Psychological Measures/Scales

Below are the measures developed for use in research and relevant clinical settings. Please contact me (briankeum@berkeley.edu) for permission prior to use.

The Gun Violence on Social Media Scale (GVSMS; 7 items) measures people’s exposure to gun violence and polarized attitudes about gun ownership on social media. The two subscales are (a) Gun Violence Content (4 items); mediated exposure to gun violence through social media content, and (b) Pro-Gun Attitudes (3 items); exposure to polarized pro-gun attitudes on social media.

Click here to view the GVSMS

Keum, B. T., Wong, L., & Na, J. Y. (2025). Trauma, Depression, and Anxiety from Gun Violence Exposure on Social Media: Development of the Gun Violence on Social Media Scale. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2025.2548449

The Parents’ Anti-Black Messages Scale (PAM) measures anti-Black messages participants received from their parents. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Items are summed, with higher scores indicating greater anti-Black messages received from the parents. The three items are as follows:

  • “Told you to avoid Black people,”
  • “Done or said things to encourage you to keep a distance from Black people,”
  • “Done or said things to you to keep you from trusting Black people.”

Reference: Keum, B. T., Wong, L. J., Tran, E., Nguyen, M. M. G., & Zhu, C. (2024). Parents’ anti‐Black messages, empathic reactions toward racism, fear of Black individuals, and perceived ability to engage in anti‐racism advocacy among Asian American emerging adults. Family Process. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.13062

The Perceived Online Heterosexism Scale (POHS; 20 items, four-factor) is a measure that captures direct and vicarious experiences of heterosexism online. The scale has been developed with best practices in measure development.

The scale includes four factors:

(1) Heterosexist Cyberaggression (four items; direct experiences of heterosexist aggression in online spaces)

(2) Online Heterosexist Stereotyping (four items; LGBTQ+ individuals’ receipt of online messages of heterosexist stereotyping and erasure of LGBTQ+ individuals)

(3) Online Exposure to Systemic Heterosexism (eight items; consumption of information on heterosexism at the cultural and systemic levels in society)

(4) Heterosexist Online Media (four items; vicarious exposure to heterosexist violence and insult through online media). It has been developed with a rigorous scale development methodology.

Click here to view the Perceived Online Heterosexism Scale

Keum, B.T., & Waters, E.M., & Chong, E.S.K. (in press). The mental health costs of online heterosexism among LGBTQ+ individuals: Development and initial validation of the Perceived Online Heterosexism Scale. Archives of Sexual Behavior.

The PORS (30 items, three-factor) assesses racism that people experience or perceive in the online environment. It is designed to assess the personal, vicarious, and mediated impact (e.g., information on systemic racism in society) of online racism on people in today’s digital era. It has been developed with a rigorous scale development methodology. Evidence suggests that the measure operates equivalently across gender, racial/ethnic groups, and age groups (younger and older adults).

Click here to view the Perceived Online Racism Scale

Keum, B.T., & Miller, M.J. (2017). Racism in Digital Era: Development and Initial Validation of the Perceived Online Racism Scale (PORS v1.0). Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(3), 310-324. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000205

Keum, B.T. & Miller, M.J. (2018). Measurement Invariance of the Perceived Online Racism Scale across Age and Gender. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 12(3), 3. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2018-3-3

The full 3o-item Perceived Online Racism Scale (PORS) has been optimized to provide options for brief versions that still maintain psychometric properties. The 15-item PORS-Short Form captures the same three domains of the PORS and the 6-item PORS-Very Brief unidimensionally represents the construct of PORS with much shorter sets of items.

Click here to view the PORS short 15 items

Click here to view the PORS very brief (6 items)

Keum, B.T. (2021). Development and Validation of the Perceived Online Racism Scale Short Form (15 Items) and Very Brief (Six Items). Computers in Human Behaviors Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100082

The 10-items of the CORS measures racial/ethnic minority individuals’ efforts to seek out online social support and online counter spaces to cope with online racism experiences.

Click here to view the Coping Online with Racism Scale

Keum, B.T., & Li, X. (2022). Coping with online racism: Patterns of online social support seeking and anti-racism advocacy associated with online racism, and correlates of ethnic-racial socialization, perceived health, and alcohol use severity. PLoS ONE, 17(12), e0278763. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278763

The GRMSAAW (22 items, four-factor) assesses gendered racial microaggressions that Asian American women experience. It is designed to assess microaggressions that Asian American women face due to the stereotypes that portray them as submissive, objects of sexual fetishization, unfit for leadership, and restricted to a universal “Asian” body image. The scale has been developed so that the items can be assessed for either/both frequency and stress appraisal of the microaggressive events.

Click here to view the Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale for Asian American Women

Keum, B.T., Brady, J., *Sharma, R., Lu, Y., Kim, Y., & Thai, C. (2018). Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale for Asian American Women: Development and Initial Validation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 65(5), 571-585. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000305

Silence about race is a socialization strategy that parents use (Hughes et al., 2006), in which individuals are silenced or discouraged from race talk. The 5 items of the SRS assesses silence/dismissal around race talk that racial/ethnic minority individuals experience from their parents/guardians.

Click here to view the Silence about Race scale

Keum, B.T. & *Ahn, L.H. (2021). Impact of Online Racism on Psychological Distress and Alcohol Use: Test of Ethnic-Racial Socialization and Silence about Race as Moderators. Computers in Human Behaviors. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106773

The 10 item, three-factor SAS measures health service-oriented graduate students’ advocacy behaviors. In addition to activism activities such as participation in marches and contacting local governments, graduate students may act as advocates for their clients and conduct research on social justice issues. The SAS items were developed based on the literature review spanning three domains: activism, professional allyship, and academic advocacy.

Click here to view the Student Advocacy Scale

Keum, B.T. *Kase, *C.A., *Sharma, R., *Yee, S.E., *O’Connor, S., *Bansal, P., & *Yang, N.Y. (in press). Collective Program Social Justice Identity and Perceived Norms on Promoting Student Advocacy. The Counseling Psychologist

The ATAAQ is a measure of people’s reactions toward athlete political behavior in sport across a range of competitive levels (e.g., professional, collegiate, high school). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded a 19-item scale comprising five-factors: affective reactions (five items), perceived conflict with team (four items), athlete role (three items), lack of political qualifications/credibility (three items), and desired consequences or punishments (four items). Internal consistency estimates for the ATAAQ factors were 0.88 and above. We established initial evidence for convergent, criterion-related, and predictive validity, as ATAAQ scores were correlated in expected directions with scores on personal activism orientation, belief in a just world, and attitudes toward social justice.

Link to measure paper

Sappington, R.T., Keum, B.T., & Hoffman, M.A. (2018, August). “Ungrateful, Anti-American Degenerates”: Developing a Measure of Attitudes Toward Athlete Activism. Poster presented at the annual convention of APA, San Francisco, C.A.

  • The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 has been validated across gender and racial/ethnic groups among United States college students. Link to paper
  • The Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire-Community Version Brief has been validated across gender and racial/ethnic groups. Link to paper
  • The Color-blind Racial Attitudes Scale has been validated for Asian Americans. Link to paper
  • The Drive for Muscularity Scale has been validated for Asian American men. Link to paper

The heterosexism erasure construct captures attitudes, which deny or minimize the systemic oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) persons in the United States.

Shin, R. Q., Keum, B.T., Smith, L. C., Lu, Y., & *Yee, S (2022). The development and validation of the Heterosexism Erasure Scale. The Counseling Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1177/00110000221126997