We constructed five items for this study and adopted two from the General Social Survey to assess our key dependent measure, belief in essential racial differences. One of the items lowered Cronbach’s alpha and was excluded from the scale. The final scale (Cronbach’s alpha = .78) was the mean of the following six items: [1] Although black and white people may be alike in many ways, there is something about black people that is essentially different from white people. [2] Different racial groups are all basically alike “under the skin” (reverse scored). [3] There are very few genetic differences among racial groups (reverse scored). [4] Racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States are very distinct and very different from one another. [5] Whites as a group are very distinct and different from racial and ethnic minority groups. Response options for the above measures were strongly agree (4), somewhat agree (3), somewhat disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1). [6] When you compare black and white people, you think they are very similar (1), somewhat similar (2), not very similar (3), or not similar at all (4).
