The Extended American Social, Economic, and Political Threat Index (1788–1992)

A carefully selected sample of 24 U.S. history professors serving as expert judges indicated the degree to which they considered each of the years from 1788 to 1919 and 1987 to 1992 threatening to the established order and way of life in America. The results were pooled to form an extension to the social, economic, and political threat index (SEPT; McCann & Stewin, 1990). Interrater reliability was high: Correlations between the resulting index and each rater's responses were significant (p < .001) and ranged from .38 to .84 with a mean of .67 and a median of .69; Cronbach's alpha was .95. Validity was demonstrated by correlations with 16 threat indices including war years, the consumer price index, and ratings of crises produced by House, Spangler, and Woycke (1991). The basic findings of studies linking lynchings to threat (Hovland & Sears, 1940) and the birth order of U.S. presidents to elections in times of threat (Stewart, 1977) also were replicated with the new index values.