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We describe and validate the Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale (PIWBS). The PIWBS is a culturally appropriate self-report measure assessing a five-factor model of Pacific identity and wellbeing. Items and construct definitions were developed through qualitative interviews, review of psychological theories, and previous research on Pacific concepts of ethnic identity and wellbeing. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the model (Study 1 N = 143; Study 2 N = 443). The proposed five-factor model of Pacific identity and wellbeing includes scales assessing (1) Perceived Familial Wellbeing, (2) Perceived Societal Wellbeing, (3) Pacific Connectedness and Belonging, (4) Religious Centrality and Embeddedness, and (5) Group Membership Evaluation. The PIWBS provides a culturally appropriate valid and reliable assessment tool that can be used for within-cultural research for Pacific peoples from a Pacific perspective. A copy of the PIWBS and scoring instructions for its use are included.

We compared the self-reported subjective wellbeing of Maori and New Zealand (NZ) Europeans in two NZ national postal samples. The first sample was collected in 2005 before the global financial crisis of 2007/2010. The second was collected in 2009 while the crisis was ongoing. Both samples contained large and arguably representative samples of the indigenous peoples of NZ, Maori (Ns = 289 and 964) as well as the now-majority group, NZ Europeans (Ns = 2,769 and 4,073). NZ Europeans' scores on the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) were near-identical across the 2005 and 2009 samples. However, Maori, who were already lower than NZ Europeans on the PWI in 2005, showed a further decrease in 2009. We argue that this gap in wellbeing widened because material advantages experienced by NZ Europeans as a social group provides a "systemic buffer" which protects their personal wellbeing from the impact of economic privation. Maori, who had already experienced systemic disadvantage, were not privileged with this buffer, and thus, the effects of the 2007/2010 global financial crisis impacted their personal wellbeing to a greater extent.

Maori, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, experience a range of negative outcomes. Psychological models and interventions aiming to improve outcomes for Maori tend to be founded on a "culture-as-cure" model. This view promotes cultural efficacy as a critical resilience factor that should improve outcomes for Maori. This is a founding premise of initiatives for Indigenous peoples in many nations. However, research modeling the outcomes of increased cultural efficacy for Indigenous peoples, such as Maori, remains limited. We present cross-sectional data modeling the links, and possible causal direction, between Maori cultural efficacy and active identity engagement and levels of (1) satisfaction with personal circumstances and life versus (2) satisfaction with government and the state of the nation more generally (N = 93 Maori). Our data support an opposing outcomes model in which Maori cultural efficacy predicts satisfaction with personal aspects of life, but may simultaneously decrease satisfaction with the nation and methods of governance for Maori peoples. Possible mechanisms governing these opposing effects are discussed.

New Zealand (NZ) Europeans show a unique implicit bicultural effect, with research using the Implicit Association Test consistently showing that they associate Maori (the Indigenous peoples) and their own (dominant/advantaged majority) group as equally representative of the nation. We replicated and extended this NZ = bicultural effect in a small online national sample of Maori and NZ Europeans. The NZ European majority showed a consistent NZ = bicultural effect. Maori, in contrast, showed an automatic ingroup NZ = Maori effect. These results are contrary to predictions derived from Social Identity Theory and System Justification Theory, and instead seem more consistent with a model incorporating the pervasive effects of culture-specific symbols on automatic representations of the national category.