Measurement invariance in the social sciences: Historical development, methodological challenges, state of the art, and future perspectives.

This review summarizes the current state of the art of statistical and (survey) methodological research on measurement (non)invariance, which is considered a core challenge for the comparative social sciences. After outlining the historical roots, conceptual details, and standard procedures for measurement invariance testing, the paper focuses in particular on the statistical developments that have been achieved in the last 10 years. These include Bayesian approximate measurement invariance, the alignment method, measurement invariance testing within the multilevel modeling framework, mixture multigroup factor analysis, the measurement invariance explorer, and the response shift-true change decomposition approach. Furthermore, the contribution of survey methodological research to the construction of invariant measurement instruments is explicitly addressed and highlighted, including the issues of design decisions, pretesting, scale adoption, and translation. The paper ends with an outlook on future research perspectives.

Does social isolation affect physical and mental health? A test of the social causation hypothesis using dynamic panel models with fixed effects.

OBJECTIVES: The widely acknowledged negative association between social isolation and physical and mental health is commonly interpreted in terms of social causation and has served as an important frame of reference for many interventions. However, evidence of social causation is likely biased because most studies cannot differentiate between social causation and health selection. The public attention given to this field of research indicates a need for analytical strategies that improve the understanding of the underlying link between social isolation and physical and mental health. METHODS: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) study (2004 to 2012) of 6740 men and 7189 women aged 50 and above, we estimated dynamic panel models with fixed effects that allow us to probe the social causation hypothesis while accounting for direct selection (reverse causality) and indirect selection (unobserved heterogeneity). All analyses were conducted for women and men separately. RESULTS: We found that social isolation adversely affected mental health among older men and women to a degree that suggests practical relevance. However, we could not find a similar effect on physical health. A considerable part of the association between social isolation and both health outcomes was attributable to indirect selection, whereas direct selection led to underestimating the relevance of social isolation for mental health. CONCLUSION: The results provide more convincing evidence that social isolation has adverse effects on mental health among older people. We conclude that effective interventions targeting social isolation might indeed be suitable for improving mental health among older people.

The Comparability of Perceived Physical and Mental Health Measures Across Immigrants and Natives in the United States.

The comparative study of perceived physical and mental health in general-and the comparative study of health between the native-born and immigrants, in particular-requires that the groups understand survey questions inquiring about their health in the same way and display similar response patterns. After all, observed differences in perceived health may not reflect true differences but rather cultural bias in the health measures. Research on cross-country measurement equivalence between immigrants and natives on self-reported health measures has received very limited attention to date, resulting in a growing demand for the validation of existing perceived health measures using samples of natives and immigrants and establishing measurement equivalence of health-related assessment tools. This study, therefore, aims to examine measurement equivalence of self-reported physical and mental health indicators between immigrants and natives in the United States. Using pooled data from the 2015-2017 IPUMS Health Surveys, we examine the cross-group measurement equivalence properties of five concepts that are measured by multiple indicators: (1) perceived limitations in activities of daily life; (2) self-reported disability; (3) perceived functional limitations; (4) perceived financial stress; and (5) nonspecific psychological distress. Furthermore, we examine the comparability of these data among respondents of different ethnoracial origins and from different regions of birth, who report few versus many years since migration, their age, gender, and the language used to respond to the interview (e.g., English vs. Spanish). We test for measurement equivalence using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. The results reveal that health scales are comparable across the examined groups. This finding allows drawing meaningful conclusions about similarities and differences among natives and immigrants on measures of perceived health in these data.

Individual Attitudes toward Deviant Behavior and Perceived Attitudes of Friends: Self-stereotyping and Social Projection in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood.

