in psychology (one Burmese American woman, one Chinese American man, and one Korean American woman) who had previously studied Asian cultural values. The focused discussion entailed three steps. First, the three reviewers examined all of the 180 statements in terms of their grammatical accuracy and ease of readability. Second, the reviewers determined whether each statement accurately described the value dimension that the statement was placed under and, if not, the value that it better described. Third, the reviewers determined whether there were additional dimensions and statements representative of Asian cultural values that were not covered by the list. This procedure generated 2 additional value dimensions and 22 additional statements resulting in a total of 14 value dimensions with 202 items. The 14 value dimensions identified as a result of this process were as follows: ability to resolve psychological problems, avoidance of family shame, collectivism, conformity to family and social norms and expectations, deference to authority figures, educational and occupational achievement, filial piety, importance of family, maintenance of interpersonal harmony, placing other's needs ahead of one's own, reciprocity, respect for elders and ancestors, self-control and restraint, and self-effacement. To use an equal number of statements for each value dimension and to reduce the overall number of items for the preliminary instrument, six psychology doctoral students of various Asian American ethnicities and gender (one Asian Indian American woman, one Chinese American woman, one Chinese American man, one Filipino American man, two Korean American women) separately reviewed all of the statements and chose eight statements that best described each of the 14 Asian value dimensions. (This task did not involve the three students who reviewed the items in the previous step.) The responses from the six reviewers were tallied to obtain the eight most frequently chosen statements. We reviewed the items that were tied for seventh and eighth place and chose the ones that were thought to be least redundant. These tasks resulted in 112 value statements (items) representing 14 value dimensions. To identify those statements most representative of Asian cultural values, we compared the responses from the firstgeneration Asian Americans with the responses from European Americans. First-generation Asian Americans were chosen as the reference group for the Asian American sample because current acculturation theories suggest that they tend to be psychologically closer to Asian cultural values than Asian Americans from later generations (Berry, 1997). Those items that differentiated between these two groups were retained for the final instrument. However, it should be noted that we used responses from all Asian American participants for the exploratory factor analysis.
Method Participants Participants in the instrument development phase of the study were 366 students (116 men and 250 women) from two large universities, one in California (149 participants; 40.7%) and one in
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