Psychometric Properties of the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale in Black and White South African Students

Abstract

Recently Taylor and Boeyens (1991) showed that the South African Personality Questionnaire has inadequate internal consistency and factorial validity for use in the black population. This paper reports a study supporting their conclusion that scales developed with data from a white sample do not hold together psychometrically or conceptually when used with a black sample. In a sample of white students, Altemeyer's Right Wing Authoritarianism scale, initially developed in Canada, had an acceptable alpha of 0.83, but there was an unacceptable alpha of 0.43 in a black student sample. Item and factor analysis showed that for the black sample there was little structure and that the scale was effectively a set of heterogenous items. This paper presents a detailed discussion of the item and factor analyses and shows how certain items have different connotations for whites and blacks as a result of their different political and cultural histories. Although cultural differences in conservatism can be observed by looking at individual items, a comparison between black and white individuals on the higher order construct of Authoritarianism cannot be made. It is concluded that basic conceptual work based on the phenomenology of the concept being measured needs to precede the psychometric development of scales for use in the black community.

The portability of American job involvement and job satisfaction scales to non-English speaking South Africans

“…It is not uncommon for a researcher to use a scale developed in one country to gather data in another, on the assumption that the scale would be measuring the same construct in its new area of application. Edwards & Leger (1995) list various studies in which this has been done by researchers in Africa.…”

The Validity and Reliability of Measures of Right-Wing Authoritarianism in South Africa

“…Since 1994, there have been few studies in South Africa that have focused spe cifically on the psychometric properties of measures of right-wing authoritarianism. A notable exception is a study by Edwards and Leger (1995) that examined the psychometric properties of Altemeyer's (1981) RWA scale in both black and white South African samples. These authors found that this scale showed acceptable levels of reliability and validity in white samples, but did not hold together either psychometrically or conceptually when used in a black sample.…”

Bulimic Pathology in Black Students in South Africa: Some Unexpected Findings

“…The problems of using European and North American instruments in research in Africa and in South Africa in particular have been widely discussed (Edwards & Leger, 1995;Edwards & Riordan, 1994;Taylor & Booyens, 1991). Even where respondents speak English regularly and receive their education in this language, some common terms may not be familiar to them or may have different connotative meanings.…”

“…laxatives, diuretics and binge) were unfamiliar to males and particularly to black males. Although tests vary in their robustness, most tests developed in Europe and North America show differentpsychometric characteristics when administered to black respondents in South Africa (Edwards & Leger, 1995;Edwards & Riordan, 1994;Taylor & Booyens, 1991). Because ofdifferences in the connotative meaning ofcertain words and phrases, correlations between individual items may be lower and, as a result, internal consistency as measured by the coefficient is typical lower.…”

“…This can provide a basis for finding a balance between using a scale developed in the United States of America or United Kingdom and interpreting the results together with qualitative information. The need for this is particularly important in instances of significant cultural differences between the normative sample on which the English version ofa test was standardised and the target group (Edwards & Leger, 1995;Edwards & Riordan, 1994).…”