Mixed Race Studies

From Jamestown 1607 to 2007, the American Mosaic: A Multicultural Society

National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
People of Color Conference 2006

Christine Madsen
Rocky Mount Academy (North Carolina)

Some of the original settlers in colonial Virginia formed self-sustaining mixed race communities. The history of these communities will be used as an entrance point to discuss the invention of racial identities as social constructs.

View the Powerpoint presentation here.

I’m not White but You Treat Me that way: The Role of Racial Ambiguity in Interracial Interactions

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jessica D. Remedios
University of Toronto

Alison L. Chasteen
University of Toronto

Interracial interactions are complicated by concerns that both majority and minority group members hold. Although a large body of work has examined interactions between Whites and minorities, no research has examined the complications that racial ambiguity may introduce into these already anxiety-provoking situations. Unlike other minorities, people who belong to multiple racial groups (multiracial people) cannot always be categorized as members of a particular race. Furthermore, their physical ambiguity may have consequences for how they are perceived and how they perceive others. In two studies, we examined the role of racial ambiguity in individuals’ expectations for an upcoming interracial interaction. Participants in Study 1 were led to believe that they would interact with a White, Black, or multiracial individual. The results revealed that participants expecting to meet a Black partner rated him more positively and anticipated a more positive interaction than those expecting to meet a White or multiracial partner. In Study 2, multiracial, monoracial non-White and White participants expected to interact with a White person during the study. Multiracial participants expressed the greatest concern that others would be confused by their appearance; the more concern they expressed, the more negative emotions they experienced. Taken together, these findings suggest that although multiracial people express concerns about how others perceive them, monoracial people ignore these concerns and expect to treat multiracial people in the same way that they would treat White people. The results also imply that monoracial people may not accommodate the worries that multiracial people hold about interracial interactions.

Different prejudices toward different types of interracial couples: Examining alternative explanations

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Stephen A. Mistler
Arizona State University

Angela G. Pirlott
Arizona State University

Steven L. Neuberg
Arizona State University

Between 1992 and 2000, the prevalence of interracial marriage in the United States more than doubled, increasing from 2.2% to 4.9%. How do people feel about such relationships, and what accounts for these feelings? Undergraduate students rated relationships of Asian, Black, and White men with Asian, Black, and White women; each participant answered the same questions for all nine possible heterosexual pairings of the above groups, as well as items designed to assess, for each race-gender type (e.g., Asian female), beliefs about their long-term mate value, short-term mate value, and scarcity as potential mates. Given issues of sample size, we report only findings from White participants. In general, White participants expressed more prejudice against interracial couples than same-race couples, even for couplings not involving members of their own race. This apparently simple bias, however, masks a more complex psychology based on interactions of specific race-gender pairings with perceiver gender. As one example, White participants were less accepting of White women with minority men than of White men with minority women, and reacted particularly negatively to the pairing of White women with Black men than to the pairing of White women with Asian men; these patterns of antipathy were especially strong for White male participants. We assess the broader range of findings in light of frameworks suggesting that negative reactions toward interracial couples arise from concerns with “race-mixing,” from concerns about potential lost resources for one’s group, and from assessments of valuable reproductive opportunities potentially gained and lost.

Evidence for Hypodescent and Racial Hierarchy in the Perception of Biracial Individuals

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Arnold K. Ho
Harvard University

