White’s Perceptions of Biracial Individuals’ Race Shift When Biracials Speak Out Against Bias

Abstract

Previous research suggests that a person's racial identity shapes the way others respond when that person speaks out against racial prejudice. In the present research, we consider instead how speaking out against racial prejudice shapes people's impressions of a confronter's racial identity, such as experiences with discrimination, stereotype enactment, and even phenotype.Two experiments found that White perceivers evaluated a Black/White biracial person who spoke out against (versus remained silent to) racial prejudice as more stigmatized and Blackidentified, and as having more stereotypically Black (vs. White) preferences and Black (vs.White) ancestry when they confronted. The faces of biracial confronters (vs. non-confronters) were also recalled as more phenotypically Black (vs. White; S2). This evidence suggests that speaking out against bias colors Whites' impressions of a biracial target across both subjective and objective measures of racial identity. Implications for interracial interactions and interpersonal perception are discussed.CONFRONTING COLORS 3

Introducing the Sociopolitical Motive × Intergroup Threat Model to Understand How Monoracial Perceivers’ Sociopolitical Motives Influence Their Categorization of Multiracial People

“…For example, just as lower SDO predicts Black perceivers’ ingroup categorization of Black-White multiracial people on the basis of perceived linked fate, lower SDO might also predict Black-White multiracial individuals’ perception that they share a linked fate with Black people, and lead them to identify as Black themselves. Self-identification as Black could then have downstream consequences for how others perceive them (Wilton et al, 2018).…”

“…For example, just as lower SDO predicts Black perceivers' ingroup categorization of Black-White multiracial people on the basis of perceived linked fate, lower SDO might also predict Black-White multiracial individuals' perception that they share a linked fate with Black people, and lead them to identify as Black themselves. Self-identification as Black could then have downstream consequences for how others perceive them (Wilton et al, 2018). Finally, whereas we described research focusing on cognitive factors in racial categorization at the outset, before turning our focus to sociopolitical factors influencing categorization, future research could also look at the interplay of sociopolitical and cognitive factors in racial categorization (Ho, Roberts, & Gelman, 2015).…”

Bridging Group Divides: A Theoretical Overview of the “What” and “How” of Gateway Groups

“…So far, research that addresses multiple identities (cultural, racial, etc.) has focused mainly on how a dominant group (e.g., Whites) reacts to individuals with such multiple or mixed social identities (e.g., Gaither, Sommers, & Ambady, ; Scheepers, Saguy, Dovidio, & Gaertner, ; Urbiola, Willis, Ruiz‐Romero, Moya, & Esses, ; Wilton, Rattan, & Sanchez, ; Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, ), and on how individuals who hold such identities feel and behave (Benet‐Martínez, Leu, Lee, & Morris, ; Kunst, Dovidio, & Dotsch, ; Steffens, Gocłowska, Cruwys, & Galinsky, ). However, almost no research to date has examined the potential that individuals with mixed social identities have for improving the relations between the groups that represent the respective sources of their complex social identity.…”

An integrative review of impression formation processes for multiracial individuals

“…In particular, race is a multifaceted concept that encompasses an individual's appearance, identity, ancestry, and observed race (i.e., how others perceive them; see Roth, ). There are also dynamic cues like one's mannerisms and other behaviors, as well as a cultural component to many racial group memberships (e.g., Sanchez & Chavez, ; Wilton, Rattan, & Sanchez, ). For monoracial targets, the components of race are usually highly correlated, and perceivers readily assume that these components are one‐to‐one (e.g., a person who looks Asian has Asian parents and thinks of herself as Asian).…”