There is growing interest in quantifying attitudes towards autistic people, however there is relatively little research on psychometric properties of the only existing measure and its ability to predict engagement with people with autism. To begin addressing these issues, we compared three scales measuring attitudes towards autistic people following the development of two new measures. Exploratory factor analysis, across two datasets, revealed that the factor-structure of an established 16-item scale is unclear. Further, its predictive validity of intended engagement with autistic people was comparable to our novel and psychometrically robust 1- and 4-item measures of attitudes towards autistic people. We therefore conclude that a 1- or 4-item scale is sufficient to measure general attitudes towards autistic people in future research. Equally, we propose that additional research is required to develop measures that are grounded in theoretical models of attitude formation and therefore distinguish between different components of attitudes

Hanel, Paul HP

Shah, Punit

University of Essex Research Repository

PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRYNOVEL-RESULTSimplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towardsAutistic PeoplePaul H. P. Hanel1,2,* and Punit Shah11Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom, and 2Department of Psychology, University of Essex,Colchester, United Kingdom*Corresponding author: Email: p.hanel@essex.ac.uk(Received 30 January 2020; Revised 16 July 2020; Accepted 17 July 2020)AbstractThere is growing interest in quantifying attitudes towards autistic people, however there is relatively littleresearch on psychometric properties of the only existing measure and its ability to predict engagement withpeople with autism. To begin addressing these issues, we compared three scales measuring attitudes towardsautistic people following the development of two new measures. Exploratory factor analysis, across twodatasets, revealed that the factor-structure of an established 16-item scale is unclear. Further, its predictivevalidity of intended engagement with autistic people was comparable to our novel and psychometricallyrobust 1- and 4-itemmeasures of attitudes towards autistic people.We therefore conclude that a 1- or 4-itemscale is sufficient tomeasure general attitudes towards autistic people in future research. Equally, we proposethat additional research is required to develop measures that are grounded in theoretical models of attitudeformation and therefore distinguish between different components of attitudes.Keywords: Autism; autistic; attitudes; measurement; neurodiversityIntroductionDespite the impact non-autistic people have on the lives of autistic people, their attitudes towards peoplewith autism are poorly understood. This is an important line of enquiry, given that these attitudes arelikely to underpin behaviour towards autistic people (Kraus, 1995). Strikingly, however, there is only onemeasure of attitudes to autism, that is, the Societal Attitudes towards Autism Scale (SATAS; Flood et al.,2013), which appears to conflate attitudes, intentions, and behaviours towards autistic people. Accord-ingly, it is unclear if the SATAS has a unidimensional structure, given that some of its items concernaffective dimensions of attitudes (e.g., “People with autism should not have children”) whereas others referto behaviours (e.g., “I would be uncomfortable hugging a person with autism”). This left us wondering ifwell-established attitude measures unrelated to autism (e.g., Armitage et al., 1999; Haddock et al., 1993)could be adapted to quantify attitudes towards autistic people.ObjectiveThe present research had two aims. First, using two datasets, we tested whether the SATAS (Flood et al.,2013) is unidimensional to address outstanding questions about its factor structure. Second, wedeveloped 1- and 4-item measure of attitudes towards autistic people and explored if they had similarpredictive validity to the 16-item SATAS. All things being equal, shorter measures are preferable as they© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproductionin any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Experimental Results (2020), 1, e29, 1–6doi:10.1017/exp.2020.36reduce participant fatigue and attrition, which are otherwise a threat to reliability and validity(Rammstedt & Beierlein, 2014). All materials, code to reproduce the analyses, detailed results, and thedata are openly accessible at https://osf.io/mf5bgMethodsParticipants were 135 undergraduate students, of which six failed two attention checks andwere excluded(Mage = 19.86, SD =2.99; 103 women). They completed an online survey in exchange for course credits.Participants completed the SATAS (Flood et al., 2013) which had satisfactory internal reliability (α=0.76); a novel 1-item evaluative thermometer (based on Haddock et al., 1993) ranging between 0 and100 to indicate their “overall evaluation of an autistic person”; and an adapted version of the 4-itemattitude scale originally used by Armitage et al. (1999). The items all read “I see autistic people in generalas...” and were answered on a scale ranging from 3 (bad, unfavourable, negative, unsatisfactory) to +3(good, favourable, positive, satisfactory; α=0.92). The order of the three scales was randomised. Finally,wemeasured intentions to engage with autistic people using a single item on a 1 (certainly not) to 7 (mostcertainly) point scale.ResultsA confirmatory factor analysis with robust standard errors and