Mixed Race Studies

The Social Construction of Race: Biracial Identity and Vulnerability to Stereotypes

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 13, Number 2 (April 2007)
pages 125–133
DOI: 10.1037/1099-9809.13.2.125

Margaret Shih, Assistant Professor, Organizational Psychology
University of Michigan

Courtney M. Bonam
Stanford University

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University

Courtney Peck
Harvard University

Multiracial individuals are more likely to have a heightened awareness of race as a social construct than monoracial individuals.  This article examines the impact that a heightened awareness of race as a social construct has on the relationship between racial stereotypes and performance. Study 1 finds that multiracial individuals reported subscribing less to the notion that race biologically determines ability.  Study 2 finds that monoracial individuals show stereotype activation, whereas multiracial individuals show stereotype inhibition in reaction to race salience. Study 3 draws on the work on stereotypes and performance to test the susceptibility of multiracial individuals to racial stereotypes about ability.  The authors find that Asian/White and Black/White multiracial individuals were less susceptible to racial stereotypes than monoracial individuals. Whereas monoracial participants showed significant performance changes in reaction to race salience, multiracial individuals did not. Study 4 finds that emphasizing the social construction of race buffers individuals from stereotype threat effects.

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Not So Black and White: Memory for Ambiguous Group Members

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Published by The American Psychological Association
2009, Vol. 96, No. 4
795–810 0022-3514/09
DOI: 10.1037/a0013265

Kristin Pauker
Tufts University

Max Weisbuch
Tufts University

Nalini Ambady, Professor and Neubauer Faculty Fellow
Tufts University

Samuel R. Sommers
Tufts University

Reginald B. Adams, Jr., Assistant Professor of Psychology
Pennsylvania State University University Park Campus

Zorana Ivcevic
Tufts University

Exponential increases in multiracial identities, expected over the next century, create a conundrum for perceivers accustomed to classifying people as their own- or other-race. The current research examines how perceivers resolve this dilemma with regard to the own-race bias. The authors hypothesized that perceivers are not motivated to include ambiguous-race individuals in the in-group and therefore have some difficulty remembering these individuals. Both racially ambiguous and other-race faces were misremembered more often than own-race faces (Study 1), though memory for ambiguous faces was improved among perceivers motivated to include biracial individuals in the in-group (Study 2). Racial labels assigned to racially ambiguous faces determined memory for these faces, suggesting that uncertainty provides the motivational context for discounting ambiguous faces in memory (Study 3). Finally, an inclusion motivation fostered cognitive associations between racially ambiguous faces and the in-group. Moreover, the extent to which perceivers associated racially ambiguous faces with the in-group predicted memory for ambiguous faces and accounted for the impact of motivation on memory (Study 4). Thus, memory for biracial individuals seems to involve a flexible person construal process shaped by motivational factors.

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Multiracial Faces: How Categorization Affects Memory at the Boundaries of Race

Journal of Social Issues
Volume 65, Number 1 (March 2009)
pages 69-86
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.01588.x

Kristin Pauker
Tufts University

Nalini Ambady
Tufts University

Monoracial and multiracial individuals are likely to have different conceptualizations of race and subsequently different approaches toward racial ambiguity.  In particular, monoracial individuals may be more likely to rely on categories when processing ambiguous faces, whereas multiracial individuals may tend to ignore such categorizations due to a reduced tendency to essentialize race.  We compared monoracial (White and Asian) and biracial (Asian/White) individuals’ memory patterns.  Specifically, we examined participants’ memory for White, Asian, and biracial faces labelled as either White or Asian.  Both White and Asian participants relied on the labels, remembering faces labeled as the in-group better than faces labeled as the out-group. Biracial participants relied less on the labels, exhibiting better recognition memory overall. Biracial participants’ memory performance was also highly correlated with a less essentialist view of human traits.  This cognitive flexibility may serve an adaptive function for biracial individuals and contribute to enhanced facial recognition.

