Although the Life Satisfaction Scale (SWLS) has been used to establish comparisons among nations/cultures, the measurement invariance of this scale has not always been demonstrated. The forced acculturative experience of indigenous minorities and its differentiation of gender roles could impact how people respond to this scale. The purpose of this study was to examine the measurement invariance of the SWLS when it is applied to a Chilean indigenous group, considering gender and their most frequent acculturative types (i.e., acculturated and bicultural). Eight hundred adults of Mapuche origin answered a Spanish version of the SWLS and the Mapuche Acculturation Scale. The results supported the SWLS strict invariance between acculturated and bicultural and also between acculturated men and women. Partial strict invariance was found between bicultural men and women; specifically, the residual variance of Item 3 was higher in women than in men. Since Spanish is a gendered language, a linguistic explanation is proposed for the non-invariance of this item. The importance of careful wording of the items, when administered in multilanguage acculturation contexts, is discussed.

Keywords
Satisfaction with Life Scale, indigenous Chileans, measurement invariance, acculturation, gender

04_19205

Atienza, F., Balaguer, I., Corte-Real, N., & Fonseca, A. (2016). Factorial invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale in adolescents from Spain and Portugal. Psicothema, 28(3), 353–358. https://doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2016.1

Atienza, F., Balaguer, I., & García-Merita, M. (2003). Satisfaction with Life Scale: Analysis of factorial invariance across sexes. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(6), 1255–1260. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00332-X

Bacro, F., Coudronnière, C., Gaudonville, T., Galharret, J.-M., Ferrière, S., Florin, A., & Guimard, P. (2019). The French adaptation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS): Factorial structure, age, gender and time-related invariance in children and adolescents. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2019.1680359

Bagherzadeh, M., Loewe, N., Mouawad, R. G., Batista-Foguet, J. M., Araya-Castillo, L., & Thieme, C. (2018). Spanish version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Validation and factorial invariance analysis in Chile. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 21(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/sjp.2018.2

Banco Mundial. (2015). Latinoamérica índígena en el siglo XXI: Primera década [Indigenous Latinamerica in the 21st century: First decade]. Washington, D.C.: Author.

Berry, J. W., Phinney, J. S., Sam, D. L., &Vedder, P. (2006). Immigrant youth: Acculturation, identity, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 55, 303–332. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2006.00256.x

Bowen, P., Govender, R., & Edwards, P. (2016). Validating survey measurement scales for AIDS-related knowledge and stigma among construction workers in South Africa. BMC Public Health, 16(1), 70. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2756-z

Brave Heart, M. Y. H., Chase, J., Elkins, J., & Altschul, D. B. (2011). Historical trauma among indigenous peoples of the Americas: Concepts, research, and clinical considerations. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 43(4), 282-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2011.628913

Byrne, B. (2008). Testing for multigroup equivalence of a measuring instrument: A walk through the process. Psicothema, 20(4), 872–882.

Casas, F., Sarriera, J. C., Abs, D., Coenders, G., Alfaro, J., Saforcada, E., & Tonon, G. (2012). Subjective indicators of personal well-being among adolescents. Performance and results for different scales in Latin-language speaking countries: A contribution to the international debate. Child Indicators Research, 5(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-011-9119-1

Checa, I., Perales, J., & Espejo, B. (2018). Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale by gender, age, marital status and educational level. Quality of Life Research, 28(4), 963–968. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-2066-2

Cheung, G., & Rensvold, R. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 9(2), 233–255. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5

Davidov, E., Meuleman, B., Cieciuch, J., Schmidt, P., & Billiet, J. (2014). Measurement equivalence in cross-national research. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 55-75. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043137

Diener, E., Emmons, R., Larsen, R., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71-75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13

Dimitrova, R., & Dominguez Espinosa, A. (2015). Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale in Argentina, Mexico and Nicaragua. Social Inquiry into Well-Being, 1(1), 32-39. https://doi.org/10.13165/SIIW-15-1-1-04

Emerson, S. D., Guhn, M., & Gadermann, A. M. (2017). Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Reviewing three decades of research. Quality of Life Research, 26(9), 2251-2264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-017-1552-2