Daniel T. Levin
Vanderbilt University

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

Mahzarin R. Banaji
Harvard University

Many have argued that the increasing rate of intermarriage between racial minorities and Whites and resulting patterns of biracial identification will lead to the dissolution of the American racial hierarchy (e.g., Alba & Nee, 2003; Lee & Bean, 2004; 2007a; 2007b; Thornton, 2009). However, little empirical evidence exists on perceptions of new racial identities that diverge from older notions of race purity and the “one drop” rule. We tested whether a rule of hypodescent, whereby biracial targets are assigned the status of their subordinate parent group, would govern perceptions of Asian-White and Black-White targets. Participants morphed faces from Asian to White, Black to White, White to Asian, and White to Black. Consistent with a rule of hypodescent, a face needed to be lower in proportion minority to be considered minority than proportion White to be considered White. In addition, the threshold for being considered White was higher for Black-White biracials than for Asian-White biracials, a pattern consistent with the structure of the current racial hierarchy. Finally, an independent racial categorization task confirmed that hypodescent and the current racial hierarchy guide how biracial targets are perceived. Potential distal (e.g., fear of contagion) and proximate (e.g., racism) causes of these phenomena are discussed.

A Multidimensional Framework for Examining Racial Identity across Different Biracial Groups

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Evelina Lou
York University

Richard N. Lalonde
York University

Carlos Wilson
York University

Recent research has adopted a multidimensional view initially proposed by Rockquemore and colleagues (2002, 2009) for examining racial identity among Black/White biracials. This approach has acknowledged the social construction of and has widened the range of racial identity options beyond the two “traditional” options of “Black” or “biracial.” This study was designed to further assess this framework by examining a more diverse multiracial sample from Canada and the U.S. (N = 122). Results indicated that similar to Black/White biracials (n = 38), Asian/White biracials (n = 40) showed great variability in their selection of Rockquemore’s biracial identity categories, but the pattern of responses differed across the two groups. Specifically, Asian/White individuals were most likely to have a protean identity (i.e., sometimes Asian, sometimes White, and sometimes biracial), whereas Black/White individuals were most likely to have an exclusively biracial identity that they perceived as either validated or unvalidated by other people. In addition, variations in racial identity were in line with cognitive measures of self-concept clarity (SCC) and bicultural identity integration (BII), such that individuals with a validated biracial identity scored higher on SCC and BII than those with a protean or an unvalidated biracial identity. These findings suggest that having a clearly-defined, stable, and integrated bicultural self-concept is associated with the extent to which individuals’ biracial identity is validated by others in their social network. Theoretical implications for extending Rockquemore’s model to other biracial groups are discussed.

Natural Ambiguities? Perceptions of Multiracial Individuals by Monoracial Perceivers

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jacqueline Chen
University of California, Santa Barbara

David Hamilton, Professor of Psychology
University of Californi, Santa Barbara

Understanding Multiracial person perception is becoming increasingly important in today’s diverse society. The present research investigates the nature of the racial categorization of Multiracials. We hypothesize that, due to the legacy of the Black-White dichotomy and the automaticity of monoracial categorization, perceivers will make more errors in categorizing Multiracials and that categorization as “Multiracial” will take longer than monoracial categorizations such as “Black” or “White.” Using a novel categorization task, we find support for these hypotheses in two studies. In addition, in Study 2, we demonstrate that cognitive load detrimentally affects Multiracial, but not monoracial, categorizations. Importantly, in both studies, perceivers are able to categorize Multiracials at a rate significantly above chance, suggesting that monoracial perceivers can perceive multiracialism relatively quickly and accurately. Implications and future directions are discussed.

The motivational dynamics of social memory: Identification with a mixed-race group replaces own-race bias with own-group bias

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jay Van Bavel
New York University

