THE MEASUREMENT AND STRUCTURE OF HUMAN-RIGHTS ATTITUDES

To investigate the structure of attitudes toward human rights, the aut hors developed the Human Rights Questionnaire (HRQ) and administered i t to two North American samples; the first sample included 365 college students, and the second included 212 college students and 42 adults. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the data from the first sample, and four factors were extracted and rotated: Social Security, Civilian Constraint, Equality, and Privacy. This exploratory factor an alysis was validated on the second sample, and the factor structures w ere compared across the two samples. Four subscales were created from the four factors; these subscales were then correlated with measures o f nationalism, patriotism, internationalism, belief in world governmen t, and support for civil liberties. Validity of the four human rights subscales was ascertained, and differences in human rights attitudes a cross demographic groups, such as gender and political affiliation, we re tested. Results are discussed in light of existing conceptualizatio ns regarding human rights and suggestions for future research are made .