Natural ambiguities: Racial categorization of multiracial individuals

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volumn 48, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 152-164

  Chen, Jacqueline M ^a   Hamilton, David L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Face perception; Multiracial person perception; Race; Racial categorization

Indexed keywords

EID: 82655178029     PISSN: 00221031     EISSN: 10960465     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.005     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Binning K.R., Unzueta M.M., Huo Y.J., Molina L.E. The interpretation of multiracial status and its relation to social engagement and psychological well-being. Journal of Social Issues 2009, 65:35-49.
2. Blascovich J., Wyer N.A., Swart L.A., Kibler J.L. Racism and racial categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1997, 72:1364-1372.
3. Bodenhausen G.V. Diversity in the person, diversity in the group: Challenges of identity complexity for social perception and social interaction. European Journal of Social Psychology 2010, 40:1-16.
4. Brewer M.B. A dual process model of impression formation. Advances in social cognition 1988, Vol. 1:1-36. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. T. Srull, R. Wyer (Eds.).
5. Castano E., Yzerbyt V.Y., Bourguignon D., Seron E. Who may enter? The impact of in-group identification on ingroup-outgroup categorization. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2002, 38:315-322.
6. Chakravarti A. Kinship: Race relations. Nature 2009, 457:380-381.
7. Chiroro P.M., Tredoux C.G., Radaelli S., Meissner C.A. Recognizing faces across continents: The effect of within-race variations on own-race bias in face recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2008, 15:1089-1092.
8. Corneille O., Huart J., Becquart E., Bredart S. When memory shifts toward more typical category exemplars: Accentuation effects in the recollection of ethnically ambiguous faces. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2004, 86:236-250.
9. Cunningham W.A., Johnson M.K., Raye C.L., Gatenby J.C., Gore J.C., Banaji M.R. Separable neural components in the processing of black and white faces. Psychological Science 2004, 15:806-813.
10. Devine P.G. Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1989, 56:5-18.
11. Eberhardt J.L., Dasgupta N., Banaszynski T.L. Believing is seeing: The effects of racial labels and implicit beliefs on face perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2003, 29:360-370.
12. Fiske S.T., Neuberg S.L. A continuum of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. Advances in experimental social psychology 1990, Vol. 23:1-74. Academic Press, New York. M.P. Zanna (Ed.).
13. Gawronski B., Bodenhausen G.V. Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin 2006, 132:692-731.
14. Gelman S.A. The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought 2003, Oxford University Press, New York.
15. Goodman A.H. Why genes don't count (for racial differences in health). American Journal of Public Health 2000, 90:1699-1702.
16. Halberstadt J., Sherman S.J., Sherman J.W. Why Barack Obama is black: A cognitive account of hypodescent. Psychological Science 2011, 22:29-33.
17. Harris M. Patterns of race in the Americas 1964, Doubleday, New York.
18. Herman M.R. Do you see what I am?: How observers' backgrounds affect their perceptions of multiracial faces. Social Psychology Quarterly 2010, 73:58-78.
19. Hirschfeld L.A. Race in the making: Cognition, culture, and the child's construction of human kinds 1996, MIT Press, Cambridge.
20. Ho A.K., Sidanius J., Levin D.T., Banaji M.R. Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2011, 100:492-506.
21. Ito T.A., Urland G.R. Race and gender on the brain: Electrocortical measures of attention to race and gender of multiply categorizable individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003, 85:616-626.
22. Ito T.A., Urland G.R. The influence of processing objectives on the perception of faces: An ERP study of race and gender perception. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience 2005, 5:21-36.
23. Jayaratne T.E., Ybarra O., Sheldon J., Brown T., Feldbaum M., Pfeffer C., et al. White Americans' genetic lay theories of race differences and sexual orientation: Their relationship with prejudice toward blacks and gay men and lesbians. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 2006, 9:77-94.
24. Keller J. In genes we trust: The biological component of psychological essentialism and its relationship to mechanisms of motivated social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2005, 88:686-702.
25. MacLin O.H., Malpass R.S. Racial categorization of faces: The ambiguous race face effect. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 2001, 7:98-118.
26. Macrae C.N., Bodenhausen G.V. Social cognition: Thinking categorically about others. Annual Review of Psychology 2000, 51:93-120.
27. Minear M., Park D.C. A lifespan database of adult facial stimuli. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 2004, 36:630-633.
28. Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. (last accessed March 16, 2011). Historical Highlights: The Immigration Act of 1924. Retrieved from http://clerk.house.gov.
29. Pauker K., Weisbuch M., Ambady N., Sommers S.R., Adams R.B., Ivcevic Z. Not so black and white: Memory for ambiguous group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2009, 96:795-810.
30. Peery D., Bodenhausen G.V. Black + white = black: Hypodescent in reflexive categorization of racially ambiguous faces. Psychological Science 2008, 19:973-977.
31. Powell, M. (2006, September 20). Old fears over new faces. The Washington Post. Retrieved from , last accessed on March 16, 2011. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive.
32. Sanchez D.T., Good J.J., Chavez G. Blood quantum and perceptions of Black-White biracial targets: The black ancestry prototype model of affirmative action. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin 2010, 37:3-14.
33. Sanchez D.T., Shih M.J. When race becomes even more complex: Toward understanding the landscape of multiracial identity and experiences. Journal of Social Issues 2009, 65:1-12.
34. Shih M.J., Sanchez D.T. Perspectives and research on the positive and negative implications of having multiple racial identities. Psychological Bulletin 2005, 131:569-591.
35. Smith E.R., DeCoster J. Dual process models in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual integration and links to underlying memory systems. Personality and Social Psychology Review 2000, 4:108-131.
36. Sturm R.A., Box N.F., Ramsay M. Human pigmentation genetics: The difference is only skin deep. BioEssays 1998, 20:712-721.
37. Szaro G., Gerald A.B., Pathak M.A., Fitzpatrick T.B. Racial differences in the face of melanosomes in human epidermis. Nature 1969, 222:1081-1082.
38. Tajfel H., Turner J.C. The social identity theory of intergroup conflict. Psychology of intergroup relations 1986, Nelson-Hall, Chicago. S. Worchel, W. Austin (Eds.).
39. Townsend S.S.M., Markus H.R., Bergsieker H.B. My choice, your categories: The denial of multiracial identities. Journal of Social Issues 2009, 65:185-204.
40. Wheeler M.E., Fiske S.T. Controlling racial prejudice: Social-cognitive goals affect amygdala and stereotype activation. Psychological Science 2005, 16:56-63.
41. Willadsen-Jensen E.C., Ito T.A. Ambiguity and the timecourse of racial perception. Social Cognition 2006, 24:580-606.
42. Willadsen-Jensen E.C., Ito T.A. A foot in both worlds: Asian Americans' perceptions of Asian, White, and racially ambiguous faces. Group Processes and Interpersonal Relations 2008, 11:182-200.
43. Williams M.J., Eberhardt J.L. Biological conceptions of race and the motivation to cross racial boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2008, 94(6):1033-1047.