How Do Forced-Choice Dilemmas Affect Multiracial People? The Role of Identity Autonomy and Public Regard in Depressive Symptoms

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

And yet, it is shockingly easy for me to locate the information. Instead of showing us the microfiche records that I thought we’d have to comb through, the librarian says it’s easier if we just access their subscription to Ancestry.com, and so leads us past the exhibits to the room with the large wooden desks and logs us in on one of the computer stations. And there, we see that in 1940—the first and most recent census in the list—before my mother was born and when my grandmother was a widow by her first husband, my grandmother and her first five children, ages 13, 10, 8, 6, and 1, are all classified as “C” for “colored.” When we click on the 1930 census, she and her first two children are designated as “Neg”: “negro.”

Ashlie Kauffman, “Our Secret Family Legacy,” The Rumpus, August 31, 2016. http://therumpus.net/2016/08/our-secret-family-legacy/.

How Do Forced-Choice Dilemmas Affect Multiracial People? The Role of Identity Autonomy and Public Regard in Depressive Symptoms

How Do Forced-Choice Dilemmas Affect Multiracial People? The Role of Identity Autonomy and Public Regard in Depressive Symptoms

Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Volume 40 Issue 7
Pages 1657 – 1677
Published Online: 2010-07-09
DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00634.x

Diana T. Sanchez, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology
Rutgers University

The present study reports on correlational data gathered from an Internet survey to explore why forced-choice dilemma situations relate to depressive symptoms among multiracial people (N = 317). Specifically, a model was tested that explored the role of identity autonomy (the extent to which multiracial people feel they can racially identify however they desire) and public regard (the extent to which multiracial people think others value their multiracial identity). The results of the model suggest that forced-choice dilemmas predict greater depressive symptoms because forced-choice dilemmas may promote greater beliefs that their multiracial identity is devalued in society and more generally restrict identity autonomy. Implications are discussed in terms of multiracial health and public policies regarding assessments of racial identities.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: Diana Sanchez, Diana T. Sanchez, Journal of Applied Social Psychology

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How Do Forced-Choice Dilemmas Affect Multiracial People? The Role of Identity Autonomy and Public Regard in Depressive Symptoms

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