Guilt, shame, and/or both? Further validation of the White Racial Affect Scale.

In this study we assessed the construct validity of the recently published White Racial Affect Scale (WRAS;Grzanka et al., 2020).Specifically, we assessed the convergent, criterion related, and incremental evidence for construct validity of the White guilt, White shame, and White defensiveness (called "White negation" in the original paper) factors.We used a video stimulus to trigger state guilt and shame in participants as part of the construct validity investigation.White adults in the U.S. signed up for the study online (N=262) and watched a 5-minute video stimulus and completed questionnaires before and after the video.Results of this study replicated many of the findings from the original WRAS validation study (Grzanka et al., 2020).We found strong evidence of construct validity for the White guilt and White defensiveness factors and mixed evidence for the White shame factor.We discuss directions for future research and implications for potential interventions.