scholarly journals Liberals=Black? Racially Ambiguous People’s Beliefs Determine Others’ Perceptions of Their Racial Identity and Racial Phenotype

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Bai
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Memory Recall ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Racially Ambiguous

As the multiracial population continues to grow, the boundaries between different racial groups are becoming increasingly ambiguous. Yet, we might still spontaneously identify racially ambiguous people as Black or White, and treat them differently as a result. This paper identifies a novel variable that determines our identification of someone’s race—the person’s political values and beliefs (i.e., ideology). Six experiments (five pre-registered) with 3369 participants show that we perceive racially ambiguous people more likely to be Black, and, in most cases, to have darker skin color, if they are liberal than if they are conservative. The effects most likely reflect a motivated social perception, as opposed to a motivated memory recall, and the effects are stronger for people who believe in the White=conservative and Black=liberal stereotypes. Together, the current studies reveal a novel cause of our perceptions about race and skin color, suggesting that our values and beliefs can literally change how we look in the eye of others.

race

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Eileen McCoskey
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Distinct Group ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ethnographic Writing ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Racial Thought

Contrary to the assumptions of previous eras, since the late 20th century, race has been widely regarded as a form of identity based in social construction rather than biology. The concept of race has experienced a corresponding return to classical studies, although this approach gives it significant overlap with terminology like ethnicity and cultural identity. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not consider human biology or skin color the source of racial identity, although the belief that human variation was determined by the environment or climate persisted throughout antiquity. Ancient ethnographic writing provides insight into ancient racial thought and stereotypes in both the Greek and Roman periods. Race in the Greek world centered in large part around the emergence of the category of Greek alongside that of barbarian, but there were other important racial frameworks in operation, including a form of racialized citizenship in Athens. Modes for expressing racial identity changed in the aftermath of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, a figure whose own racial identity has been the subject of debate. In the Roman period, Roman citizenship became a major factor in determining one’s identity, but racial thought nonetheless persisted. Ideas about race were closely correlated with the Roman practice of empire, and representations of diverse racial groups are especially prominent in conquest narratives. Hellenistic and Roman Egypt provide an opportunity for looking at race in everyday life in antiquity, while Greek and Roman attitudes towards Jews suggest that they were perceived as a distinct group. Reception studies play a critical role in analyzing the continuing connections between race and classics.

Seeing Similarity or Distance?

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Wilton ◽  
Diana T. Sanchez ◽  
Lisa Giamo
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intergroup Perception ◽  
Intergroup Perceptions ◽  
Racially Ambiguous ◽  
Ambiguous Faces

Biracial individuals threaten the distinctiveness of racial groups because they have mixed-race ancestry, but recent findings suggest that exposure to biracial-labeled, racially ambiguous faces may positively influence intergroup perception by reducing essentialist thinking among Whites ( Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, 2013 ). However, biracial exposure may not lead to positive intergroup perceptions for Whites who are highly racially identified and thus motivated to preserve the social distance between racial groups. We exposed Whites to racially ambiguous Asian/White biracial faces and measured the perceived similarity between Asians and Whites. We found that exposure to racially ambiguous, biracial-labeled targets may improve perceptions of intergroup similarity, but only for Whites who are less racially identified. Results are discussed in terms of motivated intergroup perception.

Examining Racial Discrimination’s Association With Depressive Symptoms Through Metadehumanization Among African Americans: Does Racial Identity Matter?

2020 ◽  
pp. 009579842098366
Author(s):  
Yara Mekawi ◽  
Natalie N. Watson-Singleton
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Social Cognitive Theories

Though considerable empirical work has documented the ways in which African Americans are dehumanized by other racial groups, there is no research examining how perceiving dehumanization (i.e., metadehumanization) is associated with the mental health of African Americans. In this study, we examined the indirect effect of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms through metadehumanization and explored whether this indirect effect was contingent on racial identity (i.e., centrality, private regard). African American students completed measures in a university lab located in the Midwestern region of the United States ( N = 326; Mage = 19.7, 72.4% women). We found that the degree to which racial discrimination was indirectly associated with depressive symptoms through metadehumanization was contingent on racial identity dimensions. Specifically, the indirect effect of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms through metadehumanization was only significant for individuals who were relatively higher on centrality and private regard. This research suggests that the role of metadehumanization is stronger among African Americans who strongly identify with and have positive views of their racial group. We discuss these results in the context of social cognitive theories.

scholarly journals Navigating “Mixedness”: The Information Behaviours and Experiences of Biracial Youth in Australia

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indra Ayu Susan Mckie
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Social Life ◽  
External Validation ◽  
Racial Climate ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Information Avoidance ◽  
Daily Experiences ◽  
Continuous State ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Depth Interviews

