Mexican-American value orientations: A comparison of universal and cross-cultural tools in the development of an ethnopsychology.

This dissertation explores the ethnopsychology of Mexican-Americans by examining the psychometric characteristics of measures used to evaluate the value orientations of this population. One hundred thirteen Mexican-American participants from the Midwest responded to a survey including two value orientation measures and an acculturation measure. The data are analyzed with two primary goals in mind. The first goal was to explore the convergent validity between the value measures (Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Scale and Diaz-Guerrero's Philosophy of Life Scale). The second goal focused on investigating the effects of gender and acculturation level on the respondents' value orientations, as measured by the tools mentioned above. Results indicated that the original value constructs of the CDS and the PLS did not replicate for this sample. The new factors that emerged were analyzed and interpreted as possible representations of value domains expressed by the current Mexican-American sample. Neither the original factors nor the new emerging factors indicated significant convergence with respect to each other. Regressions on the new factors of the CDS and the PLS reveals several significant gender x acculturation interaction effects. Limitations of the study as well as its potential implications for intervention and research are discussed.PhDClinical psychologyEthnic studiesPsychologyQuantitative psychologySocial SciencesSocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130975/2/9825234.pd