Faulkner-Bond, M., & Sireci, S. (2015). Validity issues in assessing linguistic minorities. International Journal of Testing, 15(2), 114–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/15305058.2014.974763

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error: Algebra and statistics. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(3), 382–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800313

Gálvez-Nieto, J. L., Salvo, S., Pérez-Luco, R., Hederich, C., & Trizano-Hermosilla, Í. (2017). Invarianza factorial del Cuestionario para Evaluar Clima Social del Centro Escolar en estudiantes chilenos y colombianos [Factorial invariance of the Questionnaire for evaluating School Social Climate in Chilean and Colombian students]. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 49(2), 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rlp.2016.09.003

Gempp, R., & Saiz, J. L. (2014). El coeficiente K² de Livingston y la fiabilidad de una decisión dicotómica en un test psicológico [Livingston K² coefficient and the reliabilty of a dichotomous decision in a psychological test]. Universitas Psychologica, 13(1), 217–226. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.UPSY13-1.eckl

Greenfield, P. (1997). You can’t take it with you. American Psychologist, 52(10), 1115–1124. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.52.10.1115

Goodman, F., Disabato, D., Kashdan, T., & Kauffman, S. (2017). Measuring well-being: A comparison of subjective well-being and PERMA. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(4), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1388434

Guitart, M. E. (2010). Propiedades psicométricas y estructura factorial de la Escala de Identidad Étnica Multigrupo en español (MEIM) [Psychometric properties and factorial structure of the Spanish Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM)]. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 42(3), 405–412.

Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas. (2018). 2da entrega resultados definitivos Censo 2017 [Second release 2017 Census final results]. Santiago, Chile: Author.

International Test Commission (2013). ITC guidelines on test use, version 1.2. Retrieved from: http://www.intestcom.org/files/guideline_test_use.pdf

Jovanović, V., & Brdar, I. (2018). The cross-national measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale in a sample of undergraduate students. Personality and Individual Differences, 128, 7–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.02.010

Keefe, S., & Padilla, A. M. (1987). Chicano ethnicity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Kroll, J. F., Dussias, P. E., Bogulski, C. A., & Kroff, J. R. V. (2012). Juggling two languages in one mind: What bilinguals tell us about language processing and its consequences for cognition. In B. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (pp. 229-262). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Leca, M. C. (2007). Système éducatif et acculturation: L’exemple des Mapuches du Chili [Educational system and acculturation: The example of the Mapuche of Chile]. Caravelle, 88, 281-300.

Leong, F., Leung, K., & Cheung, F. (2010). Integrating cross-cultural psychology research methods into ethnic minority psychology. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 16(4), 590–7. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020127

Little, T. D. (2013). Longitudinal structural equation modeling. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Lorenzo-Seva, U., Calderon, C., Ferrando, P. J., del Mar Muñoz, M., Beato, C., Ghanem, I., … Jiménez-Fonseca, P. (2019). Psychometric properties and factorial analysis of invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) in cancer patients. Quality of Life Research, 28(5), 1255–1264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-019-02106-y

Marsh, H. W., Hau, K. T., & Wen, Z. (2004). In search of golden rules: Comment on hypothesis-testing approaches to setting cut-off values for fit indexes and dangers in overgeneralizing Hu and Bentler’s (1999) findings. Structural Equation Modeling, 11(3), 320-341. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15328007sem1103_2

Milfont, T., & Fischer, R. (2010). Testing measurement invariance across groups: Applications in cross-cultural research. International Journal of Psychological Research, 3(1), 111–121. https://doi.org/10.21500/20112084.857

Miller, K., Willson, S., Chepp, V., & Padilla, J. L. (2014). Cognitive interviewing methodology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Minorities at Risk Project. (2009). Assessment for indigenous peoples in Chile. Retrieved from http://www.mar.umd.edu/assessment.asp?groupId=15501

Moksnes, U. K., Løhre, A., Byrne, D. G., & Haugan, G. (2014). Satisfaction with Life Scale in adolescents: Evaluation of factor structure and gender invariance in a Norwegian sample. Social Indicators Research, 118(2), 657–671. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0451-3

Oishi, S., & Gilbert, E. (2016). Current and future directions in culture and happiness research. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 54–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.10.005

Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (2009). Review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. In E. Diener (Ed.), Social indicators research series: Vol. 39. Assessing well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener (pp. 101-117). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2354-4_5

Prewitt-Freilino, J., Caswell, T., & Laakso, E. (2012). The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages. Sex Roles, 66(3–4), 268–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-0083-5

Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo. (2013). Primera encuesta de relaciones interculturales, 2012 [First intercultural relations survey, 2012], Santiago, Chile: Author.

