Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6204026 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arnold K Ho (0000-0002-2379-0282, Harvard University), Jim Sidanius (0000-0003-0564-6516, Harvard University), Daniel T Levin (0000-0002-2652-0472, Vanderbilt University), Mahzarin R Banaji (0000-0002-5941-7455, Harvard University) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 492-506 |
| Publication date | 2011-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037/a0021562 |
| PMID | 21090902 |
| OpenAlex | W2138514772 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 141 |
| References cited | 41 |
Individuals who qualify equally for membership in two racial groups provide a rare window into social categorization and perception. In 5 experiments, we tested the extent to which a rule of hypodescent, whereby biracial individuals are assigned the status of their socially subordinate parent group, would govern perceptions of Asian-White and Black-White targets. In Experiment 1, in spite of posing explicit questions concerning Asian-White and Black-White targets, hypodescent was observed in both cases and more strongly in Black-White social categorization. Experiments 2A and 2B used a speeded response task and again revealed evidence of hypodescent in both cases, as well as a stronger effect in the Black-White target condition. In Experiments 3A and 3B, social perception was studied with a face-morphing task. Participants required a face to be lower in proportion minority to be perceived as minority than in proportion White to be perceived as White. Again, the threshold for being perceived as White was higher for Black-White than for Asian-White targets. An independent categorization task in Experiment 3B further confirmed the rule of hypodescent and variation in it that reflected the current racial hierarchy in the United States. These results documenting biases in the social categorization and perception of biracials have implications for resistance to change in the American racial hierarchy
Categorization · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Face perception · Hierarchy · Perception · Race (biology) · Racial hierarchy · Social cognition · Social hierarchy · Social perception · Sociology · Task (project management) · White (mutation) · Cultural Differences and Values · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
Introduction
The “Rise” of Multiracials? Examining the Growth in Multiracial Identification in the 2020 U.S. Census
Does this Smile Make me Look White? Exploring the Effects of Emotional Expressions on the Categorization of Multiracial Children
Biracial perception in black and white
At the crossroads of race
What are you?” Multiracial individuals’ responses to racial identification inquiries
Finally, someone who “gets” me! Multiracial people value others’ accuracy about their race
Racial identity invalidation with multiracial individuals
Essentialist thinking predicts decrements in children’s memory for racially ambiguous faces
Dangerous and distinctive properties bias category judgments late in development
The Science of Implicit Race Bias
Examining racial identity invalidation and well‐being among Biracial adolescents using the identity capital model
Predictors of Biracial adolescent racial self‐categorization when confronted with monoracist demographic forms
“Mixed” Results
Multiple Identities in Social Perception and Interaction
Intergroup Perception and Cognition
Looking the Part
Social Dominance Theory
Americans Fill Out President Obama's Census Form
Toward a Social Psychology of Race and Race Relations for the Twenty-First Century
Multiracial in Middle School
Whose Side Are You On? Asian Americans’ Mistrust of Asian–White Biracials Predicts More Exclusion From the Ingroup
A National Survey of School Counselors' Perceptions of Multiracial Students
Perfil Socioeconômico e Racial de Estudantes de Medicina em uma Universidade Pública do Rio de Janeiro
Asking MultiCrit Questions
The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Children’s Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits
Socio-Economic and Racial profile of Medical Students from a Public University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Mapping Borderland Identity Experiences
The politics of identity
Attitudes on affirmative action targeted to help Black and Hispanic individuals
Dark minds do not like animals
Gender Backlash and the Moderating Role of Shared Racial Group Membership
A Meta-Analytic Review of Hypodescent Patterns in Categorizing Multiracial and Racially Ambiguous Targets
Black + White = Prototypically Black
Are Morphs a Valid Substitute for Real Multiracial Faces in Race Categorization Research
Reflexive Activation of Monoracial Categories During Multiracial Categorization
Categorizing a Face and Facing a Category
Resource Possession in the Mind’s Eye
Intergroup Context Moderates the Impact of White Americans’ Identification on Racial Categorization of Ambiguous Faces
Looking White But Feeling Asian
