Stereotypes often guide our perceptions of members of social groups. However, research has yet to document what stereotypes may exist for the fastest growing youth demographic in the United States—biracial individuals. Across seven studies (N = 1,104), we investigate what stereotypes are attributed to various biracial groups, whether biracial individuals are stereotyped as more similar to their lower status monoracial parent group (trait hypodescent), and whether contact moderates these stereotypes. Results provide evidence of some universal biracial stereotypes that are applied to all biracial groups: attractive and not fitting in or belonging. We also find that all biracial groups are attributed a number of unique stereotypes (i.e., which are not associated with their monoracial parent groups). However, across all studies, we find little evidence of trait hypodescent and no evidence that the tendency to engage in trait hypodescent varies as a function of contact.
AllportG. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
2.
AmodioD. M.DevineP. G. (2006). Stereotyping and evaluation in implicit race bias: Evidence for independent constructs and unique effects on behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 652-661. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.4.652
3.
BlascovichJ.WyerN. A.SwartL. A.KiblerJ. L. (1997). Racism and racial categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1364-1372. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.72.6.1364
4.
CharmaramanL.WooM.QuachA.ErkutS. (2014). How have researchers studied multiracial populations? A content and methodological review of 20 years of research. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 20, 336-352. doi:10.1037/a0035437
5.
ChenJ. M.HamiltonD. L. (2012). Natural ambiguities: Racial categorization of multiracial individuals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 152-164. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.005
6.
ChenJ. M.KteilyN. S.HoA. K. (2019). Whose side are you on? Asian Americans’ mistrust of Asian-white biracials predicts more exclusion from the ingroup. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45, 827-841. doi:10.1177/0146167218798032
7.
ChenJ. M.MoonsW. G.GaitherS. E.HamiltonD. L.ShermanJ. W. (2014). Motivation to control prejudice predicts categorization of multiracials. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 590-603. doi:10.1177/0146167213520457
8.
ChesleyG. L.WagnerW. G. (2003). Adults’ attitudes toward multiracial children. Journal of Black Psychology, 29, 463-480. doi:10.1177/0095798403256888
9.
CooleyE.Brown-IannuzziJ. L.BrownC. S.PolikoffJ. (2018). Black groups accentuate hypodescent by activating threats to the racial hierarchy. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9, 411-418. doi:10.1177/1948550617708014
10.
DavisF. J. (1991). Who is black? One nation’s definition. University Park, PA: State University Press.
11.
DevineP. G.ElliotA. J. (1995). Are racial stereotypes really fading? The Princeton trilogy revisited. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1139-1150. doi:10.1177/01461672952111002
12.
DondersN. C.CorrellJ.WittenbrinkB. (2008). Danger stereotypes predict racially biased attentional allocation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1328-1333. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.04.002
13.
DuchschererK. M.DovidioJ. F. (2016). When memes are mean: Appraisals of and objections to stereotypic memes. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 2, 335-345. doi:10.1037/tps0000080
14.
DunhamY.OlsonK. R. (2016). Beyond discrete categories: Studying multiracial, intersex, and transgender children will strengthen basic developmental science. Journal of Cognition and Development, 17, 642-665. doi:10.1080/15248372.2016.1195388
15.
FangC. Y.SidaniusJ.PrattoF. (1998). Romance across the social status continuum: Interracial marriage and the ideological asymmetry effect. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 29, 290-305. doi:10.1177/0022022198292002
16.
FiskeS. T.CuddyA. J. C.GlickP.XuJ. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 878-902. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.82.6.878
17.
FraleyR. C.VazireS. (2014). The N-pact factor: Evaluating the quality of empirical journals with respect to sample size and statistical power. PLoS ONE, 9(10), e109019. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109019
18.
GaitherS. E. (2015). “Mixed” results: Multiracial research and identity explorations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 114-119. doi:10.1177/0963721414558115
19.
GaitherS. E.PaukerK.SlepianM. L.SommersS. R. (2016). Social belonging motivates categorization of racially ambiguous faces. Social Cognition, 34, 97-118. doi:101521soco201634297
20.
GaskinsP. (1999). What are you? Voices of mixed-race young people. New York, NY: Holt & Co.
21.
GonzalesP. M.BlantonH.WilliamsK. J. (2002). The effects of stereotype threat and double-minority status on the test performance of Latino women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 659-670. doi:10.1177/0146167202288010
22.
HalberstadtJ.ShermanS. J.ShermanJ. W. (2011). Why Barack Obama is black: A cognitive account of hypodescent. Psychological Science, 22, 29-33. doi:10.1177/0956797610390383
23.
HarrisM. (1964). Patterns of race in the Americas. New York: Doubleday.
24.
HermanM. R. (2010). Do you see what I am? How observers’ backgrounds affect their perceptions of multiracial faces. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73, 58-78. doi:10.1177/0190272510361436
25.
HoA. K.SidaniusJ.LevinD. T.BanajiM. R. (2011). Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 492-506. doi:10.1037/a0021562
26.
JackmanC. F.WagnerW. G.JohnsonJ. T. (2001). The attitudes toward multiracial children scale. Journal of Black Psychology, 27, 86-99. doi:10.1177/0095798401027001005
27.
JohnsonK. L.FreemanJ. B.PaukerK. (2012). Race is gendered: How covarying phenotypes and stereotypes bias sex categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 116-131. doi:10.1037/a0025335
28.
KahnK.HoA. K.SidaniusJ.PrattoF. (2009). The space between us and them: Perceptions of status differences. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 12, 591-604. doi:10.1177/1368430209338716
29.