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To Disclose or Not to Disclose Biracial Identity: The Effect of Biracial Disclosure on Perceiver Evaluations and Target Responses

Journal of Social Issues
Volume 65, Number 1 (March 2009)
pages 129-149
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.01591.x

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University

Courtney M. Bonam
Stanford University

Are biracial people perceived more negatively than their monoracial counterparts? Across two studies, we compared ratings of warmth, competence, and minority scholarship worthiness for biracial (Study 1: Black/White, Study 2: Asian/White), White, and minority (Study 1: Black, Study 2: Asian) college applicants.  Findings suggest that both biracial applicants were perceived as colder and sometimes less competent than both White and corresponding minority applicants.  Moreover, biracial people were also perceived as less qualified for minority scholarships than other racial minorities, which is partially explained by penalties to warmth and competence. Study 3 shows that disclosing one’s biracial identity makes biracial people vulnerable to negative feedback.  Taken together, these studies suggest that biracial people who disclose their biracial identity experience bias from perceivers and may be more vulnerable to that bias because of the personal nature of racial disclosure.  Findings are discussed considering the stereotype content model (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007), cultural stereotypes about biracial people (Jackman, Wagner, & Johnson, 2001), and the costs of disclosing devalued identities.

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Plus ça Change? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of Race Relations in the United States

Journal of Social Issues
Volume 65, Number 1 (March 2009)
pages 205-219
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.01595.x

Frank D. Bean, Chancellor’s Professor
School of Social Sciences
University of California, Irvine

Jennifer Lee, Associate Professor, Sociology
School of Social Sciences
University of California, Irvine

The issue of race has long cast a shadow on the founding mythology of the United States, but today some scholars argue race is declining in significance, as evidenced by the rise of interracial unions and the fact that the offspring of such unions can now officially acknowledge their mixed-race backgrounds. However, the sizeable growth of the Asian and Latino populations in the United States through immigration complicates the issue. Seemingly neither black nor white, the new immigrants are generating increased diversity and raising questions about whether today’s color line replicates the old Black–White demarcation.  The research results introduced in this article suggest the contemporary color line in the United States more reflects a Black/non-Black division than a White/non-White one.

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Exploring Multiracial Individuals’ Comfort with Intimate Interracial Relationships

Journal of Social Issues
Volume 65, Number 1 (2009)
pp. 87–103

Courtney M. Bonam
Stanford University

Margaret Shih, Assistant Professor, Organizational Psychology
University of Michigan

This article explores the relationship between a heightened awareness of race as a social construct and comfort in interracial relationships across varying levels of intimacy among multiracial and monoracial individuals. Study 1 finds that multiracial individuals express higher levels of comfort in intimate interracial relationships than monoracial White and minority individuals. Study 2 finds that belief in race as a social construction mediates the differences between monoracial and multiracial individuals in their comfort in intimate interracial relationships.  Implications of these findings for interracial relationships are discussed.

Interracial relationships in the United States, while on the rise, are still relatively uncommon. Research finds people are more likely to live near (Massey & Denton, 1993; Zubrinsky Charles, 2003), marry (Crary, 2007; Fu, 2001; Lee & Fernandez, 1998; Qian & Lichter, 2001; Root, 2001; Tucker & Mitchell-Kernan, 1990), and develop friendships (Hallinan & Williams, 1989; Moody, 2001; Olfson et al., 2000; Quillian & Campbell, 2003; Tatum, 1997) with those who are ethnically and racially similar to themselves than those who are not. In addition, research suggests that the few interracial relationships that do form tend to be more superficial in nature than relationships between those from the same ethnic/racial background (Sigelman, Bledsoe, Welch, & Combs, 1996; Welch, Sigelman, Bledsoe, & Combs, 2001).  Towles-Schwen and Fazio (2003) found that people’s comfort with interracial relationships tends to be greater at lower levels of intimacy than at higher levels. This may impact the type of interactions that may occur in interracial relationships.  For example, Welch and colleagues (2001) found White families rarely enter the homes of their Black neighbors even though they may have frequent positive interactions and consider these families to be part of their social network.

