Measuring Everyday Discrimination Experiences

The EDS [44 ] was used to measure lifetime experiences of and perceived reasons for discrimination. The 5-item scale asks participants to indicate the frequency that unfair treatment in interpersonal experiences occur (e.g., “You receive poorer service than other people at restaurants or stores”). Responses are rated on a scale from 0 (‘Never’) to 5 (‘Almost every day’). Participants are then prompted to attribute the reason for these experiences and are allowed to select as many options as apply, including gender, race, and religion, among others. In the current study, total discrimination was scored by creating a sum score of the 5-items assessing frequency of everyday discrimination. Number of reasons for discrimination was calculated by summing the total number of reasons endorsed as a target of discrimination. The measure had acceptable internal consistency (α = .75).