Development and validation of the commitment to social activism scale using the Thurstone scaling procedure

Figures & data

Table 1. Median perceived commitment, intention frequency, and IQR of behaviors in MTurk survey by activist type.

		Full Sample		Activist Only			Nonactivist Only
Item	Behavior	M	% Yes	M	% Yes	IQR	M	% Yes	IQR
1	Sign petition(s) to advocate for change	56.0	74.7	63.0*	74.3	45.0	45.0	75.1	67.0
2	Advocate for the issue on your person (e.g., wear a t-shirt, hat)	56.0*	66.7	59.0*	73.8	43.0	47.0*	58.7	56.0
3	Advocate for the issue with physical promotion materials (e.g., bumper sticker, sign in yard)	57.0*	63.9	61.0*	71.0	40.0	52.0*	56.1	55.0
4	Boycott a company or product	58.0	66.4	62.0	73.3	42.0	51.0*	58.7	53.0
5	Post about this issue on social media	59.0	72.4	62.0	78.6	38.0	54.0	65.6	61.5
6	Write a blog post	59.0	60.9	63.5	71.0	40.3	56.0*	49.7	47.0
7	Talk about the issue with someone who agrees with you about the issue	60.0	79.9	63.5*	75.7	40.0	52.0	84.7	60.8
8	Write a letter to your representative	61.0	66.7	62.0	77.1	34.0	61.0*	55.0	38.0
9	Hand out flyers with information on the issue	62.0*	60.9	62.0*	68.6	27.0	60.0*	52.4	41.8
10	Attend a protest	63.0	59.4	62.0	69.0	36.0	63.0*	48.7	38.8
11	Call your representative about the issue	63.0*	64.2	62.5*	71.4	34.0	63.5*	56.1	41.0
12	Donate money to organization	63.5	75.4	66.0	80.5	35.0	60.0	69.8	55.5
13	Educate yourself on this issue (e.g., read books, search online)	64.0*	52.6	64.0*	80.0	35.3	62.0*	87.8	50.0
14	Talk about the issue with someone who sees this issue differently than you do	65.0	76.4	67.0	80.5	33.0	61.0	72.0	44.0
15	Educate others on the issue	66.0	76.4	68.0*	73.3	30.0	65.0	79.9	39.5
16	Join a club and/or attend a meeting	66.0*	67.2	66.0*	77.6	32.0	65.0*	55.6	33.0
17	Speak in front of a crowd	69.0*	57.4	69.0*	71.9	33.3	70.0*	41.3	41.5
18	Become a volunteer for an organization	70.0	64.9	69.0	74.3	35.8	71.0*	54.5	36.5
19	Introduce new legislature	70.0*	60.2	67.0*	72.9	31.5	78.0*	46.0	43.0
20	Organize a fundraiser	71.0	55.1	68.0	66.7	37.3	76.0*	42.3	40.0
21	Organize a protest	72.5	52.9	70.0*	65.7	32.5	76.0	38.6	40.0

M stands for median. *Indicates item was kept in final scale. Scale organized by full sample median commitment low to high.

Table 2. Correlation matrix of all constructs comparing activists and nonactivists.

									Internal Reliability Coefficients (nonactivists)
	CSAS (all)	Lower Interval	Upper Interval	1	2	3	4	5	Cronbach’s α	McDonald’s ω
1. CSAS				1	.61**	.69**	.29**	.33**
2. Activist Identity and Commitment Scale	0.56**	0.48	0.62	.30**		.78**	.57**	.63**	0.98	0.99
3. Activist Intention Scale	0.60**	0.53	0.66	.33**	.77**		.35**	.50**	0.90	0.91
4. Dogmatism Scale	0.19**	0.09	0.28	−.07	−.02	−.10		.45**	0.75	0.84
5. Trait Anger Scale	0.27**	0.17	0.36	.00	.27**	.23**	.53**		0.96	0.97
Cronbach’s α (activists)					0.86	0.70	0.68	0.94
McDonald’s ω (activists)					0.89	0.77	0.87	0.95

**p < .01. The lower triangle shows the correlations for activists, while the upper triangle indicates the coefficients for nonactivists (refer to Table A4 for combined data). McDonald’s omega (ω; Hayes & Coutts, 2020) and Cronbach’s alpha (α) were used to measure scale reliabilities.

