Cultural congruence test for Russian adolescents

Abstract

Background. Cultural congruence serves as a measure of the conformity of an adolescent's behavior to age-specific rules inherent in a particular cultural context. A cultural context is a system of situations with pre-set behavior-regulating rules. Objective. Rule-based behavior management is known to be an issue in adolescence. Teenagers often defy common rules, thus pitting themselves against adults. In our study, we recruited adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 years (N = 699) who completed a questionnaire on the rules that they have to comply with in their day-to-day lives. Design. Based on 2,498 responses, we identified 70 rules that were mentioned in 98.15% of the responses. We then designed a cultural congruence diagnostics test to measure the extent to which an adolescent's behavior fits invariable age-specific rules in the Russian cultural context. The rules are combined into four factors: management, safety, studies, and social interaction. Results. These factors appear to be in line with existing theories on the adolescents' social context. According to cultural and historical psychology, peers are considered as the most important subjects that adolescents interact with within their social context; this is confirmed by relevant items in the questionnaire. Studies, the factor that dominates in the pre-adolescent age, are still relevant, which is why the test features such factors as studies and management. Safety emerges as an important factor in the cultural congruence test for preschool children and primary school students. This factor helps regulate behavior in adolescence since safety rules are part of the typical rules in the adolescent cultural context. Conclusion. The test design features the following psychometric properties: internal consistency of the scale (Cronbach's alpha), discriminatory power (Ferguson's coefficient), validity, and reliability.