Browsing by Author "Muriwai EM"

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    Culture as cure? The protective function of Māori cultural efficacy on psychological distress
    (New Zealand Psychological Society, 7/09/2015) Muriwai EM; Houkamau CA; Sibley CG
    Māori, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, continue to experience health disparities in comparison to other ethnic groups. Previous research suggests Māori who affiliate jointly as Māori and Pākehā (New Zealand European) tend to experience different psychological outcomes than those who solely identify as Māori. Using a culturally-specific approach we propose and test an Efficacy-Distress Buffering Model, which posits that high levels of Māori Cultural Efficacy should have a buffering function, protecting Māori against Psychological Distress (N = 632). Our findings indicate that Māori with a higher level of Cultural Efficacy showed greater psychological resilience. In contrast, increased rates of psychological distress were documented amongst those who were lower in Cultural Efficacy and this effect was most pronounced among individuals who identified solely as Māori. Our results support a ‘culture-as-cure’ perspective and indicate that increased Māori Cultural Efficacy has a direct protective effect for those who may be at risk of negative psychological outcomes and associated risk factors.
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    Playing the Anzac card
    (Te Rōpū Whāriki, Massey University, 2017-07-10) Muriwai EM
    If dollars talk, Anzac is shouting from the roof whilst Waitangi sits quietly on the floor. In New Zealand, people are generally familiar with the key differences between two of the nation’s biggest commemorative days. We start the year with the challenging, ‘radical’ politics of Waitangi Day on February 6th and a few months later we join in with the sombre demands of Anzac Day come April 25th. As our project has uncovered, the media does most of the storytelling on these days and their versions of events come without any accountability for privileging the experiences and emotions of one of these days over the other. Through our research, we have been exploring the choreography of the days and the influence different people, social norms and practices have in perpetuating the importance attached to both of these days. There is no denying that both days symbolise loss and coming together for different people across Aotearoa. While we agree that both days solidify important events in New Zealand history, we wanted to investigate why such strong and different emotions were attached to these days. This led me to wonder if Government funding of events on these days might play a role in maintaining these differences.
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    The multidimensional model of Māori identity and cultural engagement: Measurement equivalence across diverse Māori groups
    (New Zealand Psychological Society, 3/04/2017) Greaves LM; Manuela S; Muriwai EM; Cowie CJ; Lindsay CJ; Matika CM; Houkamau CA; Sibley CG
    The Multidimensional Model of Māori Identity and Cultural Engagement (or MMM-ICE2) is a self-report questionnaire that measures seven distinct dimensions of one’s subjective identity as Māori. Prior research indicates that the scale performs well psychometrically and predicts a wide range of outcomes for Māori peoples. However, the measurement equivalence of the MMM-ICE2 is yet to be assessed. That is, the extent to which the scale provides comparable measurement of the same aspects of identity for all Māori, for instance, across different age groups, for Māori men and women, and for Māori living in different urban or rural regions. Here, we address this gap in the validation of the MMM-ICE2 using Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis to assess the configural, metric, and scalar equivalence of the scale across different demographic groups. We test our models using data from Māori participants who completed the MMM-ICE2 as part of the broader New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N = 696). Results indicate that the scale has reasonable measurement equivalence over metric, configural, and scalar assessments across most demographic comparisons. In sum, the results indicate that the MMM-ICE2 provides a valid assessment tool for Māori across a range of contexts, but nevertheless points to ways in which the scale could be improved in future.