The Maintenance of the U.S. Racial Hierarchy Through Judgments of Multiracial People Based on Proximity to Whiteness
Good Cop, Bad Cop
Exploring Multiracial identity, demographics, and the first period identity crisis
Constructing complex social categories under uncertainty
The Roles of Group Status and Group Membership in the Practice of Hypodescent
Psychopathy and prejudice
Who Is Black? Black Americans on Multiraciality and Black Identity
Who Counts as a “Person of Color”? The Roles of Ancestry, Phenotype, Self-Identification, and Other Factors
Lay Beliefs About Who Can Bridge the Black–White Racial Gap During Interracial Exchanges
Other Than the Sum
Implicit Attitude Generalization From Black to Black–White Biracial Group Members
The Fluid Perception of Racial Identity
Who Do Multiracials Consider Part of Their Racial In-Group
How Do Multiracial and Monoracial People Categorize Multiracial Faces
To Be or Not to Be (Black or Multiracial or White)
Black Groups Accentuate Hypodescent by Activating Threats to the Racial Hierarchy
Protecting Whiteness
How Cross-Discipline Understanding and Communication Can Improve Research on Multiracial Populations
We'll be fine until our kid goes to school’
The effects of Muslim immigration and demographic change on group boundaries in Germany
Stress-adapted teachers pave the way for stress-adapted students
Comparing White and Black athlete racial activism
Priming White identity elicits stereotype boost for biracial Black-White individuals
Which group to credit (and blame)? Whites make attributions about White-minority biracials’ successes and failures based on their own (anti-)egalitarianism and ethnic identification
Evoking gender distinctiveness threat in cisgender women lowers their support for gender-inclusive bathroom policies
Inspiring visibility
Black or White? It depends where you work
Fragile Heterosexuality
Understanding causes of adolescents' ascriptions of peers' dual ethnic and national belonging
Judgements of identity claims vary for monoracial and biracial people
Not Quite White or Black
Psychophysiological Stress Responses to Bicultural and Biracial Identity Denial
Unspoken Politics
Politics beyond Black and White
Clearly Invisible
Divided loyalties
Essentializing race
(Anti-)egalitarianism differentially predicts empathy for members of advantaged versus disadvantaged groups
You’re one of us
The multiplicity of belonging
How do Multiracial parents socialize their children about race and ethnicity
Crossing the racial line
Detecting biracial identity strength
Cross-cultural perceptions of racial ambiguity
Social Dominance Orientation
Multiracial discrimination, religious struggles, and race-based stress among biracial Black–White and Asian-White Christians in the early 2020s
“Crime” in Context
Raising “Antiracist Disruptors”
Desiring the standard light skin
“I wish I didn’t look so White”
Forbidden identities
Gender, Generation, and Multiracial Identification in the United States
Contraction as a Response to Group Threat
Three Decades of Multiracial Identity Research
Mind the overlap in multiple categorization
Monoracial perceivers’ sociopolitical motives and their inclusion versus exclusion of multiracial people
When Using the “N-Word” Goes Wrong
Mixed Couples, Mixed Attitudes
Bridging Group Divides
Beyond categories
Who is black?
Ambiguity in Social Categorization
Black + White = Black
Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion
"Where are you really from?": Asian Americans and identity denial
Social Dominance
Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior
Redrawing the Color Line
A Foot in Both Worlds
The Space between Us and Them
Racial categorization of faces
The End of the One-Drop Rule? Labeling of Multiracial Children in Black Intermarriages
To Disclose or Not to Disclose Biracial Identity
Policing the Borderlands
Prejudice at the nexus of race and gender
Who May Enter? The Impact of In-Group Identification on In-Group/Out-Group Categorization
Look Black in anger
Distinguishing automatic and controlled components of attitudes from direct and indirect measurement methods
When Race Becomes Even More Complex
The Devil and the One Drop Rule
The Political Color Line in America
Inclusionary Discrimination
When Memory Shifts Toward More Typical Category Exemplars
Are stereotypes of nationalities applied to both women and men
Where are you really from
Not so black and white
Racial categorization of faces
Racism and racial categorization
Who is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race
The role of lineage in identity formation among black Americans
Is Intermarriage a Good Indicator of Integration
Reinventing the Color Line Immigration and America's New Racial/Ethnic Divide
Trends in Asian American Racial/Ethnic Intermarriage
The New Color Complex
Believing Is Seeing
Romance Across the Social Status Continuum
America's Changing Color Lines
Public categories, private identities
| Unique citing works | 141 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 9,4 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 130 |