Parental Identity Processes Across Cultures: Commitment, In-Depth Exploration and Reconsideration of Commitment Among Parents from the United States, Israel, Poland, South Africa and Japan

ABSTRACT

The goal of the present study was to assess the similarities and differences between parents from different cultures in terms of the intensity of parental identity processes described in the three-dimensional model of identity formation. The cultural measurement invariance of the questionnaire used, the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale-Parental Identity (U-MICS-PI), was also assessed. Participants were 2340 parents (51.4% of mothers) aged from 30 to 59 (M = 43.54; SD = 8.26). The study included parents from North America (USA), the Middle East (Israel), Central Europe (Poland), Africa (South Africa), and Eastern Asia (Japan). Results indicated the full configural, partial metric, and partial scalar invariance of the U-MICS-PI. A comparison of parents from the countries analyzed revealed that the parents from the United States and South Africa were characterized by a more firm commitment and lower level of reconsideration of commitment than those from Poland and Japan.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental identity
• processual approach
• U-MICS
• cross-cultural
• measurement invariance
• commitment
• reconsideration
• exploration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, KP, upon reasonable request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2023.2209581