Racial Comparability in Authoritarianism Scales: Latent Beliefs or Biased Measurement?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether racial differences in authoritarianism are genuine or artifacts of measurement bias, revealing that measurement non-invariance influences but does not fully explain observed racial disparities.

Contribution

It demonstrates the presence of measurement non-invariance in authoritarianism scales and assesses its impact on racial difference estimates using advanced statistical methods.

Findings

Racial groups differ systematically in response category usage.

Accounting for measurement non-invariance reduces but does not eliminate racial differences.

Measurement artifacts can influence the interpretation of racial disparities in authoritarianism.

Abstract

Racial differences in authoritarianism are widely used to explain variation in political attitudes, yet it is unclear whether they reflect true latent differences or measurement artifacts. Using anchor-based multi-group confirmatory factor analysis across multiple nationally representative surveys, this paper examines measurement equivalence in the standard child-rearing authoritarianism battery. We find systematic differences in how respondents use response categories across groups. Accounting for this non-invariance alters but does not eliminate racial differences in authoritarianism; African Americans continue to exhibit higher latent authoritarianism under partial scalar invariance. However, conventional multi-item scales substantially attenuate the association between authoritarianism and policy attitudes. These results show that measurement non-invariance is not merely a technical concern but can meaningfully shape substantive inferences about racial differences and their political consequences, underscoring the importance of explicit measurement modeling in studies of public opinion and political behavior.