Multiracial people-those whose racial ancestry is comprised of two or more races-have always had a presence in the United States. However, since the recent US Census shift to allow people to identify with multiple racial groups, social psychologists have shown increased interest in multiracial identity. However, we argue multiracial research tends to emphasize the perceptions, thoughts, and interests of White people through White-centering research practices, which reproduces racial inequality. To understand how multiracial research within social psychology has been shaped by White-centering research practices, we reviewed literature in social psychology examining multiraciality. We show that White-centering practices exist within this literature and explore how White-centering research practices lead to misrepresentations of the conclusions that may be drawn from multiracial research, underscoring how these conclusions affirm racial power or Whiteness. We suggest Critical Race Psychology as a possible framework to help dismantle the affirmation of Whiteness in multiracial research.

Previous research has argued that a growing multiracial population will blur boundaries between racial groups, reducing racism and improving interracial relations. However, this is unlikely to happen if multiracial groups are judged according to their proximity to Whiteness. We examined how having White ancestry shapes status perceptions of multiracial groups. Studies 1 and 2 showed that multiracial groups with White ancestry (e.g., Black/White) are considered higher status than dual minority multiracial (e.g., Black/Latinx) and monoracial minority (e.g., Black) groups. Study 3 revealed that multiracial groups with White ancestry are perceived as more competent and warmer than monoracial minority and dual minority multiracial groups, leading to higher status perceptions for multiracial groups with White ancestry. Thus, multiracial people, like other racial minorities, may be judged according to White, Eurocentric standards. The results imply that, without anti-racist intervention, the treatment of multiracial people will reinforce, rather than challenge, the existing racial hierarchy.

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