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Articles

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2015): June 2015

Harmony-Disharmony Scale: Development and Initial Factorial Validation

Submitted
March 23, 2016
Published
2015-06-16

Abstract

The Harmony Restoration Theory (HRTheory) propounded by Ebigbo (1995, 2001a) is an African psychodiagnostic theory of health. It is a theory of harmony-disharmony, psychopathology, psychotherapy and a useful attempt to account for the aetiology of psychopathology in the African. Central to the theory is the notion that psychopathology arises from the disharmony in the cosmos of an individual. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a measuring scale, harmonydisharmony scale (HD Scale), for determining the areas of the cosmos which an individual needs harmony restoration before the initiation of harmony restoration therapy. Method - Based on the harmony restoration theory of health and Harmony restoration therapy, 120 items with 40 items per subscale were generated focusing on the three aspects of an individuals cosmos viz: endocosmos, mesocosmos and exocosmos needing harmony restoration. The outcome, a 120 likert-type scale, was administered to a cross-section of University undergraduates. The 258 responses obtained from the respondents (124 males and 128 females) aged 16 to 29 years (21.02 ± 4.083, mean ± s.d.) were subjected to factor analysis. Results - The data was examined to assess the suitability for factor analysis and was found suitable with good R-matrix, Bartletts test of Sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-

Olkin (KMO) sample sufficiency. A 3-factor model emerged from the result of the factor analysis with 59 pure and valid items loading on factor 1, 23 items loading on factor 2 and 16 items loading on factor 3. The factors retained their original theoretical names viz: endocosmos, mesocosmos and exocosmos. Conclusion - The finding of this study is consistent with the harmony restoration theory on the African personality consisting of three components. Suggestions on ways to advance this area of research were made and a short version of the harmonydisharmony scale was proposed.