Attitudes towards Asian-Americans

This dissertation presents a theoretical framework for studying attitudes towards Asian Americans and a corresponding measure, the Attitudes Toward Asian Americans scale (ATA). Three studies developed and validated the proposed theoretical framework and scale. The first study determined the factor structure underlying attitudes towards Asian Americans and winnowed down the initial pool of items for inclusion in the final ATA scale. The second study confirmed the factor structure found in the first study and validated the ATA scale by testing the relation of its subscales to psychological constructs predicted by the theoretical framework. Finally, the third study showed that the positive stereotypes of Asian Americans can lead to negative consequences for African Americans. Participants who were asked to think of Asian Americans before evaluating African Americans were more likely to attribute African Americans\u27 social problems to their own shortcomings. The third study also provided preliminary evidence that people have ambivalent attitudes towards Asian Americans. The findings of the three studies are discussed and future directions for research on attitudes towards Asian Americans suggested