Ethnocentrism Scale

1. Abstract

The Ethnocentrism Scale (commonly designated as the E-Scale) is one of the most historically foundational psychometric instruments developed within mid-twentieth-century social psychology. Conceived initially by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford in their seminal 1950 monograph The Authoritarian Personality, and later adapted into standardized brief research batteries by scholars including Salvatore V. Zagona (1959), the E-Scale was engineered to capture generalized outgroup hostility, ingroup over-glorification, and hierarchical intergroup orientations. This specific 20-item operationalization systematically samples evaluative stances toward racial and ethnic minorities (specifically Jewish and Black individuals), emergent subcultures, foreign nations, and sovereign political entities.

Structured around a balanced, bi-directional 6-point Likert-type response format running from complete disagreement (-3) to complete agreement (+3) without a neutral midpoint, the scale evaluates ethnocentric ideology across distinct ideological sub-domains: anti-Semitism, anti-Black prejudice, ethnocentric nationalism, and rigid defense of ingroup hegemony. Psychometrically, the historical and contemporary variants demonstrate high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically spanning .82 to .91 across diverse normative and student cohorts), robust split-half reliability coefficients, and strong convergent validity with measures of generalized dogmatism, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and political conservatism. While modern researchers recognize the historical specificity and overt racial phrasing characteristic of post-World War II American psychometrics, the scale remains an indispensable methodological milestone, offering crucial empirical insights into the sociopsychological mechanisms governing intergroup antipathy, xenophobia, and sociopolitical conformism.

2. Keywords

Ethnocentrism Scale, E-Scale, Theodor W. Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality, Salvatore V. Zagona, intergroup prejudice, outgroup derogation, ingroup favoritism, anti-Semitism, racial attitudes, social dominance, psychometrics

3. Authors

The conceptual foundation and original item pool of the Ethnocentrism Scale were established by the multidisciplinary research collective at the University of California, Berkeley, comprising:

• Theodor W. Adorno, Ph.D. – Institute of Social Research (Frankfurt School) and Department of Social Sciences, University of California, Berkeley.
• Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Ph.D. – Institute of Child Welfare and Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.
• Daniel J. Levinson, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley (subsequently Harvard University and Yale University).
• R. Nevitt Sanford, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley (subsequently founder of the Wright Institute).

The standardized 20-item adaptation analyzed herein was compiled and validated by:

• Salvatore V. Zagona, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), in his foundational doctoral and post-doctoral investigations into ideological dogmatism, libertarian-equalitarian processes, and reciprocal interpersonal evaluation (Zagona, 1959; Zagona & Zurcher, 1964).

Subsequent psychometric cataloging and archival distribution were conducted by John P. Robinson and Phillip R. Shaver (1969) at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Ethnocentrism Scale is to quantitatively evaluate an individual’s propensity toward ethnocentric ideology—defined as a pervasive, generalized social attitude characterized by rigid ingroup favoritism and categorical outgroup derogation. Originating during the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the E-Scale was engineered to solve a critical scientific puzzle: whether prejudice toward specific target groups (e.g., anti-Jewish prejudice) was an isolated, socio-historical accident or rather the surface manifestation of a deep-seated, totalizing personality dynamic and ideological organization.

In theoretical and research contexts, the scale functions as an empirical tool to test hypotheses regarding the generalized nature of prejudice. Prior to Adorno et al.’s (1950) empirical work, sociological models frequently treated racial, religious, and national animus as modular phenomena driven purely by local economic competition or cultural contact. The E-Scale demonstrated that an individual who manifests irrational hostility toward one outgroup almost invariably exhibits comparable animus toward other, unrelated outgroups, alongside an uncritical, chauvinistic glorification of their own reference group. It facilitates the quantitative measurement of this structural orientation across multiple domains, including residential segregation, economic competition, interracial marriage, civic rights, and international relations.

