{"id":31256,"date":"2013-05-27T01:38:44","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T01:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=31256"},"modified":"2016-04-25T14:34:23","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T14:34:23","slug":"on-the-ideology-of-hypodescent-political-conservatism-predicts-categorization-of-racially-ambiguous-faces-as-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=31256","title":{"rendered":"On the ideology of Hypodescent: Political Conservatism Predicts Categorization of Racially Ambiguous Faces as Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the ideology of Hypodescent: Political Conservatism Predicts Categorization of Racially Ambiguous Faces as Black<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology<\/a>
\nIn Press (May 2013)
\n32 pages<\/p>\n

Amy R. Krosch<\/a><\/strong>
\nDepartment of Psychology
\nNew York University<\/em><\/p>\n

Leslie Berntsen<\/strong>
\nUniversity of Southern California<\/em><\/p>\n

David M. Amodio<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science
\nNew York University<\/em><\/p>\n

John T. Jost<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Psychology and Politics
\nNew York University<\/em><\/p>\n

Jay J. Van Bavel<\/a><\/strong>, Assistant Professor of Psychology
\nNew York University<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the principle of <\/em>hypodescent<\/em><\/a>, multiracial individuals are categorized according to their most socially subordinate group membership. We investigated whether the tendency to apply this principle is related to political ideology. In three studies, participants categorized a series of morphed faces that varied in terms of racial ambiguity. In each study, self-reported conservatism (vs. liberalism) was associated with the tendency to categorize ambiguous faces as Black. Consistent with the notion that system justification motivation helps to explain ideological differences in racial categorization, the association between conservatism and hypodescent was mediated by individual differences in opposition to equality (Study 2) and was stronger when U.S. participants categorized American than Canadian faces (Study 3). We discuss ways in which the categorization of racially ambiguous individuals in terms of their most subordinate racial group may exacerbate inequality and vulnerability to discrimination.<\/em><\/p>\n

Barack Obama<\/a> (2004) jokingly describes his mother as \u201cWhite as milk,\u201d but the fact is that he is seen as the United States\u2019 first Black president. Following the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws and the gradual normalizing of interracial relationships, the United States of America has become an increasingly multiracial society, with a 32% increase in the number of citizens identifying as more than one race over the last decade (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Nevertheless, monoracial labels are frequently applied to multiracial individuals, and \u201cWhite\u201d is rarely applied to persons of mixed racial heritage (Hirschfeld, 1995).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tendency to categorize multiracial individuals according to their most socially subordinate racial group membership reflects the principle of hypodescent, which is closely associated with the notorious \u201cone drop rule<\/a>\u201d in American history (Banks & Eberhardt, 1998; Hollinger, 2003). From the earliest days of American slavery through the Civil Rights Era, this principle was formally employed to subjugate individuals with any non-White heritage by denying them full rights and liberties under the law. For instance, individuals who had lived in the United States for years but were one-quarter or even one-eighth Japanese were forced to live in internment camps during World War II<\/a> (Werner, 2000).<\/p>\n

Social psychological research reveals that the principle of hypodescent characterizes racial categorization even today. When research participants are presented with images of Black\/White biracial targets, they are more likely to classify them as Black than White (e.g., Halberstadt, Sherman, & Sherman, 2011;<\/strong> Ho, Sidanius, Levin, & Banaji, 2011; Peery & Bodenhausen, 2008). Furthermore, it appears to take fewer minority characteristics (e.g., facial features or ancestors) to be judged as \u201cBlack,\u201d compared to the proportion of majority characteristics it takes to be judged as \u201cWhite\u201d (Ho et al., 2011)…<\/p>\n

…In this article, we propose that biased racial categorization may also be related to ideological motives. Prior research has indicated that race perception and categorization may be influenced by a number of motives, including social identification (Knowles & Peng, 2005) and biological essentialism (Plaks, Malahy, Sedlins, & Shoda, 2012). Furthermore, Caruso, Mead, and Balcetis (2009) found that political conservatives were more likely to believe that a darkened photo of Barack Obama represented his actual appearance, as compared with liberals and moderates. These results are broadly consistent with public opinion data revealing that Republicans are more likely than Democrats and Independents to state that President Obama is Black rather than biracial (Pew Research Center, 2011). In the current research, we explored whether liberals and conservatives would differ in their categorization of racially ambiguous individuals in a nonpolitical context and examined potential psychological mediators of this proposed relationship. More specifically, we conducted three studies to investigate the hypothesis that there would be ideological differences in biased racial categorization…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the ideology of Hypodescent: Political Conservatism Predicts Categorization of Racially Ambiguous Faces as Black Journal of Experimental Social Psychology In Press (May 2013) 32 pages Amy R. Krosch Department of Psychology New York University Leslie Berntsen University of Southern California David M. Amodio, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science New York University John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,26,394,20],"tags":[14770,14769,14772,14771,10998,610,12241,14768,1511,14773],"class_list":["post-31256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-amy-krosch","tag-amy-r-krosch","tag-david-amodio","tag-david-m-amodio","tag-jay-j-van-bavel","tag-jay-van-bavel","tag-john-jost","tag-john-t-jost","tag-journal-of-experimental-social-psychology","tag-leslie-berntsen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46722,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31256\/revisions\/46722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}