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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: This article describes the development and preliminary psychometric evaluation of the Antisemitism-Related Stress Inventory (ARSI), a multidimensional measure of the frequency and impact of antisemitic experiences of American Jews. As the first known attempt to measure antisemitism-related stress, the ARSI represents a novel contribution in this area.
METHOD: Adult, American Jewish respondents (N = 500) completed a battery of measures, including 87 initial items for possible inclusion in the ARSI. An exploratory factor analysis determined the factor structure of and best items for inclusion in the final scale. Correlations with established measures of stress, satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and Jewish religious and cultural identity were computed to explore concurrent validity.
RESULTS: The final 30-item ARSI included three subscales capturing Individual Experiences of antisemitism (14 items), Collective Experiences of antisemitism (11 items), and experiences related to one's Personal Safety (five items). The ARSI demonstrated strong internal consistency and concurrent validity with measures of stress and satisfaction with life. Jewish cultural identity predicted a higher frequency of collective experiences of anti-Semitism, whereas religious identity predicted fewer individual experiences of antisemitism.
CONCLUSION: Findings support the ARSI as a promising measure to understand the impact of antisemitism on American Jews. These findings are discussed in regard to their specific implications for future research, including the need for further investigation into the impact of antisemitism on the psychological health and well-being of American Jews and complex relations with multiple aspects of Jewish identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)
Language: en |