Examining the Revised Multicultural Ideology Scale (MCI-r) in the South Korean Context

The Revised Multicultural Ideology Scale (MCI-r) has been validated in five Western contexts, each retaining the same four subscales and setting aside Essentialistic Boundaries and Extent of Differences. We report its first administration outside Europe and North America, in 1,200 nationally distributed South Korean adults, and no established structure achieved acceptable fit as specified. The four-factor solution preferred in every prior study was inadmissible in two of three subsamples under robust maximum likelihood and in the full sample under an alternative estimator, because Cultural Maintenance and Social Interaction were not separable (disattenuated r = 1.03; latent r = .896 with method variance modelled). Misfit was organised by item wording direction rather than content. A single orthogonal factor loading the eight negatively worded items raised fit from CFI = .563 to .901 and absorbed 31.6% of their variance; a random intercept representing a general tendency to agree fitted better still on every index, locating the effect in acquiescence rather than in negative wording as such. The only subscales to form an acceptable model were the two containing no negatively worded items, which are also the two set aside in every prior validation — though that advantage is confounded with wording composition and is not interpretable substantively. Mixed-worded subscales cannot be assumed to function equivalently outside the contexts in which they were developed.