a Satorra-Bentler scaled test statisticrevealed that the SATAS was not unidimensional, CFI = .78, RMSEA= .065, that is, it was not measuringone construct. Instead, an exploratory factor analysis suggested the presence of three factors, similar tothe pattern of results from a re-analysis of Flood et al.’s (2013) data (n=475; see SupplementalMaterials).In contrast, our 4-itemmeasure was unidimensional (CFI = 1.00, RMSEA=0.00). The SATAS correlatedpositively with our attitude measures (Table 1) and all three measures were similarly predictive of theintention to engage with autistic people.DiscussionWe found that a 16-item measure of attitudes towards autistic people (Flood et al., 2013) is notunidimensional. Rather, it has several factors, and is therefore unlikely to selectively measure attitudestowards autistic people. It likely conflates measurement of attitudes, intentions, and behaviours towardsautistic people, whereas our 1-item Attitudes towards Autism (ATA-1) measure is more parsimoniousand robust. It also has greater practical utility and no worse predictive validity than longer measures,including our 4-itemmeasure that was included in the present study to compare against the 1-item scale.Overall, we suggest that the ATA-1 should be used in future attitude-related autism research.Conclusion and Future DirectionsIn conclusion, attitudes towards autistic people can be measured more precisely with a single item than ascale with a complex factor structure. A question on engagement with autistic people also validated ourattitude measure and permitted comparison with the SATAS validation (Flood et al., 2013). It is possibleTable 1. Correlations between Attitudes towards and Intentions to Engage with Autistic People.1 2 31 – 16-item SATAS2 – 1-item Evaluative Thermometer .41[.24, .56]***3 – 4-item Scale .37[.21, .51]*** .70[.59, .79]***4 – Intentions .27[.10, .42]** .24[.05, .41]** .20[.03, .36]*Note. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001, 95%-CIs in brackets.2 Paul H. P. Hanel et al.that this question may not be measuring intended engagement with autistic people and instead tappinginto general intentions to engage in volunteering activities. Future research will therefore benefit fromtesting if the ATA-1 is predictive of actual rather than intended engagement with autistic people. Ourfindings also need to be replicated in larger and non-student samples (Hanel &Vione, 2016) and, if we aregoing to develop more comprehensive attitudes to autism measures, they should be grounded intheoretical and psychometric research on both autism and attitude formation (Breckler, 1984; Fazio,1990; Shah et al., 2019). Nonetheless, the current study represents an important development inmeasurement of attitudes towards autistic people, which will benefit future research on understandingand changing (negative) attitudes towards people with autism.Acknowledgements. We thank Betsy Morgan for sharing the raw data that was described in their paper (Flood et al., 2013).We also thank Alanna Shand for assistance with checking analyses and proof reading.Conflict of Interest. The authors declare none.Author’s note. This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.Author Contributions. PH and PS conceived and designed the study, PH conducted data collection, and PH and PS performedstatistical analyses and wrote the article.Data Availability Statement. All materials, R code to reproduce the analyses, detailed results, and the data are openlyaccessible at https://osf.io/mf5bg/?view_only=9579bd4c1aad4fd995a91b31ac3afae5Ethics statement. The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of therelevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revisedin 2008.SupplementaryMaterials. To view supplementarymaterial for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/exp.2020.36.ReferencesArmitage, C. J., Armitage, C. J., Conner, M., Loach, J., & Willetts, D. (1999). Different perceptions of control: Applying anextended theory of planned behavior to legal and illegal drug use. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 21, 301–316. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15324834BASP2104_4.Breckler, S. J. (1984). Empirical validation of affect, behavior, and cognition as distinct components of attitude. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 47, 1191–1205. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.47.6.1191.Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework.Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 74–109.Flood, L. N., Bulgrin, A., & Morgan, B. L. (2013). Piecing together the puzzle: Development of the Societal Attitudes towardsAutism (SATA) scale. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 2, 121–128. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-3802.2011.01224.x.Haddock, G., Zanna, M. P., & Esses, V. M. (1993). Assessing the structure of prejudicial attitudes: The case of attitudes towardhomosexuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1105. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.6.1105.Hanel, P. H. P., & Vione, K. C. (2016). Do student samples provide an accurate estimate of the general public?. PLOS ONE, 11,e0168354. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168354.Kraus, S. J. (1995). Attitudes and the prediction of behavior: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Personality and SocialPsychology Bulletin, 21, 58–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295211007.Rammstedt, B., & Beierlein, C. (2014). Can’t we make it any shorter?. Journal of Individual Differences, 35, 212–220. