Assessing Comparability of Measurement in Cross-National Research: Authoritarian-Conservatism in Different Sociocultural Settings

This paper explores various analytic criteria for assessing comparability of measurement in cross-national survey research. The analysis focuses on the construct validity of items thought to capture authoritarian-conservatism in the United States and Poland. Although we may assume that set of attitudes designed to measure the construct can be under varying circumstances, what can be identified as an authoritarian world view may, in fact, depend upon the particular sociocultural setting of the observation. We examine the validity of the indicators within each country, identifying which indicators are common to both countries and which are nation-specific. Then, using confirmatory factor analysis, we test whether there is sufficient structural similarity in the pattern of responses to establish conceptual equivalence.