Until not so long ago, the received liberal view of the history of biology and the social sciences was that social Darwinist and racist theories had been given the kiss of death by their association with the eugenic policies of the Nazis. A revulsion from biological determinism and any analogies between the biological and social came to dominate the post Second World War liberal consensus; psyc...

The present experiments suggest that the desire to benefit the in-group drives dominant-group members' policy preferences, independent of concern for out-groups' outcomes. In Experiment 1, the effect of a manipulation of affirmative action procedures on policy support was mediated by how Whites expected the policy to affect fellow Whites, but not by the expected effect on minorities. In Experim...

Minority boys are at risk of academic disengagement. Prior research documents that an aspect of racial-ethnic identity, in-group connection, can buffer against this risk, but that in-group connection is undermined in high-risk neighborhoods. We examined another way that boys may feel connected to the in-group, by looking like in-group members. We hypothesize that physical markers of in-group me...

This research examines how multiracial individuals chose to identify themselves with respect to their racial identity and how this choice relates to their self-reported psychological well-being (e.g., self-esteem, positive affect) and level of social engagement (e.g., citizenship behaviors, group alienation). High school students who belong to multiple racial/ethnic groups (N = 182) were asked ...

Although ethnic and racial identity (ERI) are central to the normative development of youth of color, there have been few efforts to bring scholars together to discuss the theoretical complexities of these constructs and provide a synthesis of existing work. The Ethnic and Racial Identity in the 21st Century Study Group was assembled for this purpose. This article provides an overview of the in...

The present study explored how relationships with natural mentors may contribute to African American adolescents' long-term educational attainment by influencing adolescents' racial identity and academic beliefs. This study included 541 academically at-risk African American adolescents transitioning into adulthood. The mean age of participants at Time 1 was 17.8 (SD = .64) and slightly over hal...

People do not always take action to promote health, engaging instead in unhealthy habits and reporting fatalism about health. One important mechanism underlying these patterns involves identity-based motivation (D. Oyserman, 2007), the process by which content of social identities influences beliefs about in-group goals and strategies. Seven studies show the effect of identity-based motivation ...

Feyza Burak Adli Thesis under the direction of Mary DeShazer, Ph.D., Professor of English THE TROPE OF PASSING AND THE RACIAL IDENTITY CRISIS IN NELLA LARSEN’S PASSING AND JESSIE REDMON FAUSET’S PLUM BUN This study compares Nella Larsen’s Passing and Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun in terms of their treatments of the trope of passing and racial identity. This comparison demonstrates that Fauset...

This study presents a method of estimating the degree to which people change their racial/ethnic identity from one census enumeration to another. The technique is applied to the classification of skin colour in Brazil (white, black, brown, yellow). For the period 1950-80, the findings show a deficit of 38 per cent in the black category and a gain of 34 per cent in the brown category, suggesting...