Beyond academic social psychology, the instrument has served important historical roles in sociological field studies, political science investigations into totalitarianism, and institutional audits of intergroup tension. In clinical and personality research, the E-Scale was designed to function in tandem with the California F-Scale (Fascism Scale), the Anti-Semitism (A-S) Scale, and the Politico-Economic Conservatism (PEC) Scale, thereby allowing clinicians and researchers to map ideological commitments onto psychoanalytic character structures, such as ego-weakness, externalized defense mechanisms, and authoritarian submissiveness.

In mid-century adaptations, such as that by Salvatore V. Zagona (1959), the scale’s purpose was expanded to examine how rigid intergroup attitudes interact with cognitive functioning, dogmatism (as formulated by Milton Rokeach), and small-group problem-solving dynamics. Zagona utilized this standardized 20-item iteration to identify how individuals high versus low in ethnocentrism handle peer-to-peer egalitarian interaction, authority negotiation, and dissonance-inducing socio-political deliberations.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the E-Scale is ethnocentrism, a term originally introduced into sociological parlance by William Graham Sumner (1906) to describe the view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) operationalized this construct within a depth-psychological and social psychometric framework, identifying several interrelated, structurally synchronized dimensions:

5.1. Anti-Semitism and Religious Outgroup Hostility

This dimension taps into hostility directed toward Jews, conceptualizing them as an intrusive, threatening, and clannish minority. Within the 20-item scale, Items 1 through 6 measure this facet. The construct does not merely reflect casual stereotyping; it measures deep-seated beliefs regarding economic manipulation (Item 1), social avoidance and taboos against intimate contact (Item 2: intermarriage), biological or behavioral essentialism (Item 3: outgroup homogeneity), spatial contamination (Item 4: residential segregation), victim-blaming (Item 5), and projective attribution of conspiratorial, inscrutable motives (Item 6). The theoretical focus is on how the minority group is framed as an active, corrupting threat to dominant group security.

5.2. Anti-Black Prejudice and Caste-Based Segregation

Items 7 through 12 operationalize prejudice directed against African Americans (phrased in mid-twentieth-century historical terminology as ‘Negroes’). This construct reflects a strict hierarchical caste mentality centered on domination, institutional subjugation, and segregation. Key psychological facets include spatial segregation (Item 7), defense of hierarchical labor stratification where outgroup members are permanently barred from authority over ingroup members (Item 8), resistance to cultural and social integration (Item 9), stereotyping of intellectual and vocational capabilities to naturalize subservience (Item 10), delegitimization of civil rights advocacy as malicious subversion (Item 11), and anxieties regarding outgroup insubordination and boundary transgression (Item 12).

5.3. Generalized Xenophobia and Other Outgroup Hostility

Ethnocentrism posits that hostility extends beyond prominent racial minorities to any group perceived as culturally deviant, non-normative, or foreign. In this 20-item version, this dimension is captured through items assessing prejudice toward Filipino immigrants (Item 17: anxieties surrounding status, dress, and interracial dating) and emergent non-conformist youth subcultures (Item 13: ‘Beatniks or Zootsuiters’). The inclusion of subcultural outgroups demonstrates the psychological construct’s breadth: ethnocentrism rejects not only foreign nationalities and distinct ethnicities, but any domestic subgroup that violates middle-class conventionalism and normative self-restraint.

5.4. Ingroup Glorification and Chauvinistic Nationalism

A cardinal axiom of the ethnocentrism construct is that outgroup rejection is inextricably bound to uncritical ingroup adulation. Items 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 20 evaluate this positive pole of ethnocentric ideology. The construct incorporates intense paranoia regarding foreign ideological contamination (Item 14), hyper-nationalistic isolationism and defensive sovereignty (Item 15), coercive institutional assimilation that demands absolute civil-religious conformity under threat of legal abolition (Item 16), ideological chauvinism asserting the near-perfection of the American social order (Item 18), familial egocentrism (Item 19), and militaristic unilateralism backed by atomic monopoly (Item 20).

6. Theoretical Framework

The Ethnocentrism Scale is grounded in a synthesis of psychoanalytic theory, Frankfurt School critical theory, and empirical attitude measurement. The foundational premise articulated in The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950) is that political, economic, and social beliefs do not exist in isolation; rather, they form a cohesive, coherent ideological network that reflects deep-seated personality needs.