R Core Team (2017). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Retrieved from: https://www.r-project.org/

Rosseel, Y. (2012). lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2), 1-36. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02

Saiz, J. L. (2003). Valores en estudiantes universitarios mapuches: Una visión transcultural de su contenido, estructura, y jerarquía [Values in Mapuche university students: A cross-cultural view of their content, structure, and hierarchy] (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

Saiz, J.L., Cornejo, A., Fuchslocher, V., Holzapfel, J., & Scheel, M. (1998). La Escala de Aculturación Mapuche: Diferenciando la dirección aculturativa de indígenas chilenos [The Mapuche Acculturation Scale: Differentiating the acculturative track of Chilean natives]. Revista de Psicología Social y Personalidad, 14 (1), 15–28.

Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. (2011). Scaling corrections for statistics in covariance structure analysis [Online document]. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8dv7p2hr

Schnettler, B., Huaiquinir, V., Mora, M., Miranda, H., Sepulveda, J., & Denegri, M. (2009). Differences in food consumption associated with ethnic group and acculturation in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición, 59(4), 407-418.

Schnettler, B., Miranda, H., Sepúlveda, J., & Denegri, M. (2011). Satisfacción con la alimentación y la vida, un estudio exploratorio en estudiantes de la Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco-Chile [Satisfaction with food and life, an exploratory study among students in La Frontera University, Temuco-Chile]. Psicologia & Sociedade, 23(2), 426-435. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-71822011000200024

Schnettler, B., Miranda-Zapata, E., Lobos, G., Lapo, M. C., Adasme-Berríos, C., & Hueche, C. (2017). Measurement invariance in the Satisfaction with Life Scale in Chilean and Ecuadorian
older adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 110, 96–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.01.036

Sörbom, D. (1989). Model modification. Psychometrika, 54(3), 371–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02294623

Swami, V., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2009). Psychometric evaluation of the Malay Satisfaction with Life Scale. Social Indicators Research, 92(1), 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-008-9295-7

Vandenberg, R., & Lance, C. (2000). A review and synthesis of the measurement invariance literature: Suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 3(1), 4–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810031002

van de Vijver, F. J., & Poortinga, Y. H. (1997). Towards an integrated analysis of bias in cross-cultural assessment. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 13(1), 29-37. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.13.1.29

Vargas, R. (2017). Pewmas/sueños de justicia. Lonkos y dirigentes mapuche versus Chile en la Corte Interamericana [Pewmas/dreams of justice: Lonkos and Mapuche leaders versus Chile in the Interamerican Court]. Santiago, Chile: LOM.

Vera-Villarroel, P., Urzúa, A., Pavéz, P., Celis-Atenas, K., & Silva, J. (2012). Evaluation of subjective well-being: Analysis of the satisfaction with life in Chilean population. Universitas Psychologica, 11(3), 719–727.

Warren, S. (2009). How will we recognize each other as Mapuche? Gender and ethnic identity performances in Argentina. Gender & Society, 23(6), 768–789. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243209351293

Whisman, M., & Judd, C. (2016). A cross-national analysis of measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Psychological Assessment, 28(2), 239–244. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000181

Zanon, C., Bardagi, M. P., Layous, K., & Hutz, C. S. (2014). Validation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale to Brazilians: Evidences of measurement non-invariance across Brazil and US. Social Indicators Research, 119(1), 443–453. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0478-5

Zúñiga, F. (2006). Mapudungun: El habla mapuche. [Mapudungun: The Mapuche language]. Santiago, Chile: Centro de Estudios Públicos.