The transmission of attitudes toward deviant behavior occurs in social contexts such as peer groups. Accordingly, individuals align their attitudes to those of friends because they want to belong to that social category or, conversely, individual attitudes influence the perception of peer attitudes. Hence, individuals self-stereotype themselves as being members of a peer group or they project their attitudes onto friends. However, it is unclear which process-self-stereotyping or social projection-is predominant in determining similarity of individual and peer attitudes toward deviant behavior. Furthermore, it is unclear whether predominance changes between early/middle adolescence and emerging adulthood. These gaps are examined with panel data on individual attitudes toward deviant behavior and perceived attitudes of individuals' friends from a German study covering ages 14 to 20 (N = 3723; proportion of male respondents across panel waves ranges between 42 and 49%). A random intercepts cross-lagged panel model is applied to the data to estimate within-person effects in both directions, which allows to answer whether self-stereotyping or social projection is predominant and whether predominance changes across time. The results indicate that self-stereotyping is active almost entirely in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Reversed effects only occur during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood, signaling a developmental shift toward social projection. Thus, the influence of perceived peer attitudes toward deviant behavior on individual attitudes decreases in the phase in which adolescents develop into young adults. At the same time, individuals' own attitudes become increasingly influential for making inferences about the attitudes of their peers.

Explaining voting in the UK's 2016 EU referendum: Values, attitudes to immigration, European identity and political trust.

We consider the role of values as determinants of voting in the UK's 2016 EU referendum. First, we consider and clarify 'values' conceptually, before proceeding to utilise Schwartz's basic human values as the most appropriate. Second, we theorise how these basic human values determine both voting in the referendum as well as three of the most consistently demonstrated determinants of voting in that referendum: attitudes to immigration, identifying as European and trust in politicians. Finally, we demonstrate that this psychological theoretical framework effectively predicts voting behaviour in the referendum using multigroup structural equation modelling. Overall, we show that voting dynamics in the referendum are likely to reflect deeper, more personal psychological predispositions than those captured by existing explanations. In doing so, we make an original contribution to the literature on political psychology related to Brexit, Euroscepticism, political attitudes and electoral behaviour.

Using cultural and structural indicators to explain measurement noninvariance in gender role attitudes with multilevel structural equation modeling.

The current study explores the reasons for noninvariance of the measurements of gender role attitudes across countries. While previous studies have shown that noninvariance is a problem for comparative research and pointed out methods to alleviate the risks of drawing invalid conclusions, none has so far tried to explain why measurements of gender role attitudes are nonequivalent. Therefore, we use multilevel structural equation modeling to exploring measurement invariance and explain its absence. We use data assessing peoples' views on the specialization of roles by gender and the consequences of female employment on family's well-being from the International Social Survey Programme. We can replicate the findings from prior research indicating that scalar measurement invariance across countries is absent. Furthermore, we use two country-level variables to explain the noninvariance of particular items. The cultural value embeddedness explains noninvariance to a considerable degree while the Gender Inequality Index from the United Nations Development Programme does not. Therefore, we conclude that issues of comparability of gender role attitudes are related mainly to cultural rather than structural differences between countries.

Assessing sleep problems and daytime functioning: a translation, adaption, and validation of the Athens Insomnia Scale for non-clinical application (AIS-NCA).

OBJECTIVE & DESIGN:  Sleep problems are common and have been linked to health problems, diminished well-being, and impaired performance. Many scales to diagnose clinically relevant sleep problems are time-consuming, complex, and difficult to administer in non-clinical and multi-thematic studies. Through a multi-stage translation (from English to German) and scale testing process, we developed a parsimonious measure of sleep problems and daytime functioning for non-clinical applications based on the Athens Insomnia Scale. Results: Exploratory (NStudy 1 = 25,140) and confirmatory (NStudy 2 = 14,797) factor analyses suggest a two-dimensional structure with the subscales "sleep problems" and "daytime functioning". Internal scale consistency was acceptable. Measurement invariance was found across time, gender, age, and diagnosed sleep disorders. The scale discriminates between people with and without sleep disorders and predicts emerging sleep disorders. Short-term retest reliability was acceptable (NStudy 3 = 78). Convergent validity with other sleep measures and discriminant validity with indicators of well-being were observed (NStudy 4 = 341). After a multi-stage translation to English, we confirmed the factor structure and found measurement invariance across languages (NStudy 5 = 623). Conclusion: Our short 7-item scale has good psychometric properties and is suitable for self-administration, making it useful in measuring sleep problems and daytime functioning efficiently and reliably, especially for large population studies.

