Comparative validation of self-report measures of negative attitudes towards Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders

Introduction: This study sought to determine the construct validity of two self-report measures of attitudes towards AboriginalAustralians and Torres Strait Islanders against an implicit measure of attitude. Method: Total of 102 volunteer participants completed the three measures in a randomized order. The explicit measures ofprejudice towards Aboriginal Australians were the Modern Racism Scale (MRS) and the Attitudes Towards Indigenous Australians Scale (ATIAS). The implicit attitudes measure was an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and utilised simple drawn head-and-shoulder images of Aboriginal Australians and White Australians as the stimuli. Results: Both explicit measures and implicit measure varied in the extent to which negative prejudicial attitudes were held by participants, and the corresponding construct validities were unimpressive. The MRS was significantly correlated with the IAT, (r=.314;p<.05) where the ATIAS was not significantly correlated with IAT scores (r=.12).