It is generally understood that, ‘for those deemed white, the idea of race serves as a vast source of unearned privilege within all facets of life; for those deemed coloured, it means susceptibility to countless forms of prejudice and racism’ (Nuttgens 2010, p. 255). But what does this mean for a person with indistinguishable physical features, who is questioned daily, “where are you from?” or, even more dehumanisingly – “what are you? In the current racial climate of Australia, biracial second-generation Australians are left to choose between two or more identities on how to behave in attempts to fit binary racial groups and expectations (Shih & Sanchez 2009). This paper presents the data from six in-depth interviews with Asian biracial youth from across Sydney. The interviews explore how this group has confronted race while developing their own identities during adolescence, as well as how their understanding of being “mixed” has developed over time. In exploring this collective racial identity, I draw from my own racialised experiences to address emergent themes from my findings. Numerous displays of information behaviours emerged from the participant’s stories of isolation, belonging and resentment towards their racial mixedness. Information avoidance, browsing, seeking and satisficing were observed within their daily experiences of school, family and social life. Such practices informed how these individuals internalised their inherited intersection of racial persecution and privilege. Critical engagement with information behaviours theories justifies the modern notions of identity as a continuous state of reconstruction (Hall 1996) as the biracial participants of this study struggle to find balance with the external validation of others and their driving agency to be themselves.

scholarly journals Family Member Acceptance of Black-White Marriages: The Impact of Age, Gender, Race, and Socioeconomic Status

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 649
Author(s):  
Richard Lewis, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Family Member ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Research Effort ◽  
Interracial Marriage ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
White Family ◽  
Study Results ◽  
The Impact

<p><em>This research effort examined support levels associated with Black/White interracial marriage. Differences in support for Black/White marriages between Black and White family members along with other variables that influence support attitudes was explored. Age, gender, family income, marital status, and residence were used as control variables. Information from the General Social Survey conducted in 2014 was used to focus the analytical process. The theoretical hypothesis posited that assimilation is differential and more problematic for those racial groups whose members are perceived to have darker skin color. Colorism was used to reinforce the hypothetical assertion. The study results showed that potential support with respect to a family member choosing to marry someone outside of his or her racial group was influenced by race and gender. Black respondents were more likely to support a family member who chose to marry a White spouse. Women were more likely to support a family member marrying someone of a different race in comparison to men. Differential assimilation and colorism were identified as factors influencing the variation in interracial marriage acceptance. </em><em></em></p>

scholarly journals Effects of News Stereotypes on the Perception of Facial Threat

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Arendt ◽  
Nina Steindl ◽  
Peter Vitouch
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Dark Skin ◽  
The Media ◽  
Facial Threat

The human face is central to social interactions and therefore of primary importance in social perception. Two recent discoveries have contributed to a more thorough understanding of the role of news stereotypes in the perception of facial threat: First, social-cognition research has revealed that automatically activated stereotypes influence the perception of facial threat. Individuals holding hostile stereotypes toward dark-skinned outgroup members perceive ambiguous dark-skinned faces as more hostile than similar light-skinned faces. Second, media-stereotyping research has found that the media can influence individuals’ automatically activated stereotypes. Combining these two findings, it was hypothesized that reading tabloid articles about crimes committed by dark-skinned offenders would increase the perceived facial threat of meeting dark-skinned strangers in a subsequent situation. This hypothesis was tested in a laboratory experiment. Participants read crime articles where cues indicating (dark) skin color were mentioned or not. The results showed that reading about dark-skinned criminals increases the perceived facial threat of dark-skinned strangers compared with light-skinned strangers.

Becoming Yellow

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Keevak
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
East Asians ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Yellow Peril ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Difference

In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their willingness to trade with the West, and their presumed capacity to become Christianized. But by the end of the seventeenth century the category of whiteness was reserved for Europeans only. When and how did Asians become “yellow” in the Western imagination? Looking at the history of racial thinking, this book explores the notion of yellowness and shows that this label originated in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discourses on race. From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase “yellow peril” at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, the book follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. It indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow. Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, the book weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.

Optical Allusions: Textual Visuality in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Neary
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Interpersonal Recognition

This chapter reads William Craft’s Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860) as an emblematic text that depends upon a series of complex interactions between the Crafts’ cultivation of their image and their use of dialogue and narration in different contexts. Examining how the visual image Ellen cultivates is juxtaposed with the couple’s use of double entendre, the chapter argues that William Craft places the ambivalence of language and the ambivalent language of skin color side by side to unsettle popular notions of racial identity and identification. The narrative illustrates that phenotypical characteristics such as complexion are not facts with fixed meanings, but, rather, are discursively defined social symbols that can be manipulated to various ends. I argue that Craft turns this revelation back on the authenticating requirements of the slave narrative, offering interpersonal recognition as a mode of visuality which counters the objectifying gaze of slavery.

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