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Psychometrics of racism is an emerging field that aims to measure the incidence and impacts of racism on the psychological well-being of people of all races. At present, there are few instruments that attempt to capture the experience of racism in all of its complexity. Not only is it important to understand how to measure racism, but it is also important to understand the psychological impacts racism can cause. Psychometrics involves measurement and representation, for purposes of analysis, of psychological variables such as prejudice. No one strategy will work to measure racism because racism is never stagnant so neither should be the tool to measure it empirically. This new emphasis on measurement helps reduce racism to attitudes, stereotypes, and prejudice and obscures the multiple and related registers of racism(s), as well as its systematic nature and political character. Erasmus defines the registers of racism(s) as assimilation, self-segregation, selective contact, avoidance of and assumed license to direct violence toward the racialized other. The problem with these registers is that they remain unchallenged and escape measurement and management.

It is important to first note that one must look at the social representations to understand the social practices and cultural traditions that produce ‘race’ as a meaningful concept. Once we understand these practices and traditions we can then move forward and analyze the frequency and impact racism can carry. It is also very important to note that in today’s world, racism and discrimination are no longer blunt and obvious acts but rather they are subtle and indirect which can make studying racism even more difficult. According to a 2009 survey done in America by Fletcher & Cohen, 74% of African Americans reported having been discriminated against because of their race, 60% reported having felt unwelcome in a store because of their race, and 40% reported having been stopped by the police for racial reasons. Statistics such as above help motivate us to study the cognitive principles underlying racism and work towards a goal of erasing it from society. As James Jones stated in his study from 1997, “The gap between how racism is perceived and how it is experienced is one of the largest sources of inter-group conflict”. Statistics such as those found in the above study help motivate us to study the cognitive principles underlying racism and work towards a goal of erasing it from society.

Self-reported inventories
The Schedule of Racist Events (SRE) is questionnaire for assessing frequency of racial discrimination in lives of African Americans created in 1998 by Hope Landrine and Elizabeth A. Klonoff. SRE is an 18-item self-report inventory, assesses frequency of specific racist events in past year and in one's entire life, and measures to what extent this discrimination was stressful.

Other psychometric tools for assessing the impacts of racism include:
 * The Racism Reaction Scale (RRS)
 * Perceived Racism Scale (PRS)
 * Index of Race-Related Stress (IRRS)
 * Racism and Life Experience Scale-Brief Version (RaLES-B)
 * Telephone-Administered Perceived Racism Scale (TPRS)

Physiological metrics
In a summary of recent research Jules P. Harrell, Sadiki Hall, and James Taliaferro describe how a growing body of research has explored the impact of encounters with racism or discrimination on physiological activity. Several of the studies suggest that higher blood pressure levels are associated with the tendency not to recall or report occurrences identified as racist and discriminatory. In other words, failing to recognize instances of racism is directly impacted by the blood pressure of the person experiencing the racist event. Investigators have reported that physiological arousal is associated with laboratory analogues of ethnic discrimination and mistreatment.

Psychometrics involves measurement and representation, for purposes of analysis, of psychological variables such as prejudice. No one strategy will work to measure racism because racism is never stagnant so neither should be the tool to measure it empirically. This new emphasis on measurement helps reduce racism to attitudes, stereotypes, and prejudice and obscures the multiple and related registers of racism(s), as well as its systematic nature and political character. Erasmus defines the registers of racism(s) as assimilation, self-segregation, selective contact, avoidance of and assumed license to direct violence toward the racialized other. The problem with these registers is that they remain unchallenged and escape measurement and management. It is important to first note that one must look at the social representations to understand the social practices and cultural traditions that produce ‘race’ as a meaningful concept. Once we understand these practices and traditions we can then move forward and analyze the frequency and impact racism can carry. It is also very important to note that in today’s world, racism and discrimination are no longer blunt and obvious acts but rather they are subtle and indirect which can make studying racism even more difficult. According to a 2009 survey done in America by Fletcher & Cohen, 74% of African Americans reported having been discriminated against because of their race, 60% reported have felt unwelcome in a store because of their race, and 40% reported having been stopped by the police for racial reasons. Statistics such as above help motivate us to study the cognitive principles underlying racism and work towards a goal of erasing it from society. As James Jones stated in 1997, “The gap between how racism is perceived and how it is experienced is one of the largest sources of inter-group conflict”. Statistics such as those found in the above study help motivate us to study the cognitive principles underlying racism and work towards a goal of erasing it from society.

Social Cognition Perspective
1) Prototype Effect

The Prototype Effect is the idea that unclear discriminatory behavior is more likely to be perceived as discriminatory when the executor is prototypical. Some theorists speculate this effect is due to the simple cognitive schema placed in our head which assists in conclusion making. Fiske & Taylor define a prototypeas a mental representation of the most typical memory of a category and are used to efficiently evaluate a stimulus and determine which category it belongs to. Often times we will compare new stimuli to a stored prototype and its influence on memory, attention, and behavior. Speaking strictly about race, there is another theory from Baron (The Prototype Theory) which states that unclear discriminatory behavior of a prototypical perpetrator is seen as more discriminatory than if the exact same behavior was done by a non -prototypical person. The more familiar a person gets with a stimulus category, the less reliant they are on prototypes.

2) Need for Cognitive Closure

Kruglanski and Webster defined the Need for Cognitive Closure as the tendency to jump to conclusions quickly, stick tightly to those decisions, and avoid uncertainty. Those with a high need for cognitive closure tend to take cognitive short cuts when making judgements, and some speculate those high in this trait may have a stronger dependence on prototype reliance. There is a 2 part cognition process for individuals with a need for cognitive closure: the first is to “seize” on easy to use information to arrive at inferences and secondly “freeze” their thinking on those inferences.

What it Means: Three significant findings were correlated with the prototype effect and need for cognitive closure: 1) People seem to rely on their prototypes of the typical discriminator when drawing conclusions about ambiguously discriminatory situations. 2) Reliance on prototypes in the perception of discrimination is not uniform and various factors relating to subjective needs may moderate such reliance. 3) European Americans’ concern with social desirability when making attributions of racism to minorities may exert an influence on how they arrive at their conclusions of discrimination.

Cognitive Complexity & Attributional Complexity
Cognitive Complexity is defined as the individual difference in the amount or type of thought, and is related to the perception of contemporary, subtle racism. It is associated with an enhanced ability to process social information.

Attributional Complexity (AC) is a cognitive process where individuals prefer complex over simple explanations for social behavior. Often people high in AC search the environment for clues, see situations from multiple perspectives, and have accurate casual reasoning. AC is an important tool when trying to measure racism because it helps predict the perceptions of subtle racism (type of thought) and empathy (amount of thought). It is useful in helping explain why someone is more likely to perceive racism, which is because they are more attuned to situational indicators of subtle racism. Attributional Complexity is related to greater racial complexity (tendency to reject normal assumptions about race and involves more thinking about race and racism).

On the other hand, there are individuals who have greater cognitive simplicity, or a stronger preference to access the most convenient cognitive information which is socially supported by a situational explanation.

Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory enables thought with transformative practical effects: dismembering race, racism(s) and racialization. The theory looks at all 3 dynamics in historical, economic and sociopolitical contexts. It implies a shift from using race as an analytical category to analyzing the changing, often disguised, use of race. A branch within critical race theory which is relevant to the psychometrics of racism is the Critical White Studies, which argue that race shapes the lives of those subordinated and privileged by its power dynamics and asks which resources sustain density of social formations.