Social Comparison Concerns and Competitive Attitudes of North Korean Refugees and South Koreans: Measurement Invariance and Latent Mean Differences1

Abstract

Although refugees often face competition in their efforts to survive and achieve upward mobility, little is understood about their psychological processes concerning competition. In this regard, we attempted to assess the extent to which North Korean refugees (NKRs) engage in social comparisons and exhibit competitive attitudes compared to their South Korean (SK) host citizens. We targeted NKRs and SKs, as we could control for the shared cultural heritage. First, we tested measurement invariance to determine whether there was a psychometric equivalence in the two latent constructs of social comparison concerns (SCCs) and competitive attitudes (CAs) between NKRs (n₁ = 214) and SKs (n₂ = 472). Partial scalar invariance was established to demonstrate the association between SCC and CA, suggesting that only certain aspects of the two latent constructs were comparable between NKRs and SKs. Compared to SKs, NKRs exhibit a significantly higher level of SCC for self-evaluating abilities and opinions of individuals and their significant others, and CA about interpersonal and goal competitiveness with a medium effect size.