Measuring prejudice beyond Black populations: validity of standardized assessment scales

Students Will Select a Construct of Interest

My construct of interest is whether there are any prejudice tests that can accurately measure prejudice to races other than Blacks.

Do the currently available standardized tests on prejudice measure prejudice to individuals other than Black people?

Conduct research on other assessments used to measure the same or similar construct,

The Modern Racism Scale

According to the SAGE Handbook of prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination (Dovidio, 2010), the scale of modern racism is popular because of high construct validity and predicting relevant criteria, states critics Sniderman & Tetlock, (1986). Prejudice and politics cause individuals who are not prejudice to appear so since their views are conservative (Sniderman & Tetlock, 1986). One might argue that the MRS is outdated (e.g. Kunda, 1999) as well as that it deals exclusively with a specific population (i.e. Black), however this test has been used in recent studies and applied to Moroccan and Surinamese people in the Netherlands by Gordijn et al., (2000) who acknowledged possibility of using it although they supplemented it with two other tests. Furthermore, it has recently been used with a sufficiently large sample (n= 120) of Bolivian immigrants living in Chile (Cardenes, 2007) and even though applied to a Bolivian rather than a Black population, findings showed that the scale seemed to be a reliable instrument with which to measure prejudice.

Develop a 12-15 item scale

My scale will be a modified version of the Modern Racism Scale. The scale will be appended to a news-story of relevant import so as to make it current and more searching in its objective of investigation. The story would be accompanied with a profile of the man.

August 12, 2010, a person wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script (see below), attempted to board a flight to Oakland, California: Four officials from the airline or a government agency stopped him and told him he could not board with the shirt on...One official told him, "Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank and wearing a T-shirt that says, 'I'm a robber," ... The person refused to turn his shirt inside out. In the end, officials gave the man another shirt to wear over his, and he put it on rather than miss his flight. (Airline passenger told to conceal Arabic T-shirt: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14591252/#)

fig. 1. The script on the man's t-shirt

Many such stories are reported routinely. Around the same time, some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic. Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for [another flight] in the departure lounge refused to board it [until the men speaking Arabic were taken off the plane]."

Questions

Using the scale below, please tell us how much you agree or disagree with the following statements by placing a number in the box provided.

1

2

3

4

5

Strongly disagree

Strongly agree

1. If I see Arab looking individual with t-shirt with Arabic script in the (*name of institution that respondent is connected with), I will approach security guard and ensure that guard expels individual from building.

1. Anyone calling for expulsion of this individual will be making too big an issue of the incident (reverse)

1. We need to have stronger security measure instituted.

1. Muslim terrorism is no longer a problem in this country. We need not be concerned. (Reverse).

5. The security guard (in the Wi-Fi Building) should be allowed to investigate the man thoroughly and call others to do so too if necessary.

6. To what extent did the image of the man arouse your emotions?

7. To what extent did the text arouse your emotions?

8. Islamaphobia is a current real-to-life phenomenon where Moslems are undeservedly discriminated against.

9. The Moslem agenda is to destroy all heretics; we cannot be careful enough in protecting our country.

10. Authors have warned about the Moslem threat. Unfortunately, they are not taken seriously enough.

11. We should allow Moslems -- as all religions -to be free in their speech.

12. Sharia should be permitted in any and every country.

13. Countries should create stricter policies preventing and forbidding Islamic 'honor' acts towards women to occur within their territory.

Administer the scale to 3-5 participants; discuss the methods used to administer the test

The author will randomly approach 5 participants on the college campus and, telling them that terrorism is on the rise and that the college is considering placing special security guards in order to intercept any suspicious individual, would ask them if they would be willing to fill out the following survey. They will be told that they will be accorded complete confidence and can produce a pseudonym if they so wish. The author will attempt to approach a diversity ion individuals (namely of sexes, different disciplines, and different races).

An e-mail address will be provided for recipient's potential questions, as well as a stamped self-addressed accompanying envelope for participant to mail his or her response to. A debriefing form will be mailed to respondents the week following analysis of the data.

Provide strengths and weaknesses/limitation section regarding the development of the scale,

The strength of the scale includes the fact that it is reinforced by a news-story of relevant import so as to make it current and more immediate in its objective of investigation. It also does not ask questions but states general observations. Respondents may therefore be more honest, particularly since they may feel secure in that others share their opinion.

Limitations include the facts that the participants may be in a hurry to attend lectures or may be occupied with other issues therefore they may provide survey with only cursory attention. They may also have some concealed prejudice towards interviewer (called interviewer prejudice), not necessarily because of her race but also attributable to other factors, such as appearance, clothing, similarities to another who participant distrusts and so forth. Context and mood are other factors that may impact survey, as well as connotations of questions or text. Other limitations include the fact that the items do not encourage elaborate response, therefore participants may be constrained to respond in a certain way to one or more items that had they responded at length would have demonstrated a different picture.

Discuss ways to increase the reliability and validity of the scale.

I may have one or two assistants approach people with me. In this way interviewer bias will be diffused. I can also test items amongst a mock model sample beforehand (a 'pilot study') in order to test effect. This would also help me assess whether questions are understood and would help me see the effect towards the anecdote.

I can solicit feedback to questions by showing them to certain appropriate colleagues beforehand thereby testing the sensitivity of the questions and whether participants would understand them.

I will also show image of victim to colleague beforehand in order to ascertain that the image is objective.

Finally, I will attempt to approach participants at a time of day when they would be most likely to be ready and alert in answering the questions.

Reference

Dovidio, J.F. (2010). Handbook of prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination. SAGE: NY.

Dunton, B.C., & Fazio, R.H. (1997). An Individual Difference Measure of Motivation to Control Prejudiced Reactions. Personal Social Psychology Bull, 23(3), 316-326.

Gordijn, E.H.,Koomen, W., & Stapel, D.A. (2000) Level of Prejudice in Relation to Knowledge of Cultural Stereotypes, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 150 -- 157.

Kline, P (1999). Handbook of Psychological Testing Psychology Press

Kunda, Z. (1999) Social cognition: Making sense of people, MIT Press: NY.

McConahay, J.B. (1986).Modern racism, ambivalence, and the modern racism scale.In Dovidio, John F. (Ed); Gaertner, Samuel L. (Ed), (1986). Prejudice, discrimination, and racism,

(pp. 91-125). San Diego, CA, U.S.: Academic Press

Rubin, M., & Hewstone, M. (2004). Social identity, system justification, and social dominance:

Commentary on Reicher, Jost et al., and Sidanius et al. Political Psychology, 25, 823-844.

Sidanius, Jim; Pratto, Felicia (2001). Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social

Hierarchy and Oppression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sniderman, P.M. & Tetlock, P.E. (1986) Reflections on American Racism, Journal of Social

Issues, 42, 173-187.6.7