KarlinsM.CoffmanT. L.WaltersG. (1969). On the fading of social stereotypes: Studies in three generations of college students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 1-16. doi:10.1037/h0027994
30.
KatzD.BralyK. W. (1933). Racial stereotypes of one-hundred college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 280-290. doi:10.1037/h0074049
31.
KelcholiverK.LeslieL. A. (2007). Biracial females’ reflections on racial identity development in adolescence. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 18, 53-75. doi:10.1300/J086v18n04_03
32.
KroschA. K.AmodioD. M. (2014). Economic scarcity alters the perception of race. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 111, 9079-9084. doi:10.1073/pnas.1404448111
33.
KundaZ.MillerD. T.ClaireT. (1990). Combining social concepts: The role of causal reasoning. Cognitive Science, 14, 551-577. doi:10.1016/0364-0213(90)90009-L
34.
LewisM. B. (2010). Why are mixed-race people perceived as more attractive?Perception, 39, 136-138. doi:10.1068/p6626
35.
MaddoxK. B.GrayS. A. (2002). Cognitive representations of black Americans: Reexploring the role of skin tone. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 250-259. doi:10.1177/0146167202282010
36.
MadonS.GuyellM.AboufadelK.MontielE.SmithA.PalumboP.JussimL. (2001). Ethnic and national stereotypes: The Princeton Trilogy revisited and revised. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 996-1010. doi:10.1177/0146167201278007
37.
NicolasG.SkinnerA. L. (2017). Constructing race: How people categorize others and themselves in racial terms. In CohenH.LefebvreC. (Eds.), Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Sciences (2nd ed., pp. 607-635). London, England: Elsevier.
38.
NicolasG.SkinnerA. L.DickterC. (2019). Other than the sum: Hispanic and middle eastern categorizations of black-white mixed-race faces. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 10, 532-541. doi:10.1177/1948550618769591
39.
OldmeadowJ.FiskeS. T. (2007). System-justifying ideologies moderate status=competence stereotypes: Roles for belief in a just world and social dominance orientation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37, 1135-1148. doi:10.1002/ejsp.428
40.
PaukerK.WeisbuchM.AmbadyN.SommersS. R.Adams JrR. B.IvcevicZ. (2009). Not so black and white: Memory for ambiguous group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 795-810. doi:10.1037/a0013265
41.
PeeryD.BodenhausenG. V. (2008). Black + white = black: Hypodescent in reflexive categorization of racially ambiguous faces. Psychological Science, 19, 973-978.
42.
PettigrewT. F.TroppL. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751-783. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751
43.
PeughJ. L. (2010). A practical guide to multilevel modeling. Journal of School Psychology, 48, 85-112. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2009.09.002
44.
Purdie-VaughnsV.EibachR. P. (2008). Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities. Sex Roles, 59, 377-391. doi:10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4
45.
RemediosJ. D.ChasteenA. L. (2013). Finally, someone who “gets” me! Multiracial people value others’ accuracy about their race. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 19, 453-460. doi:10.1037/a0032249
46.
RemediosJ. D.ChasteenA. L.OeyE. (2012). “Unskilled” workers: Social skills stereotypes affect evaluations of biracial job applicants. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 34, 204-211. doi:10.1080/01973533.2012.674451
47.
RhodesG.LeeK.PalermoR.WeissM.YoshikawaS.ClissaP.. . . JefferyL. (2005). Attractiveness of own-race, other-race, and mixed-race faces. Perception, 34, 319-340. doi:10.1068/p5191
48.
RichesonJ. A.SommersS. R. (2016). Toward a social psychology of race and race relations for the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 439-463. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115115
49.
RodehefferC. D.HillS. E.LordC. G. (2012). Does this recession make me look black? The effect of resource scarcity on the categorization of biracial faces. Psychological Science, 23, 1476-1478. doi:10.1177/0956797612450892
50.
SanchezD. T.BonamC. M. (2009). To disclose or not to disclose biracial identity: The effect of biracial disclosure on perceiver evaluations and target responses. Journal of Social Issues, 65, 129-149. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.01591.x
51.
ShihM.BonamC.SanchezD.PeckC. (2007). The social construction of race: Biracial identity and vulnerability to stereotypes. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 13, 125-133. doi:10.1037/1099-9809.13.2.125
52.
SidaniusJ.PrattoF. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
53.
SimsJ. P. (2012). Beautiful stereotypes: The relationship between physical attractiveness and mixed race identity. Identities, 19, 61-80. doi:10.1080/1070289X.2012.672838
54.
SkinnerA. L.NicolasG. (2015). Looking black or looking back? Using phenotype and ancestry to make racial categorizations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 57, 55-63. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2014.11.011
55.
SmithE. R.MillerD. A.MaitnerA. T.CrumpS. A.Garcia-MarquesT.MackieD. M. (2006). Familiarity can increase stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 471-478. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.07.002
56.
SmithJ. P.EdmonstonB. (1997). The new Americans. Washington, DC: National Academy.
57.
TajfelH. (1982). Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology, 26, 1-39. 10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.000245
YoungD. M.SanchezD. T.PaukerK.GaitherS. E. (2018). Testing the predictions of hypodescent and the ingroup over-exclusion effect: Meta-analytic and systematic review of multiracial and racially ambiguous categorization. Under review.
61.
ZouL. X.CheryanS. (2017). Two axes of subordination: A new model of racial position. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112, 696-717. doi:10.1037/pspa000008
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
