The Attitude Toward Supporting Ex-Offenders (ATSE)<\/strong> scale is a concise, psychometrically validated four-item self-report instrument designed to evaluate public and consumer attitudes toward the societal reintegration, destigmatization, and economic inclusion of formerly incarcerated individuals. Developed by Tyler Milfeld, Eric Haley, and Daniel J. Flint (2021) within the domain of prosocial advertising, consumer behavior, and criminal justice policy, the scale captures individual endorsement of four critical facets of prisoner reentry: collective societal responsibility for reintegration, recognition and mitigation of social stigma, belief in moral redemption through fresh-start opportunities, and corporate\/employer willingness to practice fair-chance hiring. The instrument utilizes a 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree<\/em>) to 7 (Strongly agree<\/em>), generating a unidimensional composite score where higher values reflect more favorable, supportive orientations toward justice-impacted individuals.<\/p>\n Psychometric evaluations across experimental and cross-sectional consumer samples demonstrate robust properties, including strong internal consistency (Cronbach\u2019s $\\alpha$<\/span> typically ranging between .88 and .92; McDonald\u2019s $\\omega > .89$<\/span>), coherent unidimensional structural validity verified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA fit indices exceeding conventional benchmarks: CFI > .98, TLI > .97, RMSEA < .06), and established convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities. The ATSE scale serves as a parsimonious, reliable measurement tool for researchers and practitioners in social psychology, criminology, public policy, corporate social responsibility (CSR<\/a>), and prosocial marketing seeking to assess interventions aimed at reducing the collateral consequences of criminal convictions and fostering inclusive societal reentry<\/span>.<\/p>\n Attitude Toward Supporting Ex-Offenders, ATSE, criminal justice reform, prisoner reentry, stigma reduction, fair-chance hiring, second chance, social reintegration, prosocial advertising, scale validation<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Supporting Ex-Offenders (ATSE) scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and empirically validated by a team of scholars specializing in marketing communications, consumer psychology, and supply chain advocacy:<\/p>\n Mass incarceration in the United States and globally has generated a pervasive humanitarian, economic, and sociopolitical crisis. Annually, more than 600,000 individuals exit state and federal correctional institutions in the United States alone, confronting more than 40,000 documented statutory collateral consequences that impede employment, housing, financial credit, and civic participation. Despite empirical evidence demonstrating that stable employment and community acceptance significantly diminish recidivism<\/a>, formerly incarcerated individuals encounter structural and interpersonal discrimination driven by deep-seated societal prejudice. Prior psychometric instruments in criminological research frequently measured punitive sentiment, retributive penal attitudes, or general fear of crime rather than specific public receptivity to structural reintegration and fair-chance employment initiatives.<\/p>\n The primary purpose of the ATSE scale is to provide a brief, psychometrically sound, and conceptually targeted instrument capable of quantifying explicit public, consumer, and organizational stakeholder support for ex-offender reentry. Originally introduced to investigate how advertising message framing impacts consumer endorsement of corporate second-chance hiring programs, the scale addresses several key empirical and applied imperatives:<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Supporting Ex-Offenders construct is operationalized as a positive or negative evaluative disposition toward the systemic restoration, destigmatization, social inclusion, and vocational accommodation of persons who have served custodial sentences for criminal offenses. Drawing on the triadic conception of attitudes (affective, cognitive, and conative dimensions), the construct specifically indexes cognitive beliefs regarding societal obligation and equity, alongside behavioral-intentional endorsement of structural accommodations. Rather than capturing affective empathy alone, the ATSE construct addresses the normative endorsement of tangible institutional and community actions.<\/p>\n The construct encompasses four interrelated structural facets:<\/p>\n The theoretical architecture underpinning the ATSE scale integrates seminal perspectives from sociology, social psychology, and behavioral economics:<\/p>\n According to labeling theory<\/a> (Howard Becker, 1963; Edwin Lemert, 1967), the formal adjudication of criminality applies a “master status” that overshadows an individual’s other personal and professional identities. This societal labeling process culminates in what Erving Goffman (1963) termed a “spoiled identity,” marked by profound social stigma. The ATSE scale measures the extent to which an observer deconstructs this master status, rejecting the permanent moral mark of a criminal conviction and recognizing the systemic nature of societal marginalization.<\/p>\n Bernard Weiner’s (1985) attribution theory<\/a> posits that emotional reactions and helping behaviors toward stigmatized groups are governed by attributions of causality, stability, and controllability. When an individual views criminal behavior as permanently stable and entirely internally controlled, punitive and exclusionary reactions dominate. Conversely, when observers view the causes of prior wrongdoing as unstable, subject to personal reform, or mediated by systemic socioeconomic factors, supportive helping behaviors emerge. The ATSE reflects an attributional posture emphasizing malleability, personal desistance, and the moral legitimacy of second chances.<\/p>\n Shadd Maruna\u2019s (2001) foundational work on criminological desistance highlights the necessity of a “redemption script”\u2014not only for the individual exiting crime, but crucially, for the community receiving them. For reintegration to succeed, society must validate the reformed self. The ATSE scale serves as a psychometric reflection of the collective adoption of this redemption script, measuring community readiness to certify an ex-offender\u2019s re-entry into moral standing.<\/p>\n Milfeld, Haley, and Flint (2021) conceptualized the ATSE within the framework of framing effects (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979<\/a>). Public attitudes toward stigmatized populations can be systematically influenced by how communication stimuli frame the reentry challenge\u2014either emphasizing the social costs of failure (recidivism, economic drain) or the collective gains of support (economic productivity, community safety, moral restoration). The ATSE functions as the focal evaluative mechanism responsive to these strategic cognitive frames.