To Be or Not to Be (Black or Multiracial or White): Cultural Variation in Racial BoundariesPosted in Articles, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2017-09-20 15:33Z by Steven |
To Be or Not to Be (Black or Multiracial or White): Cultural Variation in Racial Boundaries
Social Psychological and Personality Science
First Published 2017-08-28
DOI: 10.1177/1948550617725149
Jacqueline M. Chen, Assistant Professor, Social Psychology
University of Utah
Maria Clara P. de Paula Couto
Ayrton Senna Institute, São Paulo, Brazil
Airi M. Sacco
Department of Psychology
Federal University of Pelotas, Pelatos, Brazil
Yarrow Dunham, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Yale University
Culture shapes the meaning of race and, consequently, who is placed into which racial categories. Three experiments conducted in the United States and Brazil illustrated the cultural nature of racial categorization. In Experiment 1, a target’s racial ancestry influenced Americans’ categorizations but had no impact on Brazilians’ categorizations. Experiment 2 showed cultural differences in the reliance on two phenotypic cues to race; Brazilians’ categorizations were more strongly determined by skin tone than were Americans’ categorizations, and Americans’ categorizations were more strongly determined by other facial features compared to Brazilians’ categorizations. Experiment 3 demonstrated cultural differences in the motivated use of racial categories. When the racial hierarchy was threatened, only Americans more strictly enforced the Black–White racial boundary. Cultural forces shape the conceptual, perceptual, and ideological construal of racial categories.
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