Ethnic Identity Development Measures: Cross Racial Identity Scale

The Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS) is a 40-item self-administered scale developed to measure racial identity attitudes of people in the United States. More specifically, each identity type measured in the CRIS reveals unique racial perspectives as to how people identify themselves in relation to their racial group. Cross first articulated nigrescence theory in 1971 and revised his original theory in 1991. The subsequent development of the CRIS yielded an expanded model of nigrescence. As a result of the connection of the scale to theory (and vice versa), the CRIS and the expanded nigrescence model are linked together (e.g., for interpretation) and not to previous versions of the model or prior scales. The development of the CRIS occurred over a 5-year period. The CRIS items ...