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

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, New Media on 2010-07-21 21:18Z by Steven

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.

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Essentialist theory of ‘hybrids’: from animal kinds to ethnic categories and race

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, Social Science on 2010-07-21 20:33Z by Steven

Essentialist theory of ‘hybrids’: from animal kinds to ethnic categories and race

Asian Journal of Social Psychology
Early View (Articles online in advance of print)
Published Online: 2010-07-20
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-839X.2010.01315.x

Wolfgang Wagner
Department of Social and Economic Psychology, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain

Nicole Kronberger
Department of Social and Economic Psychology, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Motohiko Nagata
Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Ragini Sen
Institute of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai, India

Peter Holtz
Department of Social and Economic Psychology, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Fátima Flores Palacios, Faculty of Psychology
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

This article presents a theory of the perception of hybrids, resulting from cross-breeding natural animals that pertain to different species and of children parented by couples with a mixed ethnic or racial background. The theory states that natural living beings, including humans, are perceived as possessing a deeply ingrained characteristic that is called ‘essence’ or ‘blood’ or ‘genes’ in everyday discourse and that uniquely determines their category membership. If, by whatever means, the genes or essences of two animals of different species are combined in a hybrid, the two incompatible essences collapse, leaving the hybrid in a state of non-identity and non-belonging. People despise this state and reject the hybrid (Study 1). This devaluation effect holds with cross-kind hybrids and with hybrids that arise from genetically combining animals from incompatible habitats across three cultures: Austria, India and Japan (Study 2). In the social world, groups and ethnic or racial categories frequently are essentialized in an analogue way. When people with an essentialist mindset judge ethnically or racially mixed offspring, they perceive a collapse of ethnic or racial essence and, consequently, denigrate these children, as compared to children from ‘pure’ in-group or out-group parents (Study 3). The findings are discussed in terms of the widespread ‘yuck factor’ against genetically modified animals, in terms of the cultural concepts of monstrosity and of racism and prejudice.

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