Multicultural Mastery Scale for Youth: Multidimensional Assessment of Culturally Mediated Coping Strategies

• Published in: Psychological Assessment
• Main Authors: Fok, Carlotta Ching Ting, Allen, James, Henry, David, Mohatt, Gerald V.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Article; eskimo*; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3394699; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21928912; https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025505

Self-mastery refers to problem-focused coping facilitated through personal agency. Communal mastery describes problem solving through an interwoven social network. This study investigates an adaptation of self- and communal mastery measures for youth. Given the important distinction between family and peers in the lives of youth, these adaptation efforts produced Mastery-Family and Mastery-Friends subscales, along with a Mastery-Self subscale. We tested these measures for psychometric properties and internal structure with 284 12 to 18-year-old predominately Yup’ik Eskimo Alaska Native adolescents from rural, remote communities — a non-Western culturally distinct group hypothesized to display higher levels of collectivism and communal mastery. Results demonstrate a subset of items adapted for youth function satisfactorily, a three-response alternative format provided meaningful information, and the subscale’s underlying structure is best described through three distinct first-order factors organized under one higher order mastery factor.