Rachel O’Connor
The Ohio State University

William Cunningham
The Ohio State University

Dozens of studies have documented own-race bias – superior recognition memory for own-race faces compared to other-race faces. According to the perceptual expertise model, people are more likely to interact with members of their own race and therefore become more expert at distinguishing the physiognomy of own-race faces. According to the social cognitive model, own-race bias occurs because people perceive in-group members as individuals and out-group members according to their social category membership. We contrasted these two models and examined the effects of motivational salience, goal strength and situational affordances on social memory. Participants were randomly assigned to a mixed-race minimal group or a control condition in which participants merely learned about two mixed-race groups. Consistent with the social cognitive model, participants assigned to a mixed-race group had less own-race bias than participants in the control condition. Instead, participants assigned to a mixed-race group had own-group bias – superior recognition memory for in-group faces compared to out-group faces. Follow-up experiments showed that own-group bias was moderated by the strength of participants’ commitment to their minimal group and situational affordances. Specifically, participants who reported the strongest identification with their mixed-race minimal group had the largest own-group memory bias. However, own-group bias was attenuated among participants who were assigned to a role that directed their attention toward out-group members: they showed equal recognition memory for in-group and out-group faces. These experiments provide evidence that the motivational aspects of our social identities help organize social memory and can override the robust effects of race.

Self-Perceived Minority Prototypicality and Identification in Mixed Race Individuals: Implications for Self-Esteem and Affirmative Action

SPSP 2010
The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
2010-01-28 through 2010-01-30
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jessica J. Good, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina

George F. Chavez
Department of Psychology
Rutgers University

Diana T. Sanchez, Associate Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University

In 2008, Barack Obama became the first multiracial individual to be elected President of the United States. Multiracial individuals are in the unique position of having multiple racial backgrounds with which to identify, ranging from monoracial (i.e. identifying with only one racial group) to extraracial (i.e. identifying with the human race; Renn, 2004). However, little research has examined the psychological processes linked to racial identification in mixed-race individuals. We proposed that the extent to which multiracial individuals identify as minority depends on their perceptions of their own prototypicality (similarity to the prototype of the minority group), which may be linked with feelings of connectedness to the minority group and perceived similarity in physical appearance to other members of the minority group. Data were collected from 107 mixed race minority-White participants using online sampling methods. Results from structural equation analysis supported our hypotheses; connectedness to the minority community and perceived similarity in physical appearance to members of the minority group predicted self-identification as minority due to perceived prototypicality. Additionally, minority identification was positively predictive of both psychological (self-esteem) and practical/real world (comfort applying for affirmative action) benefits. Implications for perceived affirmative action eligibility are discussed. These results add to a growing literature on the affective and behavioral consequences of multiracial individuals’ identity choices.

How Understanding Interracial Families Contributes to Our Understanding of Race and Family

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Montreal Convention Center
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2006-08-11

22 pages

Jessica Mills

In family sociology, racial differences have long been viewed as a defining feature of family life. Yet, the treatment of the family/race relationship in mainstream sociology has had major limitations. Many family scholars today are challenging the conventional wisdom about race and the family.  Their approaches to the matter of racial differences in family life have begun to refocus the family field.  This paper will provide a brief retrospective and prospective view of contemporary thought, analysis, and supporting research in the family field. It will also synthesize current sociological work on interracial families and assess its usefulness for advancing both family studies and the field of race.

Read the entire paper here.

Assimilating Blackness?: Multiple-Race Identification and African American Mate Selection

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association
Hilton San Francisco & Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel
San Francisco, CA
2004-08-14

23 pages

Jenifer L. Bratter, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Institute for Urban Research
Rice University

I investigate the influence of multiracial identification on assortative mating by race for the African American population. Using 2000 1 percent Public Use Microdata File of the U.S. Census, I compare mate selection patterns of the single race non-Hispanic Black population to the multiple race population whose selected “Black” at least once. I employ multinomial logistic regression models to explore how likely a respondent selects Black (single race) spouses compared to non-Hispanic Whites and Multiracial Blacks. The results show Black persons who selected at least one other race are more likely than their single race counterparts to have White spouses, they are far more likely to have multiracial spouses.  These analyses also show that neither of these tendencies are explained by other identity choices such as alternative races or ancestry responses, structural assimilation of the multiracial population, or regional location near other interracial couples. These results indicate that a “Black” identity is still salient in the mate selection of multiracial Blacks.  Although some marital assimilation is occurring , multiracial persons appear to engage in more marital homogamy with other multiracial persons.

Read the entire paper here.