The Structure of Attitudes Toward Non-Western Immigrant Groups: Second-Order Factor Analysis of Attitudes among Norwegian Adolescents

Abstract

The study investigated the structure of outgroup attitudes among adolescents from the majority group in Norway ( N > 1100), using confirmatory factor analysis. Five non-Western immigrant groups were used as attitude objects. The analysis found that attitudes toward the five outgroups could be seen as dependent on two strongly correlated second-order factors. Two alternative models of second-order factors gained support, while the structure of outgroup attitudes appeared more stable across subsamples than anticipated. The discussion concludes that attitudes toward different ethnic outgroups will tend to be interrelated; probably dependent on both higher-order categories of outgroups as well as complex effects of intergroup contact. The paper addresses several hypotheses that may be investigated in future research.