Race/ethnicity and measurement equivalence of the Everyday Discrimination Scale

Psychol Assess. 2014 Sep;26(3):892-900. doi: 10.1037/a0036431. Epub 2014 Apr 7.

Abstract

The present study examines the effect of race/ethnicity on measurement equivalence of the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS; Williams, Yu, Jackson, & Anderson, 1997). Drawn from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES; Alegría, Jackson, Kessler, & Takeuchi, 2008), adults aged 18 and older from four racial/ethnic groups were selected for analyses: 884 non-Hispanic Whites, 4,950 Blacks, 2,733 Hispanics/Latinos, and 2,089 Asians. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. After adjusting for age and gender, the underlying construct of the EDS was invariant across four racial/ethnic groups, with Item 7 ("People act as if they're better than you are") associated with lower intercepts for the Hispanic/Latino and Asian groups relative to the non-Hispanic White and Black groups. In terms of latent factor differences, Blacks tended to score higher on the latent construct compared to other racial/ethnic groups, whereas Asians tended to score lower on the latent construct compared to Whites and Hispanics/Latinos. Findings suggest that although the EDS in general assesses the underlying construct of perceived discrimination equivalently across diverse racial/ethnic groups, caution is needed when Item 7 is used among Hispanics/Latinos or Asians. Implications are discussed in cultural and methodological contexts.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Age Factors
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Asian / psychology
  • Black or African American / psychology
  • Ethnicity / psychology*
  • Factor Analysis, Statistical
  • Female
  • Hispanic or Latino / psychology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Prejudice / psychology*
  • Sex Factors
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • White People / psychology
  • Young Adult