Comparability of the Social Behavior Inventory in English and Dutch

Abstract

The Social Behavior Inventory (SBI) assesses social behaviors along the 2 orthogonal axes defining the interpersonal circumplex; that is, in terms of quarrelsomeness–agreeableness and dominance–submissiveness. To contribute to evidence evaluating the cross-cultural construct validity of the SBI, we investigated whether there are differences in how English-speaking students living in Canada and Dutch-speaking students living in The Netherlands view the SBI items. Results suggested there is similarity in the meaning of the items in the 2 cultures. The location of the original English SBI items on the 2 axes of the interpersonal circumplex was generally as expected. Similar results were found for a Dutch translation of the SBI. Differences occurred primarily along the dominance–submissiveness axis and could be explained by cultural differences in men's focus on power.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Eise Hoekstra for programming the computer tasks and Saskia Nijman, Kathleen Tallon, and Elise van der Stouwe for recruiting the study participants and collecting the data. This study was supported by a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research awarded to Marije aan het Rot and by a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to D. S. Moskowitz.