ESTABLISHING THE PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE PREJUDICE TOWARDS INTERRACIAL/INTERETHNIC COUPLES SCALE (PTICS)

Author

Megan Marie Morrison, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2018

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Komarraju, Meera

Abstract

The proposed study was designed to evaluate a newly developed Prejudice towards Interracial/Interethnic Couples Scale (PTICS) using exploratory and confirmatory analyses. In this study, 963 workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) (which was randomly split 60/40 to form the exploratory and confirmatory datasets) completed the 25 items generated for the PTICS, the Marlowe-Crone Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) Form C, the Political Correctness Ideology-Race Scale (PCIRS), the Social Distance Scale (SDS), the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale, the Color-blind Racial Attitude Scale (CoBRAs), the Modern Racism Scale (MRS), and a demographic survey. The researcher collected data from two different subject matter expert groups to modify the original 17 item PTICS generated from a review of the literature. AMT workers (N = 50) currently in interracial/interethnic relationships and graduate students (N = 21) enrolled in a graduate level Principles of Measurement course at the time of data collection, indicated whether the items measured prejudice towards interracial/interethnic relationships, whether the items were clearly written, types of prejudice not captured by the items, and their own experiences (if applicable) with prejudice towards interracial/interethnic relationships. Based on the feedback from the subject matter experts, items were revised and 8 additional items were added to form the final 25 item PTICS. Exploratory factory analyses of the PTICS resulted in a two factor (relationship inferiority, social disapproval) final solution containing 14 items. Reliability and validity analyses were conducted, and were especially promising for the relationship inferiority subscale (i.e., α = .900; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDS, and SDO, significantly negatively correlated with interracial/interethnic exposure), and the PTICS total score (α = .849; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDS, and SDO, significantly negatively correlated with diversity exposure and interracial/interethnic exposure); while further refinement is needed for acknowledging social disapproval (α = .706; significantly negatively correlated with CoBRAS, and MRS, significantly positively correlated with SDS). Confirmatory factor analyses showed global and local fit issues with the two-factor structure, particularly with items from the social disapproval subscale; however, when seven covarying errors were added, global fit improved and issues with local fit were eliminated. Global fit was also improved from the original two-factor model when conducting a one-factor model which included only the relationship inferiority scale, though a few areas of local misfit still remained. Reliability and validity analyses conducted with the cross-validation data further supported the strong reliability and validity for the relationship inferiority subscale (α = .897; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDO, and SDS, significantly negatively correlated with diversity exposure and interracial/interethnic exposure), and the PTICS total score (α = .849; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDS, and SDO, significantly negatively correlated with diversity exposure and interracial/interethnic exposure); and the need for further refinement for acknowledging social disapproval (α = .686; significantly negatively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS; significantly positively correlated with SDS, and diversity exposure). Cross-validation results indicate that social desirability and political correctness may be concerns for both subscales and the total score, while the exploratory data only showed issues for the social disapproval subscale. Overall, the development of a Prejudice towards Interracial/Interethnic Couples Scale (PTICS), with two subscales, is an important contribution to the field; and takes a critical step in deepening our understanding of interracial/interethnic romantic relationships and facilitating quantitative research in this domain.