Racial Resentment Measures: Do Racial Attitude Psychometrics Really Matter?

• In Event: The Psychology of Radicalized Political Engagement

Abstract

In this research, we explore the psychometric properties of two established scales designed to measure racial resentment. The original racial resentment scale designed by Kinder and Sanders (1996) was based on items designed to measure symbolic racism (or prejudice) as a blend of anti-black affect and, and a later scale developed by Wilson and Davis (2011) sought to bring conceptual and theoretical clarity to the racialized nature of resentment as opposition to special considerations for African Americans. While the Kinder and Sanders scale has a longer history and pervasive placement on studies such as the ANES and GSS, the Wilson and Davis scale has been replicated and developed across several national studies, including the GSS and CCES. We examine psychometric properties and patterns of both the scales and their specific items. We also assess the quality of the both scales and their items under different question wordings and response scales. We seek to make recommendations about the optimal set of items and scale points for survey researchers seeking parsimonious measures of racial resentment.

Authors

• David C. Wilson, University of Delaware

• Darren Davis, University of Notre Dame

• Meng Fan, University of Delaware