Vaccination against COVID-19 reduces virus-related fears: Findings from a German longitudinal study.

During the recent pandemic, fear of COVID-19 has been widespread and is considered to deteriorate mental health. We assessed whether vaccination can effectively reduce the fear of COVID-19 and, thus, contribute to improving people's mental health status. We used two-wave panel data from a German online study collected in April 2021 (t1) and August/September 2021 (t2) and estimated differences-in-differences to determine whether those who were vaccinated against COVID-19 experienced a reduction of fear of COVID-19, and whether the reduction was more evident as compared to people who were not vaccinated for various reasons. Fear of COVID-19 generally decreased between t1 and t2 for all respondents. Moreover, reduction of fear for people who were unvaccinated at t1 but received the vaccine between t1 and t2 was strongest as compared to people who did not get vaccinated during that period, even after we controlled for factors associated with fear (e.g., age, gender). Vaccination reduced fear of COVID-19 beyond some seasonal fluctuation and, therefore, we argue that vaccination partially reduces the psychological distress caused by the pandemic. We recommend that scientists, practitioners, and politicians highlight this additional positive effect of vaccination in health communication.

Correlates of COVID-19 vaccination intentions: Attitudes, institutional trust, fear, conspiracy beliefs, and vaccine skepticism.

Successful campaigns to combat the COVID-19 pandemic depend, in part, on people's willingness to be vaccinated. It is therefore critical to understand the factors that determine people's vaccination intentions. We applied a reasoned action approach - the theory of planned behavior - to explore these factors. We used data from an online survey of adults (18-74 years; n = 5044) conducted in Germany between April 9 and April 28, 2021 and found that attitudes toward getting vaccinated predicted vaccination intentions, while normative and control beliefs did not. In turn, positive attitudes toward getting vaccinated were supported by trust in science and fear of COVID-19 whereas negative attitudes were associated with acceptance of conspiracy theories and skepticism regarding vaccines in general. We advise policymakers, physicians, and health care providers to address vaccination hesitancy by emphasizing factors that support positive attitudes toward getting vaccinated, such as prevention of serious illness, death, and long-term health detriments, as opposed to exerting social pressure or pointing to the ease of getting vaccinated.

Values, Attitudes Toward Interpersonal Violence, and Interpersonal Violent Behavior.

The relevance of human values for the study of the motivational sources of interpersonal violent behavior was investigated in various fields of the social sciences. However, several past studies mixed up values with other dimensions like attitudes, norms, or beliefs, and only a few systematically assessed the effect of values on violent behavior relying on a value theory. Furthermore, in other studies, violence was often analyzed as a composite index of different forms of delinquent behavior rather than as violence per se. In the current study we address these gaps in the literature by building upon Schwartz' theory of basic human values. We use it to explain attitudes toward interpersonal violence and interpersonal violent behavior. We analyze data of young people (n = 1,810) drawn from a German study in Duisburg, Germany, which assessed various types of self-reported violent behavior as well as values and attitudes toward violence. We test structural equation models in which we explain interpersonal violent behavior with basic human values, and where attitudes toward interpersonal violent behavior mediate this relation. Results show that self-transcendence and conservation values are associated negatively and power and stimulation values positively with interpersonal violent behavior. In addition, attitudes operate as a partial mediator for the former and as a full mediator for the latter in the relation between values and violent behavior. Despite a dominant association between attitudes and behavior, values themselves can significantly contribute to the explanation of violent behavior.

Women's Decisions to Stay in or Leave an Abusive Relationship: Results From a Longitudinal Study in Bolivia.

This study examined Bolivian women's decisions to stay with or leave their violent partners. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used as the theoretical framework. One hundred thirty-four women were assessed 3 times over 6 months. The TPB constructs were measured at T1 and T2; relationship status was assessed at T3. At T2, attitudes about staying and leaving predicted the intention to leave. Intention to leave at T2 but not at T1 predicted relationship status at T3. These results suggest that the decision to leave was consolidated between T1 and T2, and attitudes toward staying were most relevant to this decision.