While this evidence suggests people in the general population are less comfortable with more intimate interracial relationships, the bulk of this research has focused on monoracial populations.We propose these interracial relationship patterns are less likely to be observed among multiracial individuals.  Specifically, multiracial individuals will report more comfort with intimate interracial relationships than will monoracial people of White or minority descent…

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Multiracial Identity Integration: Perceptions of Conflict and Distance among Multiracial Individuals

Journal of Social Issues
Vol. 65, No. 1, 2009
pp. 51–68

Chi-Ying Cheng, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Singapore Management University

Fiona Lee, Professor of Psychology
University of Michigan

This article examines how multiracial individuals negotiate their different and sometimes conflicting racial identities. Drawing from previous work on bicultural identity integration (see Benet-Martınez & Haritatos, 2005), we proposed a new construct, multiracial identity integration (MII), to measure individual differences in perceptions of compatibility between multiple racial identities. We found that MII is composed of two independent subscales: racial distance that describes whether different racial identities are perceived as disparate, and racial conflict that describes whether different racial identities are perceived as in conflict.  We also found that recalling positive multiracial experiences increased MII, while recalling negative multiracial experiences decreased MII.  These findings have implications for understanding the psychological well-being of multiracial individuals, and the development of social policy and programs catered to this population.

In today’s increasingly global, mobile, and racially integrated world, more and more people identify with and claim membership in more than one racial group, making the multiracial population a noteworthy demographic group in the United States (Rockquemore, Brunsma, & Delgado, 2009; Shih & Sanchez, 2005). As a response, a federal task force was created to examine whether census forms should include a new racial classification of “multiracial” (Holmes, 1997). This demographic trend challenges traditional notions that racial categories are discrete, extends current thinking about intergroup racial relations, and has important implications for political and social policy (Pittinsky & Montoya, 2009; Shih & Sanchez, 2009).

Even though multiracial individuals do not necessarily have lower levels of psychological well-being and social adjustment, they face unique challenges in managing two or more different racial identities (Shih & Sanchez, 2005).  For example, multiracial individuals are more likely to encounter disapproval and discrimination from their extended families, neighborhoods, and larger communities (Kerwin & Ponterotto, 1995). They are also more likely to experience social isolation (Brown, 1995; Gaskins, 1999; Nakashima, 1996).  In this article, we investigate how multiracial individuals reconcile the differences and tensions between their different racial identities, and how these dynamics are influenced by their racial experiences…

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…Marriage between blacks, whites and Indians was legal in Virginia for most of the 17th century. Genealogist Paul Heinegg found that 99% of all mixed children in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and the Carolinas before 1810 came from intermarriages of free blacks with whites. Cases of white masters having children by black slaves were virtually non-existence, making up only one percent of the mixed mulatto population…

Tim Hashaw,  “MALUNGU: The African Origin of the American Melungeons,” Electica (July/August 2001). http://www.eclectica.org/v5n3/hashaw.html.

…From the 1620s, in southern British colonies like Virginia, white northern Europeans intermarried with Indians.  They also intermarried with Africans who began entering the American colonies as early as 1619.  Melungeons originate from these red, white and black peoples in this period of American history.  They began forming identifiable separate mixed communities when the first anti-African laws started restricting some of their freedoms by 1660…

Tim Hashaw,  “MALUNGU: The African Origin of the American Melungeons,” Electica  (July/August 2001), http://www.eclectica.org/v5n3/hashaw.html.

The Interpretation of Multiracial Status and Its Relation to Social Engagementand Psychological Well-Being

Journal of Social Issues
Volume 65, Number1, (March 2009)
pages 35-49
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.01586.x

Kevin R. Binning
Stanford University

Miguel M. Unzueta
University of California, Los Angeles

Yuen J. Huo
University of California, Los Angeles

Ludwin E. Molina
University of Kansas

This research examines how multiracial individuals chose to identify themselves with respect to their racial identity and how this choice relates to their self-reported psychological well-being (e.g., self-esteem, positive affect) and level of social engagement (e.g., citizenship behaviors, group alienation). High school students who belong to multiple racial/ethnic groups (N = 182) were asked to indicate the group with which they primarily identify. Participants were then classified as identifying with a low-status group (i.e., Black or Latino), a high-status group (i.e., Asian or White), or multiple groups (e.g., Black and White, etc.). Results showed that, compared with multiracial individuals who identified primarily with a low- or high-status group, those who identified with multiple groups tended to report either equal or higher psychological well-being and social engagement.  Potential explanations and implications for understanding multiracial identity are discussed.

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