Defining and measuring harmony control

This study proposes a new control construct, harmony control (HC), inspired by a reanalysis of Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder's (1982) primary and second ary control constructs. Traditional primary control, and its supporting con struct secondary control, affirm the Western cultural emphasis on an agenti c self that separates positively from others. Harmony control reflects an i nterdependent self-concept. Tn HC, people are flexible and adjusting, and t hey recognize the agency that resides,in spiritual and social forces. Guide d by culturally informed views of the interdependent self and previously de fined categories of secondary control, the present research develops an ind ividual difference measure of HC framed independently,of traditional primar y and secondary control. Results from over 2300 community and student parti cipants show that the scale meets traditional psychometric standards for re liability and predictive validity. As predicted, HC correlates with interde pendence andcollectivism and is orthogonal to two measures of traditional p rimary control. HC is uncorrelated with self-esteem, suggesting that harmon y control may not engage self-efficacy because the social context is more i n focus than the self. Women and Hispanics, two groups for whom role requir ements and cultural background emphasize interdependence and harmony, score higher than men and Angles, respectively. In a laboratory study, people hi gher in HC were more likely to transfer decision power to another person or to chance. (C) 1999 Academic Press.