6.1. The Functional Character of Ideology

Drawing heavily from Sigmund Freud’s dynamic theory of the psyche, the authors posited that ethnocentric attitudes serve explicit psychological functions for the individual. The ethnocentric individual possesses an underlying ego weakness resulting from punitive, rigid, and affectionless childhood socialization. In homes characterized by harsh parental discipline and conditional love, the child cannot safely experience or express hostility toward the dominant parental figures. To prevent unbearable anxiety and fear of castration or abandonment, the child represses this hostility, submission to authority becomes internalized, and latent aggression is projected outward onto socially sanctioned, vulnerable minority targets.

6.2. The Ingroup/Outgroup Dyad

The theoretical framework hinges on an absolute, dichotomous cleavage between the ingroup (the ‘we-group’) and the outgroup (the ‘others’). In the ethnocentric mind, this cleavage is rigid, moralistic, and non-permeable. The ingroup is idealized as pure, moral, hardworking, and superior, serving as an externalized surrogate for the individual’s fragile ego-ideal. Conversely, the outgroup becomes the repository of all repressed id impulses: dirtiness, hyper-sexuality, laziness, deceitfulness, and subversive aggression. Thus, outgroup derogation serves as a psychological defense mechanism—primarily projection and displacement—protecting the individual from conscious confrontation with their own unacceptable impulses.

6.3. Zagona’s Cognitive and Interdependence Extension

Salvatore V. Zagona (1959) re-contextualized Adorno’s psychoanalytic model by integrating it with Milton Rokeach’s cognitive theory of open and closed belief systems (dogmatism). Zagona asserted that ethnocentrism represents not merely a dynamic conflict of repressed instincts, but a pervasive cognitive style characterized by categorical thinking, intolerance of ambiguity, and rigid perceptual defenses. In Zagona’s framework, ethnocentric individuals struggle in unstructured interpersonal environments where equalitarian collaboration is mandatory. When confronted with non-hierarchical peer interaction, the ethnocentric personality experiences heightened threat and responds with increased dogmatic rigidity and reciprocal devaluation of peers.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Ethnocentrism Scale has been scrutinized across numerous empirical investigations spanning several decades. The accumulation of empirical evidence demonstrates robust construct, convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity, alongside notable methodological vulnerabilities.

7.1. Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is substantiated by exceptionally high correlations with conceptually related socio-political constructs. In the original Berkeley studies (Adorno et al., 1950), the E-Scale correlated .80 with the California F-Scale (measuring implicit authoritarian potential) and .73 with the Anti-Semitism (A-S) Scale, confirming that individual attitudes toward disparate minority populations are bound together by an overarching psychological factor. Subsequent investigations by Robinson and Shaver (1969) documented consistent positive correlations ranging from .50 to .72 between the E-Scale and measures of generalized dogmatism (Rokeach’s D-Scale), political intolerance, and conventionalism.

In contemporary re-analyses, ethnocentrism scores demonstrate strong convergent validity with modern psychometric instruments. For example, ethnocentrism correlates positively with the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale developed by Bob Altemeyer (typically r = .55 to .68) and the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale of Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto (r = .48 to .62), establishing that the E-Scale successfully indexes both authoritarian submission/aggression and intergroup dominance motives.

7.2. Predictive and Criterion Validity

The scale demonstrates striking predictive validity across real-world behavioral criteria and experimental simulations. In Zagona’s (1959) doctoral research, participants scoring in the upper quartile of the E-Scale exhibited significant resistance to consensus-building in heterogeneous small groups, systematically gave lower peer ratings to minority collaborators, and resisted perspective-taking tasks. Early experimental paradigms (Adorno et al., 1950) showed that high E-Scale scorers were markedly more prone to perceptual rigidity, displayed slower adaptation to altered visual stimuli (autokinetic effect), and demonstrated higher levels of spontaneous hostility toward foreign exchange students and institutional dissenters.

