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Parcel 1 Parcel 2 Parcel 3
Figure 1. Standardized solution of the three-factor model of the U-MICS. All factor loadings and correlations are significant at p < .001 with the only exception of the correlation between commitment and reconsideration of commitment that is not significant.
.80 .86
Commitment
.74
.60
Parcel 4 .80 Parcel 5
.81
In-Depth Exploration
-.06
.79 Parcel 6
.22
Parcel 7 .85 Parcel 8
.86
Reconsideration of Commitment
.79 Parcel 9
countries. Therefore, each national group was considered as the reference group and compared to all the other groups. Results yielded the following pattern of findings: (IT, CZ) < (NL, SLO, KO, BG, RO) for commitment, NL < RO (SLO, CZ) IT BG < KO for in-depth exploration, and (NL, RO, SLO, CZ) < IT BG KO for reconsideration of commitment. Additionally, as can be seen in Table 3, findings indicated that covariances between identity processes were all invariant across countries.
Discussion Identity formation is a dynamic lifelong and universal (Erikson, 1950) process and a central developmental task during adolescence (Arnett, 2000). Therefore, it is of particular importance to test the validity of instruments that measure identity processes across different cultural contexts. Various studies have shown that the U-MICS is a valid instrument and provided the evidence for its crossnational validity (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008; Crocetti et al., 2010, 2012; Zimmermann et al., 2012). Building on this prior evidence, the objective of this study was to explore the psychometric properties of the U-MICS in several countries across Europe (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Romania, and Slovenia). European Journal of Psychological Assessment 2016; Vol. 32(2):119–127
In line with the first hypothesis, the results confirmed the three-factor structure of the U-MICS, indicating that commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment represent distinct identity processes. Consistent with findings of Crocetti, Rubini, and Meeus (2008), the same three-factor structure was replicated within each country, providing evidence of validity of the U-MICS across different European contexts. In line with the second hypothesis, the results of a multigroup CFA indicated configural invariance, implying that the number of factors and the pattern of fixed and free parameters are constant across the national groups. Our findings also supported metric invariance, meaning that factor loadings on the subscales were equal across samples. This is indicative of the assumption that participants from all seven countries attributed the same meaning to the latent construct measured by the U-MICS. According to the third hypothesis, we expected to find scalar invariance. The results partly met our expectations. Although the assumption of full scalar invariance was not satisfied, we were able to establish partial scalar invariance (Byrne, Shavenlson, & Muthén, 1989). Accordingly, we found that intercepts of parceled indicators were comparable across samples participating in our study. Thus, we were able to replicate results of previous single-cultural studies on the U-MICS and we were able to demonstrate that identity dimensions were similar across a variety of cultural settings. From these findings it can Ó 2015 Hogrefe Publishing