ABSTRACT
This cross-sectional study applied the intergroup contact theory in the context of transgender prejudice and examined the relationships between quality and quantity of contact and explicit and implicit anti-transgender prejudice. Additionally, the study assessed the possible mediating role of intergroup anxiety in the relationship between intergroup contact and anti-transgender prejudice. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the proposed relationships, controlling for gender, religiosity, and political conservatism. Data were collected from an online sample of 354 participants (males: n = 168; females: n = 186). As hypothesized, greater quantity of contact was uniquely related to less implicit anti-transgender prejudice, whereas greater quality of contact was uniquely related to less explicit and implicit anti-transgender prejudice. Intergroup anxiety mediated the relationships between quality of contact and implicit and explicit anti-transgender prejudice but did not mediate the relationship between quantity of contact and implicit anti-transgender prejudice.
Subject(s)
Transgender Persons , Anxiety , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , Interpersonal Relations , Latent Class Analysis , Male , PrejudiceABSTRACT
The Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BESS) is a relatively new method for identifying behavior and emotional risk (BER) in children and adolescents. Psychometric evidence regarding this instrument is important for researchers and practitioners considering the use of the BESS for identifying BER in students. Previous psychometric research specifically regarding the BESS Student Form involved the use of samples of elementary and middle school-age children. This study adds to the psychometric evidence for scores on the BESS Student Form by using samples of high school aged students to assess both the factor structure reported by Dowdy, Twyford et al. (2011) and the measurement invariance of the BESS items with regard to ethnicity, English language proficiency, and socioeconomic status. The results indicate that while the proposed 4-factor structure of the BESS Student Form is appropriate, lower than preferred reliabilities for some of the factors indicates that reporting the overall risk T score is more appropriate than reporting factor scores for risk classification purposes. Additionally, the BESS Student Form items did not exhibit measurement bias when comparing across ethnicities, language proficiency classification, or socioeconomic status (via free/reduced lunch classification).