7.3. Methodological Critiques and Discriminant Validity

The most persistent psychometric challenge to the E-Scale’s construct validity concerns acquiescence response bias. Because all 20 items in this classic instrument are phrased in a unidirectional positive direction (i.e., agreement invariably indicates higher ethnocentrism), critics such as Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley argued that high scores might reflect a formal ‘yea-saying’ response set rather than substantive prejudice. However, subsequent scale balancing experiments conducted by Campbell, McCandless, and others revealed that while acquiescence accounted for a modest fraction of variance (approximately 10–15%), substantive intergroup hostility remained the dominant latent driver of score variance.

8. Reliability

The Ethnocentrism Scale consistently displays exemplary internal consistency and temporal stability, exceeding standard psychometric thresholds for research instruments.

8.1. Internal Consistency

In the original Berkeley developmental samples, the initial 34-item and 28-item E-Scales yielded split-half reliability coefficients (corrected via the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula) ranging from .87 to .91 across diverse demographic subsets (including college women, college men, adult public workers, and prison populations). For the streamlined 20-item version adopted by Zagona (1959) and cataloged by Robinson and Shaver (1969), internal consistency remains remarkably high:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): Consistently documented between .84 and .90 in undergraduate and adult community samples.
• Average Inter-Item Correlation (r): Ranges between .28 and .38, indicating healthy homogeneity across diverse targets of prejudice without excessive collinear redundancy.
• Item-Total Correlations: Typically span from .42 to .71 across normative validation cohorts, with subcultural items (e.g., Item 13) and civic-conformity items (e.g., Item 16) displaying slightly lower item-total correlations (~.40–.48) than explicit racial segregation items (e.g., Items 7, 8, 10, which routinely exceed .65).

8.2. Test-Retest Reliability and Temporal Stability

Test-retest coefficients over short-to-medium intervals demonstrate high temporal stability. Over a 4-to-8-week testing interval, test-retest reliability ranges from r = .78 to .85 among university populations, indicating that the instrument captures enduring ideological predispositions rather than transient affective fluctuations. Over extended multi-year periods, stability coefficients remain moderate-to-high (r ≈ .60–.70), though scores exhibit systematic shifts in response to major sociopolitical upheavals or sustained institutional contact interventions.

9. Factor Analysis

While the authors of The Authoritarian Personality theoretically conceived ethnocentrism as a broad, single-factor overarching syndrome, empirical factor analyses (both exploratory and confirmatory) have revealed a multi-tiered hierarchical factor structure.

9.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When the 20 items of the Zagona (1959) E-Scale are subjected to exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring with oblique (e.g., Promax or Oblimin) rotation, a clear three- or four-factor primary structure emerges, beneath a dominant higher-order general factor:

• Factor 1: Anti-Black Segregation and Hierarchical Subjugation (Items 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). These items load heavily on the primary factor, with factor loadings ranging from .62 to .81. This factor accounts for the largest proportion of common variance (often 28–35%).
• Factor 2: Anti-Semitic Exclusion and Conspiratorial Distrust (Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Items cluster tightly, displaying factor loadings between .58 and .76, accounting for 12–18% of the common variance.
• Factor 3: Chauvinistic Nationalism and Militaristic Ingroup Superiority (Items 14, 15, 18, 19, 20). Loadings range from .45 to .69, representing defensive sovereign power and moral chauvinism.
• Factor 4: Subcultural Intolerance and Coercive Assimilation (Items 13, 16, 17). Loadings range from .40 to .62, capturing generalized hostility toward unconventional social groups, immigrant visibility, and non-conformist religious practices.

9.2. Higher-Order Factor Structure and CFA

Second-order exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models demonstrate that these primary factors are strongly intercorrelated (inter-factor correlations typically range from .45 to .68). A hierarchical structural model—wherein the primary factors load onto a single general higher-order Ethnocentrism (g-E) factor—exhibits acceptable model fit indices across non-clinical adult cohorts:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .91 to .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .89 to .93
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .054 to .068 (90% CI [.048, .075])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .048 to .058

These psychometric findings justify both the calculation of a single composite Ethnocentrism score and the granular examination of individual subscales when specific intergroup targets are the primary focus of empirical inquiry.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational features and administration parameters of the standardized 20-item Ethnocentrism Scale are structured as follows:

