Measurement Invariance of the Resistance to Peer Influence Scale Across Culture and Gender

Abstract. The current study aimed to test for measurement invariance of the Resistance to Peer Influence scale across samples of Chinese, Canadian, and Tanzanian. Participants included N = 3,771 students from four public schools in China ( N = 2,073, Mage = 16.36 years, SD = 1.14 years; 925 boys), from sixteen public schools in Canada ( N = 642, Mage = 12.13 years, SD = 0.78 years; 321 boys), and from four public schools in Tanzanian ( N = 1,056, Mage = 15.87 years, SD = 2.02 years; 558 boys). Students provided self-reports of resistance to peer influence. The results from multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and the alignment optimization method demonstrated that configural, metric, and partial scalar invariances of resistance to peer influence held across gender and all three countries. Chinese boys had the highest factor mean levels and Canadian boys had the lowest. The findings help us understand peer influence resistance across cultures and genders.