This research tests the cross-cultural applicability of the affective and cognitive component model of attitude using within-group and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis in the context of food attitudes. French from France and Chinese from the People’s Republic of China were selected for their differences in cultural orientation toward food; the French display strong affective-cognitive ambivalence, whereas the Chinese have a balanced attitude toward food. The third group, English-Canadian Chinese, allows investigation into the consequences of acculturation on the attitude structure. Results strongly support the cross-cultural applicability of the affective-cognitive model. The affective-cognitive model was validated within groups, and invariance in model measurement was established across groups. In addition, cross-cultural differences and similarities in the latent means and in the pattern of correlations between affective and cognitive components were consistent with theoretically derived expectations.
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