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000141.Shah, P., Livingston, L. A., Callan, M. J., & Player, L. (2019). Trait autism is a better predictor of empathy than alexithymia.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 3956–3964. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04080-3.Cite this article: Hanel PHP, Shah P (2020). Simplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towards Autistic People ExperimentalResults, 1, e29, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/exp.2020.36Experimental Results 3Peer ReviewsReviewing editor: Dr. Stella VlachouDublin City University, School of Psychology, Dublin, IrelandThis article has been accepted because it is deemed to be scientifically sound, has the correct controls, hasappropriate methodology and is statistically valid, and met required revisions.doi:10.1017/exp.2020.36.pr1Review 1: Simplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towards Autistic PeopleReviewer: Dr. Shu YauDate of review: 15 July 2020© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms ofthe Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use,distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Conflict of interest statement. Reviewer declares noneComments to the Author: This is a well written article that is clearly situated. The results are useful to theAutism research community, and is a welcome methodical improvement on previous measures quan-tifying attitudes towards autistic people, mostly in terms of saving time. Someminor comments - 1)Werethe 3 tests presented in the same order and would counterbalancing have made a difference? 2) Samplesize is mentioned in the supplementary material, would be useful to have in the Discussion 3) Could youmake clearer what the rationale was for the 4-item scale as they seem to be asking essentially the samequestion? 4) The engagement question at the end may not necessarily be tapping ‘intentions to engage’.Participant responses could be influenced by general perceptions of volunteering and time rather thantheir attitude towards autistic people. This can be explored in future extensions of the study, andmentioned in the limitations section.Score CardPresentation4.6/5Is the article written in clear and proper English? (30%) ●5/5Is the data presented in the most useful manner? (40%) ●4/5Does the paper cite relevant and related articles appropriately? (30%) ●5/5Context4.5/5Does the title suitably represent the article? (25%) ●5/5Does the abstract correctly embody the content of the article? (25%) ●5/5Does the introduction give appropriate context? (25%) ●4/5Is the objective of the experiment clearly defined? (25%) ●4/5Analysis4.0/5Does the discussion adequately interpret the results presented? (40%) ●4/5Is the conclusion consistent with the results and discussion? (40%) ●4/5Are the limitations of the experiment as well as the contributions of theexperiment clearly outlined? (20%) ●4/5doi:10.1017/exp.2020.36.pr2Review 2: Simplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towards Autistic PeopleReviewer: Dr. Elizabeth SheppardDate of review: 25 June 2020© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms ofthe Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use,distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Conflict of interest statement. Reviewer declares noneComments to the Author: This is a well executed study which provides information that I believe will beuseful to researchers seeking tomeasure attitudes towards autistic people. Themethodology and analysisappear sound and appropriate and the report contextualises and interprets the findings suitably.Although overall the manuscript is very well written and clear, I have just a couple of comments relatingto typos/grammar used:Page 4 line 68 refers to the terms “satisfaction” and “unsatisfaction” as part of theArmitage et al scale. Theterms “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory” were however used in the questionnaire (presented in thesupplementary materials). Given that readers are likely to be more familiar with the satisfactory/unsatisfactory wording, I would suggest changing this.Page 5 line 92 refers to “autism-related autism research”. I believe this should state “attitude-relatedautism research”.Score CardPresentation4.3/5Is the article written in clear and proper English? (30%) ●4/5Is the data presented in the most useful manner? (40%) ●4/5Does the paper cite relevant and related articles appropriately? (30%) ●5/5Context5.0/5Does the title suitably represent the article? (25%) ●5/5Does the abstract correctly embody the content of the article? (25%) ●5/5Does the introduction give appropriate context? (25%) ●5/5Is the objective of the experiment clearly defined? (25%) ●5/5Analysis4.8/5Does the discussion adequately interpret the results presented? (40%) ●5/5Is the conclusion consistent with the results and discussion? (40%) ●5/5Are the limitations of the experiment as well as the contributions of theexperiment clearly outlined? (20%) ●4/5

Simplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towards Autistic People.

Fazio

Crossref

Simplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towards Autistic People

http://repository.essex.ac.uk/28460/1/Hanel2020_Simplifying%20the%20Measurement%20of%20Attitudes%20towards%20Autistic%20People.pdf

Simplifying the Measurement of Attitudes towards Autistic People.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Essex Research Repository

Crossref