By the year 2050, census based projections suggest that 1 in 5 people will identify as biracial. Despite the rapid growth of biracial people, very little is known about how biracial people are perceived and placed into social or racial groups by others. The goal of this research is to test a racial categorization model that addresses the complexities inherent in classifying racially ambiguous targets -- such as those who are biracial and bicultural. This project will identify the central attributes that guide racial categorization by identifying the social psychological processes that influence how racially ambiguous people are categorized. Across several experiments, the proposed research will (1) identify which attributes, singly or together, guide racial categorization (e.g., physical appearance, cultural practice, racial ancestry), (2) clarify the inferences drawn from such attributes (e.g., inferences of disadvantage and perceived self-identification of targets), (3) establish the unique consequences of minority categorization for diversity-related entitlements (e.g., whether people believe a biracial target should benefit from an affirmative action policies) and expectations (e.g., whether people believe a biracial target will contribute to the diversity of opinion that would enhance group performance), and (4) assess the characteristics of perceivers that moderate responses to attributes (e.g., belief in biological essentialism, perceiver gender, perceiver race).
This research will reveal how, why, and when racially ambiguous individuals are categorized as ethnic minorities. Moreover, the research will examine the important but often ignored outcomes of minority categorization. Such outcomes include not only drawbacks (such as being stereotyped) but also benefits (e.g., entitlements to resources via affirmative action policies) or perceptions that individuals are valuable to groups (i.e., diversity contributions). In doing so, this project will inform public policies such as institutional commitments to diversity and affirmative action regarding how best to structure those policies to address a broad array of ethnic minorities of diverse, often mixed, backgrounds.
By the year 2050, census based projections suggest that 1 in 5 people in the United States will identify as biracial. Despite the rapid growth of biracial individuals, very little is known about how biracial people are perceived and placed into social or racial groups by others. These categorization processes are the cornerstone of understanding intergroup relations because they dictate the parameters by which people differentiate their ingroups from their outgroups, and thus, determine the nature of stigmatization and prejudice aimed at minorities. The primary goal of this research was to test a racial categorization model addressing the complexities inherent in classifying racially ambiguous targets, including how biracial people are viewed in the context of diversity enhancement decisions such as affirmative action. Across several experiments, we demonstrate how biological (e.g., ancestry), social (e.g., socioeconomic status or engagement in prototypical cultural practices), and biosocial cues (e.g., physical appearance) determine racial categorization and affirmative action decisions. Unlike prior categorization models, this project reveals that people use and seek out multiple cues (biological and social) in racial categorization, and are especially likely to do so in cases of incongruence. In addition, we find that cultural cues operate to reduce uncertainty in the categorization process. For example, racial ambiguity (from either social or biosocial sources) can be resolved by having another social cue that guides categorization. In other words, a Latino person with biracial ancestry (or a Latino person who is light skinned) is more likely to be viewed as Latino if she speaks Spanish. The findings of this project also reveal that categorization involves evaluative tradeoffs for racially ambiguous targets. For example, minority categorization simultaneously increases perceived appropriateness for programs aimed at increasing diversity, while it decreases interpersonal evaluations and increasing stigmatization. Thus, this project reveals how existing diversity policies may put biracial people in a double-bind wherein they are less likely to be considered for diversity policies unless they also increase their minority protypicality by revealing social cues that risk negative evaluations.
