Development of the preliminary East Asian Relationship Norm scale: Factor analysis, reliability, and validity

A review of the literature suggests that East Asians adhere to relationship norms that are based on the traditional Asian worldviews of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. For East Asian Americans who operate within multiple cultural contexts, differences in norms may contribute to acculturative stress and disruptive interpersonal relationships with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Despite the pervasiveness of East Asian Relationship Norms (EARN), no measurement scale of the EARN construct was found in the literature. The purpose of the present study was to develop a scale that measured relationship norms that distinguish traditional East Asian culture from the dominant Western culture in the U.S.: interpersonal harmony, relational hierarchy, long-term reciprocity, communal interdependency, well-defined roles, propriety, face management, and other-centeredness. Based on Crocker and Algina's (1986) model of test construction, the study utilized an emic approach to defining the EARN construct and developing the scale items. Furthermore, the study conducted psychometric analyses and found support for the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the EARN scale. Rationale for measuring the EARN construct, as well its implications for counseling East Asian American clients are provided.