https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X19883903 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 1–24 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0261927X19883903 journals.sagepub.com/home/jls Article Accent Beliefs Scale (ABS): Scale Development and Validation Karolina Hansen 1 Abstract People’s accents in speech strongly influence how they are perceived by others. The current Accent Beliefs Scale was inspired by work on stigmatization, implicit theories of intelligence, and essentialism. The scale has two dimensions: accent diagnosticity and accent stability. The scale was developed, validated, and applied using a mixed methods approach with a QUAN–qual sequential design. Pretest and Study 1 developed the items, the subscales, and showed that diagnosticity and stability beliefs are independent of each other. Study 2 confirmed the scale’s two-factor structure on a large sample and proved its divergent and convergent validity. Study 3 addressed predictive validity and showed that the more perceivers viewed accents as diagnostic of other traits and the more they believed accents can be changed, the worse they evaluated a nonnative speaker with a strong accent. The developed scale can help understanding and predicting negative reactions to nonnative speakers. Keywords nonnative accent, language attitudes, implicit theories, stigma, essentialism Social categories of race and ethnicity have been extensively studied by social scien- tists. For instance, it has been shown many times that a foreign appearance in terms of skin color or ethnic physical features can lead to a negative social evaluation (Allport, 1954; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010). Nevertheless, recent research has shown that in numerous social contexts appearance might be less informative as a social cue than accent in speech (Hansen, Rakić, & Steffens, 2017; Kinzler, Shutts, Dejesus, & Spelke, 2009; Pietraszewski & Schwartz, 2014). In general, people’s accents can strongly influence how they are perceived by others, but also these others can differ in the way 1 University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland Corresponding Author: Karolina Hansen, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, ul. Stawki 5/7, Warszawa 00-183, Poland. Email: karolina.hansen@psych.uw.edu.pl 883903JLS XX X 10.1177/0261927X19883903Journal of Language and Social PsychologyHansen research-article 2019