Prejudice confrontation styles: A validated and reliable measure of how people confront prejudice

Abstract

While research has demonstrated that confrontations of prejudice serve as effective prejudice reduction tools and as a coping mechanism for targets of prejudice, research has yet to identify a validated measurement of prejudice confrontation styles. The present research develops the Prejudice Confrontation Styles (PCS) Scale, which includes five styles of prejudice confrontation: Educational, Argumentative, Help-seeking, Empathy, and Humor. The factor structure of the PCS Scale is identified across two diverse samples employing exploratory (Study 1) and confirmatory (Study 2) factor analyses. Moreover, the PCS Scale demonstrates construct validity, predicting imagined confrontation styles two weeks later among women confronting prejudice, and prejudice confrontation styles moderated autonomy, rumination, and perceived effectiveness of prejudice confrontations (Study 3). Thus, the present research identifies and develops a tool to measure prejudice confrontation styles and demonstrates that prejudice confrontation styles are associated with divergent psychological health outcomes.