Building on previous social-psychological studies, the Prejudice Perception Assessment Scale (PPAS) was developed to measure stigma vulnerability-the phenomenon of attributing negative, interpersonal feedback to prejudice in ambiguous situations-among African American students on predominantly Euro-American campuses. This article describes the methodological procedures followed in developing the PPAS, a brief scale composed offive vignettes aimed at assessing the extent to which participants tend to perceive prejudice as the cause of negative, interpersonal outcomes in ambiguous situations. Results from two studies with African American participants (N = 66 and N = 109, respectively) indicate that the construct of stigma vulnerability is conceptually similar but different from participants'general mistrust of Whites. The PPAS has good internal consistency and measures stigma vulnerability as a unidimensional variable.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ballard, R.
(1992). Short forms of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Psychological Reports, 71, 1155-1160.
2.
Caplan, N.
(1970). The new ghetto man: A review of recent empirical studies. Journal of Sociological Issues, 26, 59-73.
3.
Clary, E. G.
, & Tesser, A. (1983). Reactions to unexpected events. The naive scientist and interpretative activity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9, 609-620.
4.
Coleman, L.
, Jussim, L., & Isaac, J. L. (1991). Black students' reactions to feedback conveyed by White and Black teachers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 460-481.
5.
Collins, P. H.
(1989, February 26). On campus, a growing racial rift. Philadelphia Inquirer, p. 2C-2C.
6.
Crocker, J.
, & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608-630.
7.
Crocker, J.
, Voelkl, K., Testa, M., & Major, B. (1991). Social stigma: The affective consequences of attributional ambiguity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 218-228.
8.
Crowne, D. P.
, & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24, 349-354.
9.
DeVellis, R. F.
(1991). Scale development: Theory and applications (Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 26). Newbury Park, CA.: Sage.
10.
Dion, K. L.
(1975). Women's reactions to discrimination from members of the same or opposite sex. Journal of Research in Personality, 9, 294-306.
11.
Dion, K. L.
, & Earn, B. M. (1975). The phenomenology of being a target of prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 294-306.
12.
Dion, K. L.
, Earn, B. M., & Lee, P. H. (1978). The experience of being a victim of prejudice: An experimental approach. International Journal of Psychology, 70, 356-362.
13.
Dudley, R. G.
(1988). Blacks in policy-making positions. In A. F. Coner-Edwards & J. Spurlock (Eds.), Blackfamilies in crises: The middle class (pp. 15-26). New York: Brunner/Mazel.
14.
Gilbert, D. J.
(1997, May). Perceptions of prejudice among African-American students on a predominantly White campus: A focus group study. Paper presented at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education. Orlando, FL.
15.
Gurin, P.
, & Epps, E. (1975). Black consciousness, identity, and achievement. New York: John Wiley.
16.
Harvey, J. H.
, Yarkin, K. L., Lightner, J. M., & Town, J. P. (1980). Unsolicited attribution and recall of interpersonal events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 551-568.
17.
Heider, F.
(1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: John Wiley.
18.
Kelley, H. H.
(1971). Attribution theory in social interaction. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, H. H. Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, S. Valicks, & B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp. 1-26). New York: General Learning Press.
19.
Kim J. O.
, & Mueller, C. W. (1978). Factor analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
20.
Krieger, N.
(1990). Racial and gender discrimination: Risk factors for high blood pressure?Social Science and Medicine, 30, 1273-1281.
21.
Luzzo, D. A.
(1993). Ethnic differences in college students' perceptions of barriers to career development. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 21, 227-236.
22.
Miller, D. T.
, Norman, S. A., & Wright, E. (1978). Distortion in person perception as a consequence of the need for effective control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 598-607.
23.
Orum, A.
(1972). Black students in protest. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.
24.
Pearlin, L.
(1989). The sociological study of stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 30, 241-256.
25.
Pinderhughes, E.
(1989). Understanding race, ethnicity, and power: The key to efficacy in clinical practice. New York: Free Press.
26.
Pittman, T. S.
, Scherrer, F. W., & Wright, J. B. (1977). The effect of commitment on information utilization in the attribution process. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 3, 276-279.
27.
Porter, J. R.
, & Washington, R. E. (1979). Black identity and self-esteem: A review of studies of black self-concept, 1968-1978. Annual Review of Sociology, 5, 53-74.
28.
Rankin, F. E.
(1988). Identification of responses to emotional stress. In A. F. Coner-Edwards & J. Spurlock (Eds.), Black families in crises: The middle class (pp. 157-169). New York: Brunner/Mazel.
29.
Roper, B. W.
(1991). Race relations are improving. In W. Dudly & C. Cozic (Eds.), Racism in America: Opposing viewpoints (pp. 21-24). San Diego, CA: Greenhaven.
30.
Spurlock, J.
(1988). The world of work. In A. F. Coner-Edwards & J. Spurlock (Eds.), Black families in crises: The middle class (pp. 11-13). New York: Brunner/Mazel.
31.
Steele, S.
(1990). The content of our character: A new vision of race in America. New York: Harper Perennial.
32.
Terrell, F.
, & Terrell, S. L. (1981). An inventory to measure cultural mistrust among Blacks. Western Journal of Black Studies, 5, 180-184.
33.
Thompson, C.
, Neville, H., Weathers, P., Poston, C., & Atkinson, D. (1990). Cultural mistrust and racist reaction among Black students. Journal of College Student Development, 31, 162-168.
34.
Wiener, J.
(1991). Racism in higher education is a serious problem. In W. Dudly & C. Cozic (Eds.), Racism in America: Opposing viewpoints (pp. 54-61). San Diego, CA: Greenhaven.