Table A1. Demographic frequencies for focus groups.

Focus Groups
Gender	Frequency	%	Cumulative %
Female	12	52.2%	52.2%
Male	11	47.8%	100%
Age
18	6	26.1%	26.1%
19	3	13.0%	39.1%
20	6	26.1%	65.2%
21	2	8.7%	73.9%
22	4	17.4%	91.3%
23	2	8.7%	100.0%
Race
White	12	57.1%	57.1%
Hispanic/Latinx	5	23.8%	80.9%
African American/Black	2	9.5%	90.4%
Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander	2	9.5%	100%

N = 23

Table A2. Frequency and perceived commitment of activist behaviors in focus groups.

	Behavior	Frequency	Perceived Commitment
1	Educate yourself on this issue (e.g., read books, search online)	1	Easy
2	Sign petition(s) to advocate for change	3	Easy
3	Post about this issue on social media	4	Easy
4	Donate money to organization	2	Easy
5	Write a letter to your representative	3	Moderate
6	Talk about the issue with someone who agrees with you about the issue	2	Easy
7	Talk about the issue with someone who sees this issue differently than you do	3	Moderate
8	Educate others on the issue	3	Moderate
9	Advocate for the issue on your person (e.g., wear a t-shirt, hat)	1	Moderate
10	Advocate for the issue with physical promotion materials (e.g., bumper sticker, sign in yard)	1	Moderate
11	Hand out flyers with information on the issue	2	Easy
12	Call your representative about the issue	1	Moderate
13	Attend a protest	4	Moderate
14	Boycott a company or product	1	Easy
15	Write a blog post	1	Moderate
16	Join a club and/or attend a meeting	3	Moderate
17	Become a volunteer for an organization	2	Moderate
18	Organize a fundraiser	1	Hard
19	Speak in front of a crowd	2	Hard
20	Organize a protest	4	Hard
21	Introduce new legislature	1	Hard

Frequency measured as number of focus groups in which item was mentioned.

Table A3. Demographic frequencies for MTurk survey by activist type.

	Activists		Nonactivists
	n	%	n	%
Gender
Male	141	67.1%	118	62.4%
Female	67	31.9%	68	36.0%
Non-binary	0	0.0%	1	0.5%
Age
18–29	62	29.8%	36	19.2%
30–39	92	44.2%	94	50.0%
40–49	28	13.5%	29	15.4%
50–59	21	10.1%	24	12.8%
60–69	5	2.4%	3	1.6%
70–79	0	0.0%	2	1.1%
Race
White	136	63.6%	134	70.2%
African American/Black	51	23.8%	23	12.0%
Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander	11	5.1%	21	11.0%
Hispanic/Latinx	14	6.5%	8	4.2%
American Indian/Native Hawaiian	1	0.5%	4	2.1%
Other	1	0.5%	1	0.5%
Political Identity
Very liberal	37	17.6%	25	13.2%
Somewhat liberal	34	16.2%	54	28.6%
Moderate/middle of the road	25	11.9%	27	14.3%
Somewhat conservative	67	31.9%	58	30.7%
Very conservative	44	21.0%	25	12.7%
Political Party
Democratic	126	60.0%	104	55.0%
Republican	65	31.0%	54	28.6%
Independent	13	6.2%	29	15.3%
Other	4	2.0%	1	0.5%

N = 399

Table A4. Correlation matrix with entire sample.

	1	2	3	4	5
1. CSAS
2. Activist Identity	0.55**
3. Activist Intention	0.60**	0.80**
4. Dogmatism	0.19**	0.43**	0.25**
5. Trait Anger	0.27**	0.54**	0.44**	0.51**

**p < .01

Hayes, A. F., & Coutts, J. J. (2020). Use omega rather than Cronbach’s alpha for estimating reliability. But… Communication Methods and Measures, 14(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2020.1718629

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