Direct-to-Consumer Racial Admixture Tests and Beliefs About Essential Racial Differences |
Direct-to-Consumer Racial Admixture Tests and Beliefs About Essential Racial Differences
Social Psychology Quarterly
Volume 77, Number 3 (September 2014)
pages 296-318
DOI: 10.1177/0190272514529439
Jo C. Phelan, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences
Columbia University, New York, New York
Bruce G. Link, Professor of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences
Columbia University, New York, New York; New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York
Sarah Zelner
Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Lawrence H. Yang, Associate Professor of Epidemiology
Columbia University, New York, New York
Although at first relatively disinterested in race, modern genomic research has increasingly turned attention to racial variations. We examine a prominent example of this focus—direct-to-consumer racial admixture tests—and ask how information about the methods and results of these tests in news media may affect beliefs in racial differences. The reification hypothesis proposes that by emphasizing a genetic basis for race, thereby reifying race as a biological reality, the tests increase beliefs that whites and blacks are essentially different. The challenge hypothesis suggests that by describing differences between racial groups as continua rather than sharp demarcations, the results produced by admixture tests break down racial categories and reduce beliefs in racial differences. A nationally representative survey experiment (N = 526) provided clear support for the reification hypothesis. The results suggest that an unintended consequence of the genomic revolution may be to reinvigorate age-old beliefs in essential racial differences.
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Tags: Bruce G. Link, Bruce Link, Jo C. Phelan, Jo Phelan, Lawrence H. Yang, Lawrence Yang, Sarah Zelner, Social Psychology Quarterly