An indirect paper-and-pencil measure of prejudice: a German version of the racial argument scale

Prejudices against minorities are still a cause of inter-ethnic conflict and violence, although their expression has changed from blatant to more subtle forms. There has been a shortage of valid and reliable German-language scales for the measurement of contemporary racial prejudices. The Racial Argument Scale (RAS; Saucier & Miller Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35:433-450, 2003) measures contemporary prejudice indirectly by asking respondents to judge how well given arguments support a conclusion. This scale was adapted to the German context with Turks as the target group. A validation study using a diverse sample of German adults (N = 194) attests to the reliability and construct validity of the German RAS (RAS-G). The adapted instrument is thus suitable for the indirect measurement of prejudice in German-speaking samples. Keywords Indirect measurement, Nonreactive measures, Racial argument scale, Scale development, Prejudice
Introduction Prejudice forms the core of ideologies that support inequality and exploitation (for example, Jones 1997). Prejudice may thus cause the toleration of inter-ethnic violence and even the perpetration of [...]