Measuring emotional instability, prosocial behavior and aggression in pre-adolescents: A cross-national study

Abstract Three scales measuring emotional instability, prosocial behavior and aggression were analyzed in a new study involving subjects between the ages of 11 and 15 from three different countries: Italy, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Principal component analysis (PCA), simultaneous component analysis (SCA) and congruence coefficients were used to evaluate and compare the factorial structure of the scales in the three different countries. Results clearly show a substantial equivalence of the components in the three countries, attesting to the generalizability of these measures in different cultural contexts. Country comparisons on the mean level of the scales show that Italian boys and g…