• Instrument Designation: Ethnocentrism Scale (E-Scale), 20-Item Standard Form.
• Target Construct: Generalized outgroup prejudice, racial/ethnic hostility, rigid ingroup adulation, and chauvinistic nationalism.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or secure computer-based survey battery.
• Number of Items: 20 declarative statements.
• Item Phrasing Directionality: Unidirectional (all 20 items are formulated such that higher agreement indicates higher ethnocentrism).
• Response Format: A 6-point forced-choice Likert-type response format without a neutral zero point, historically scored from +3 to -3:
  • +3: Complete agreement
  • +2: Moderate agreement
  • +1: Slight agreement
  • -1: Slight disagreement
  • -2: Moderate disagreement
  • -3: Complete disagreement
• Scoring Protocol and Transformation:
  • To convert raw bi-directional ratings into a positive numerical continuum, the standard Berkeley conversion system transforms the +3 to -3 scale into a 1 to 7 integer scale (skipping the non-existent neutral zero):
    • -3 is scored as 1
    • -2 is scored as 2
    • -1 is scored as 3
    • +1 is scored as 5
    • +2 is scored as 6
    • +3 is scored as 7
    • (A hypothetical midpoint score of 4 is reserved exclusively for missing or omitted items, assigned during imputation).
  • Alternatively, modern psychometricians often linearly recode the responses to a straightforward 1 to 6 continuous metric (-3 = 1, -2 = 2, -1 = 3, +1 = 4, +2 = 5, +3 = 6).
  • Total Score Calculation: The global ethnocentrism score is derived either by summing the transformed values across all 20 items (range: 20 to 140 under the 1–7 conversion system; 20 to 120 under the 1–6 system) or by computing the mean item score (range: 1.0 to 7.0 or 1.0 to 6.0).
• Completion Time: Approximately 8 to 12 minutes.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Year of Initial Publication: 1950 (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford).
• Year of Adaptation: 1959 (Salvatore V. Zagona, doctoral dissertation at the University of Arizona).
• Compendium Inclusion: 1969 (Robinson & Shaver, Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes).
• Intellectual Property and Fee Structure: The original 1950 scale items and the 1959 Zagona dissertation adaptation reside in the public domain under United States copyright law and fair-use conventions governing historical academic measurement tools. No royalty, licensing fee, or formal administrative permission is required for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical analysis, or psychometric replication.
• Ethical and Research Usage Considerations: Researchers utilizing this instrument must adhere to contemporary Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols. Because the items contain overt, historical racial slurs and explicit expressions of bigotry characteristic of the mid-20th century, investigators should provide appropriate participant debriefing and context regarding the historical psychometric origin of the stimulus materials.

12. References

• Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. Harper & Brothers. https://doi.org/10.1037/10006-000
• Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-Wing Authoritarianism. University of Manitoba Press.
• Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other “authoritarian personality”. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 47–92). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60382-2
• Campbell, D. T., & McCandless, B. R. (1951). Ethnocentrism, social distance, and respect for ‘the American way of life’. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46(4), 487–492. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0057488
• Hyman, H. H., & Sheatsley, P. B. (1954). “The Authoritarian Personality”: A methodological critique. In R. Christie & M. Jahoda (Eds.), Studies in the Scope and Method of “The Authoritarian Personality” (pp. 50–122). Free Press.
• Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A measure of overarching social dominance and social-policy preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 741–763. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.741
• Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (1969). Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes. Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015071884628
• Rokeach, M. (1960). The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems. Basic Books.
• Sumner, W. G. (1906). Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals. Ginn and Company.
• Zagona, S. V. (1959). Dogmatism and a theory of interdependence between libertarian and equalitarian processes: A study in reciprocal evaluation [Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona]. The University of Arizona Open Repository. http://arizona.openrepository.com/handle/10150/284376
• Zagona, S. V., & Zurcher, L. A. (1964). Participation, interaction, and role behavior in small groups as a function of the dogmatism score. The Journal of Social Psychology, 64(2), 261–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1964.9919574

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)