WHITE RACIAL IDENTITY ATTITUDE SCALE MEASURE RACIAL IDENTITY

Competing interpretations of the structure of the White Racial Identit y Attitude Scale (WRIAS; J. E. Helms & R. T. Carter, 1990) were assess ed in 2 investigations. First, a meta-analysis of scale intercorrelati ons and internal reliability estimates indicated that, after correctio n for measurement error, intercorrelations between some scales were eq ual to unity, suggesting that the structure of the WRIAS is less compl ex than the theory of White racial identity it is assumed to measure. Second, confirmatory factor analysis of 2 data sets likewise revealed that scale structures found in the data are more parsimonious than tho se suggested by theory. Although it remains unclear which construct or constructs are actually measured by the instrument, interpretations o f the WRIAS as composed of 5 meaningful dimensions are unsupported.