Biological Conceptions of Race and the Motivation to Cross Racial Boundaries

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science on 2012-01-03 02:33Z by Steven

Biological Conceptions of Race and the Motivation to Cross Racial Boundaries

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 94, Number 6 (June 2008)
pages 1033–1047
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.6.1033

Melissa J. Williams, Assistant Professor in Organization & Management
Goizueta Business School
Emory University

Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Associate Professor of Psychology
Stanford University

The present studies demonstrate that conceiving of racial group membership as biologically determined increases acceptance of racial inequities (Studies 1 and 2) and cools interest in interacting with racial outgroup members (Studies 3–5). These effects were generally independent of racial prejudice. It is argued that when race is cast as a biological marker of individuals, people perceive racial outgroup members as unrelated to the self and therefore unworthy of attention and affiliation. Biological conceptions of race therefore provide justification for a racially inequitable status quo and for the continued social marginalization of historically disadvantaged groups.

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Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals.

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2011-01-09 01:08Z by Steven

Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Published online: 2010-11-22
DOI: 10.1037/a0021562

Arnold K. Ho
Department of Psychology
Harvard University

Jim Sidanius, Professor of Psychology and African and African American Studies
Harvard University

Daniel T. Levin, Professor of Psychology and Director of Graduate Studies
Vanderbilt University

Mahzarin R. Banaji, Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics
Harvard University

Individuals who qualify equally for membership in two racial groups provide a rare window into social categorization and perception. In 5 experiments, we tested the extent to which a rule of hypodescent, whereby biracial individuals are assigned the status of their socially subordinate parent group, would govern perceptions of Asian–White and Black–White targets. In Experiment 1, in spite of posing explicit questions concerning Asian–White and Black–White targets, hypodescent was observed in both cases and more strongly in Black–White social categorization. Experiments 2A and 2B used a speeded response task and again revealed evidence of hypodescent in both cases, as well as a stronger effect in the Black–White target condition. In Experiments 3A and 3B, social perception was studied with a face-morphing task. Participants required a face to be lower in proportion minority to be perceived as minority than in proportion White to be perceived as White. Again, the threshold for being perceived as White was higher for Black–White than for Asian–White targets. An independent categorization task in Experiment 3B further confirmed the rule of hypodescent and variation in it that reflected the current racial hierarchy in the United States. These results documenting biases in the social categorization and perception of biracials have implications for resistance to change in the American racial hierarchy.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Historical Treatment of Biracial Individuals
  • Empirical Studies of Biracial Individuals: Identification, Categorization, and Perception
  • Overview of the Experiments
  • Experiment 1: A Blatant Test of Hypodescent
    • Method
    • Results and Discussion
  • Experiment 2A: A Test of the Automaticity of Hypodescent
    • Method
    • Results and Discussion
  • Experiment 2B: A Replication
    • Method
    • Results and Discussion
  • Experiment 3A: Evidence of Hypodescent in Visual Face Perception
    • Method
    • Results and Discussion
  • Experiment 3B: A Replication and Extension
    • Method
    • Results and Discussion
  • General Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • References

The “mixing of races” in America provides a natural laboratory for measuring perceptions of new racial identities that diverge from older and simpler notions of race purity (Shih & Sanchez, 2009). Although social psychologists have studied how humans think about ingroups and outgroups for decades, relatively little is known about the perception of individuals who, by the fact that they embody mixtures of social identities within a single individual, blur traditional group boundaries. Such individuals provide intriguing test cases for social categorization and social perception. We focus on one aspect of such mixtures by studying how humans who meld two seemingly distinct racial groups are categorized and perceived, and thereby test how socially meaningful lines that determine inclusion into desired group memberships are drawn. Fundamentally, the categorization and perception of biracial and multiracial individuals more broadly can reveal how culturally entrenched social categories and norms guide, and even limit, social perception.

From a sociostructural perspective, miscegenation and biracial identity have profound implications for understanding the stability and permeability of extant racial group boundaries. In the United States, there is a clear and consensually agreed upon racial status hierarchy—members of dominant and subordinate groups alike agree that Whites have the highest social status, followed by Asians, Latinos, and Blacks (see Fang, Sidanius, & Pratto, 1998; Kahn, Ho, Sidanius, & Pratto, 2009; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, pp. 52–53). However, many have argued that the increasing rate of interracial dating and marriage between racial minorities and Whites, and resulting patterns of biracial identification of their offspring, will lead to a fundamental change in the American racial hierarchy (e.g., Alba & Nee, 2003; J. Lee & Bean, 2004, 2007a, 2007b; Sears & Savalei, 2006; Thornton, 2009). For example, J. Lee and Bean (2004) suggested that “based on patterns of immigration, intermarriage, and racial/multiracial identification…, Latinos and Asians may enjoy the option to view themselves as almost white or even white, and consequently, participate in a new color line that is still somewhat exclusionary of blacks” (p. 237). Others, like Thornton (2009), have documented how the mainstream media perceives the significance of multiracial identification: “For mainstream [news] papers, we are in a new era, sans racial determinants, and in this context multiracial people embody a color-blind America…” (p. 121). These sentiments assume that biracials will be accepted as part of their dominant parent group and not limited by their minority parent group status. However, are biracial targets perceived accurately as equal members of both parent groups or more in terms of their dominant or subordinate group lineage? The five experiments reported here are aimed at addressing this question…

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Not So Black and White: Memory for Ambiguous Group Members

Posted in Articles, New Media on 2009-10-10 21:10Z by Steven

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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