<\/p>\n The ATSE scale has been subjected to rigorous empirical evaluation to confirm its psychometric validity across multiple consumer and public samples:<\/p>\n Initial validation studies by Milfeld et al. (2021) established that the four items reflect a singular, theoretically cohesive underlying construct. Both exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have demonstrated that the items load heavily on a single latent factor with no substantial cross-loadings or secondary dimensions, confirming unidimensionality.<\/p>\n Convergent validity was demonstrated through statistically significant, positive correlations between ATSE scores and conceptually related constructs, including:<\/p>\n Discriminant validity was established using the Fornell-Larcker criterion and average variance extracted (AVE) calculations. In validation datasets, the AVE for the ATSE factor exceeded .68, well above the recommended .50 threshold, and was substantially higher than the squared correlations between the ATSE and distinct theoretical constructs such as general brand attitude, purchase intention, generalized political ideology, and commercial skepticism.<\/p>\n The scale demonstrates strong predictive utility. Milfeld et al. (2021) showed that higher scores on the ATSE scale significantly predicted consumer intentions to support brands engaging in fair-chance hiring, positive brand attitudes following exposure to reentry-themed advertising, and willingness to support public policies providing vocational training inside correctional facilities. Logistic and linear regression modeling confirmed that the ATSE accounted for significant incremental variance in behavioral intentions after controlling for baseline demographic variables, political affiliation, and general corporate trust.<\/p>\n The ATSE demonstrates robust internal consistency across independent empirical investigations:<\/p>\n Psychometric evaluations conducted during scale development confirm a robust unidimensional structure:<\/p>\n Principal axis factoring with oblique and varimax rotations extracted a single dominant factor with an eigenvalue substantially greater than 1.0 (typically $lambda > 2.80$<\/span>), accounting for between 68% and 74%<\/strong> of the total variance across validation samples. Scree plot analyses consistently evidenced an unambiguous single-factor “elbow” after the first factor. Standardized factor loadings across the four items were strong and uniform:<\/p>\n Confirmatory factor analyses utilizing Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Robust Maximum Likelihood (MLR) estimation demonstrated excellent goodness-of-fit indices for the one-factor model:<\/p>\n Alternative nested models\u2014such as forcing items into a two-factor solution separating general societal attitudes from employer hiring practices\u2014exhibited poorer fit, elevated Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) values, and multicollinearity between factors ($r > .85$<\/span>), supporting the retention of the parsimonious single-factor model.<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Supporting Ex-Offenders (ATSE) scale was published in 2021<\/strong> in the Journal of Advertising<\/em> by Tyler Milfeld, Eric Haley, and Daniel J. Flint. The instrument is accessible within published academic literature and is governed by conventional scholarly fair-use conventions. Researchers, graduate students, and non-profit organizations may utilize the scale for non-commercial scientific, educational, and evaluation purposes without paying licensing fees, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is given to the original authors and the source publication.<\/p>\n Commercial applications, proprietary corporate assessments, or redistributions within monetized psychometric platforms may require formal copyright clearance from the copyright holder (Taylor & Francis \/ American Academy of Advertising). Inquiries regarding proprietary adaptations or specific experimental stimulus materials may be directed to the corresponding authors at their respective academic institutions.<\/p>\n Response Scale:<\/strong> 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)<\/span><\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Supporting Ex-Offenders (ATSE) scale is a psychometrically validated four-item instrument assessing societal, structural, and employer support for individuals with criminal records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[18566,2,79],"tags":[18695,18696,18700,18698,18697,18699],"class_list":["post-5803","psych_scale","type-psych_scale","status-publish","hentry","category-criminological-scales","category-psychometrics","category-social-psychology","tag-atse","tag-attitude-toward-supporting-ex-offenders","tag-criminal-justice-reform","tag-fair-chance-hiring","tag-reentry-programs","tag-stigma-reduction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/psych_scale"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/psych_scale\/5803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashadocs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. Keywords<\/h2>\n
3. Authors<\/h2>\n
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4. Purpose<\/h2>\n
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5. Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
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6. Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
Labeling Theory and Social Stigma<\/h3>\n
Attribution Theory and Moral Agency<\/h3>\n
Desistance and Redemptive Narratives<\/h3>\n
Prospect Theory and Message Framing<\/h3>\n
7. Validity<\/h2>\n
Construct and Structural Validity<\/h3>\n
Convergent Validity<\/h3>\n
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Discriminant Validity<\/h3>\n
Predictive and Criterion Validity<\/h3>\n
8. Reliability<\/h2>\n
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9. Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/h3>\n
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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/h3>\n
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10. Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
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\n $$\\text{ATSE Score} = \\frac{\\sum_{i=1}^{4} \\text{Item}_i}{4}$$<\/span>
\n Possible mean scores range from 1.00 to 7.00. Higher mean values correspond to stronger endorsement of societal reintegration, stigma reduction, and vocational opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
12. References<\/h2>\n
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13. Items of the Scale<\/h2>\n
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