Development and Validation of the Ethnic-Racial Discrimination Stress Inventory (ERDSI) for Mexican-Origin U.S. Adults and Turkish-Origin German Adults

Objectives. We developed the 26-item Ethnic-Racial Discrimination Stress Inventory (ERDSI) to assess ethnic-racial discrimination stress in Mexican-origin adults in the United States (U.S.) and Turkish-origin adults in Germany, two groups with similar sociocultural characteristics and immigration experiences.Method. We developed 73 items measuring firsthand, intragroup, and vicarious discrimination, and internalization and expectations of discrimination experiences. If participants reported experiencing a given situation, they were asked to rate its stressfulness. U.S.-based Mexican-origin adults (N = 222) and German-based Turkish-origin adults (N = 105) completed an online survey of these items, measures of related constructs, and sociodemographic measures. Results. Study 1: We eliminated items based on inter-item correlations and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) in the U.S.-based Mexican sample. The EFA yielded four reliable and valid factors (F1: Vicarious Discrimination Stress, seven items; F2: Internalization of Discrimination Stress, seven items; F3: Intragroup Discrimination Stress, seven items; and F4: Firsthand Discrimination Stress, five items). The ERDSI factors predicted well-being measures, even after adjusting for control variables.Study 2: The three ERDSI factors (F1, F2, F4, not F3) that applied to the German-based Turkish sample demonstrated reliability and validity. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) demonstrated metric invariance for F2 and partial strong factorial invariance for F1, F3, and F4.Conclusions. The ERDSI can be used to assess ethnic-racial discrimination stress in future studies with U.S.-based Mexican-origin adults and German-based Turkish-origin adults. Keywords: ethnic-racial discrimination, internalization, stress, ethnic minority, cross-cultural