Studies with reliable anxiety measures find weaker threat-attitude links than poorer measures

Evidence

Threat measure reliabilities. Whether the measurement of intergroup threat was a reliable scale, an unreliable scale, a scale with no reported reliability, or a single item measure only moderated the relationship between intergroup anxiety and outgroup attitudes, QB(1) = 6.46,p < .05. Studies with highly reliable measures of anxiety obtained significantly lower (r = .43) effect sizes than studies that did not report a reliability of the anxiety measure (r = .65). — Blake M. Riek, Eric W. Mania, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Intergroup Threat and Outgroup Attitudes, 120

Categorization

• QUESTION: Highly reliable anxiety scales showing WEAKER relationships than unreported-reliability scales is methodologically counterintuitive — worth chasing the mechanism (range restriction? different construct captured?).

Related

• Anxiety–prejudice links vanish when measured as intergroup bias difference scores. (similarity 0.86)
• Broad multi-facet threat scales capture stronger threat-attitude correlations than single-facet ones (similarity 0.85)
• Different threat types may yield different behavioral responses beyond attitudes. (similarity 0.83)
• Intergroup threat and negative outgroup attitudes relate bidirectionally, not one-way. (similarity 0.83)
• Equal-status group threat effects remain unexplored (similarity 0.82)
• Experimentally manipulated realistic threat shows far weaker attitude effects than measured threat (similarity 0.81)
• Four threat types explain 36 percent of variance in outgroup attitudes (similarity 0.81)
• Meta-analysis across studies quantifies how distinct intergroup threat types relate to outgroup attitudes. (similarity 0.81)
• Different intergroup threats trigger distinct emotions and behavioral responses. (similarity 0.80)
• Group status moderates threat-attitude relationships (similarity 0.79)
• Threat dynamics among status-equal groups remain unexamined. (similarity 0.79)
• No quantitative synthesis of the intergroup-threat literature existed before this meta-analysis. (similarity 0.79)
• Group esteem threat effects may reflect publication bias (similarity 0.79)
• Group threats act through intergroup emotions to reach outgroup attitudes. (similarity 0.79)
• Intergroup contact asymmetries moderate how much anxiety shapes outgroup attitudes by status (similarity 0.78)