Using Community Data to Test the Discriminate Validity of Ethnic/Racial Group IATs

The present study used a multi-method, multi-measure, multi-group approach to investigate the discriminant validity of prejudice-related IATs. Community members from three ethnic/racial groups in the U.S. completed IATs and explicit measures of attitudes toward African Americans and Latinos, with Whites used as the comparison group. The results of this study provided strong support for the discriminant validity of the IATs by showing, (a) expected patterns of variation among the three participant groups that were unique to each IAT, (b) unique relations between responses on each IAT and corresponding (same-group) explicit measures of prejudice, and (c) invariance across the three participant groups in the degree to which the attitude measures loaded on two latent factors, indicating distinct attitudes toward African Americans and Latinos.