It should be noted that each of these scales of measurement has been created within a Western framework. As such, different cultural groups may not define these concepts in the same way and may not respond to questions about the various constructs using the same signifiers. For example, the construct of Courage is defined by the VIA-IS as containing, in part, the factor of Integrity, which is defined by the authors as “speaking the truth but more broadly,
presenting oneself in a genuine way.” While this definitely fits for majority culture in the United States, it may not for other cultural groups. Collectivist groups, such as Asian cultures, may advocate integrity as going with the grain and not causing conflict, as well as preserving social order as opposed to always speaking the truth. In this way, an Asian individual may not endorse these items as similar to himself or herself, and as such end up with a profile that does not list courage as a strength. In an Asian culture, however, maintaining harmony regardless of personal feelings may certainly be viewed as being integrity-filled as well as courageous. Cross-cultural research has begun to be conducted with the VIA-IS (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006), but data on race and ethnicity within the U.S. sample have not often been collected. This type of information regarding status within the country of origin is important, as it could be that these data are comparing majority groups across countries (e.g., majority groups in Japan or China to majority groups within the United States [i.e., White
Americans]) and these profiles of groups who enjoy privilege within a country could be different from groups who have racial or ethnic minority status.
Descriptions thus far may not provide the most complete picture of the within-
group heterogeneity that may exist. This research gives us an important starting place for more culturally competent understandings of strengths, but the types of measurement issues mentioned here must be addressed, perhaps via qualitative research and studies that specifically sample various racial and ethnic minority groups.
In addition, these measures do not address manifestation or definition of these various traits, and thus more research in the areas of cultural equivalence must be conducted (Pedrotti, Edwards, & Lopez, 2009). In attempting to measure various strengths, it is often the case that researchers use measures that reflect their culturally normative understanding of a particular construct. This is problematic at times because there may be differences in terms of the way that this trait is defined in the two cultures, i.e., the two cultures do not have
construct equivalence. For example, research shows that the concept of wisdom is defined differently in different cultural groups. In a study measuring wisdom in United States college students and Slovak college students, the first group viewed wisdom as a cognitive trait, while the second emphasized more affective components (Benedikovičová & Ardelt, 2008, see Chapter 9 for more details on this and other cultural studies of wisdom). If, for example, a researcher is from a Western context and develops a measure of wisdom that doesn’t ask questions about the affective components of wisdom emphasized by the Slovak culture, he or she may miss crucial information about this construct if studying Slovak individuals. At best, this means that we have a dearth of information about particular cultural groups. At worst, however, this means that as a field we are setting up deficit models in which certain groups are thought not to possess a strength such as wisdom, purely because of a measurement error such as this.
In addition, other types of measurement equivalence can mask our true understanding of cultural similarities and differences (Ho et al., 2014).
Linguistic equivalence, for example, must be established when measures for these positive traits are translated into languages other than the one in which they were originally developed (Mio, Barker, & Tumambing, 2009). Idioms, common phrases, and vocabulary may not translate well depending on the phraseology used in the scale, and as such appropriate procedures of translation and back-translation must be taken into consideration. Finally, metric
equivalence must be considered, i.e., the same metric must be utilized in
measuring a construct in one culture and comparing it to results found in another cultural group. When using a Likert scale, one may feel comfortable that the same metric is being used if the number of choices is equal on both scales. Some
cultural groups, however, may be more or less adverse toward exhibiting
extreme declarations, and as such even the commonly used Likert scale can have different meanings to different cultural groups (Mio et al.). If a 10-point scale is used, for example, with 1 denoting a low level of a particular trait and 10
denoting a high level of that same trait, these two numbers (1 and 10) are to be the outside markers of the measurement of this trait. Mio and colleagues state that some cultures may be more cautious about making extreme statements regarding their views and, as such, the ends of the continuum (i.e., 1 and 10) may never be used by members of this type of culture. In this case, the markers of 2 and 9 may be as low or high as members of these cultures are willing to go.
This creates issues in metric equivalence for use of these scales with risk-adverse cultures. As such, researchers must take care to note these cultural factors before making comparisons between groups.
Often researchers tout the linguistic equivalence of their measure. “Offered in 12 different languages!” is often a comforting endorsement to the layperson and even the psychologist not well-versed in cultural equivalence issues. “It must be culturally competent,” we think to ourselves, because such care was given as to translate this measure. It is very important to note that linguistic equivalence does not necessarily mean that a measure has conceptual equivalence. In some studies, similarities between cultures have been found (e.g., the German versus English version of the VIA-IS; Ruch et al., 2010). Very recently however, Choubisa and Singh (2011) analyzed the factor structure of the VIA-IS in past studies in different cultural groups and languages (i.e., the English version with an Indian sample, the Hindi version with an Indian sample, the English version with an Australian sample, the Croatian version with a Croatian sample, and the English version in a mixed sample). Researchers found that in comparing the use of the various versions of the VIA-IS in these studies, there was not a single consistent factor structure. Instead, different factor solutions were found for the different populations, ranging from a one-factor solution found in the Indian adaptation of the Hindi version of the VIA-IS (i.e., the various virtues could not be distinguished from one another statistically) to different five-factor structures found in studies using the English version in an Indian population and in a mixed population (Choubisa & Singh, 2011; Singh & Choubisa, 2010). The main
finding we might take from this research is that it “suggests that culture may play a substantial role in the preferential treatment, expression and usage of the character strengths” (Choubisa & Singh, 2011, p. 328). As such, it is important not to interpret linguistic equivalence as actual conceptual equivalence; just because a measure is offered in another language does not mean it is measuring
the same thing in both cultures (see Chapter 4 of this volume for further discussion).