{"id":9364,"date":"2018-07-06T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=9364"},"modified":"2018-07-02T16:58:23","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T16:58:23","slug":"skin-color-self-identity-and-perceptions-of-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2018\/07\/06\/skin-color-self-identity-and-perceptions-of-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Skin Color, Self-Identity, and Perceptions of Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Casey Stockstill, <\/span>“Does Asserting a Nonblack Identity Elicit Positive Evaluations? White Observers\u2019 Reactions to Black, Biracial, Multiracial, and White Job Applicants,” Sociological Perspectives<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2017<\/span><\/div>\n
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Photo by matt wengerd, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Race and racial identity shape the ways people treat us, and people generally classify one another\u2019s race quickly. This becomes more complex, however, for those who don\u2019t fit neatly into a specific racial category. Research by <\/span>Casey Stockstill<\/span><\/a>\u00a0shows that social perceptions about people who are <\/span>multiracial<\/span><\/i> can be shaped by factors such as skin color, as well as the racial identity that a multiracial person expresses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stockstill conducted two experiments with business students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In the first, participants evaluated an applicant for a peer-counselor position at the school; the application came with a picture of the applicant, a light-skinned male. Stockstill presented four different versions of the applications, changing whether the applicant identified as \u201cblack,\u201d \u201cmultiracial,\u201d \u201cbiracial,\u201d or \u201cwhite\u201d on their application. Then, in a second experiment, Stockstill did the same thing, but included a picture of a dark-skinned applicant instead. Stockstill asked participants to identify the applicant’s race and determine whether the applicant would be good for the job.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>Regardless of skin color or asserted racial identity, participants’ evaluations of the applicants\u2019 qualities and ability to handle the job were relatively similar. Stockstill did, however, find differences in the impacts of skin color and racial self-identity on how participants perceived the applicant\u2019s race. For the most part, participants agreed with both the light-skinned and dark-skinned applicant\u2019s self-presentation as black, biracial, or multiracial. On the other hand, participants were more likely to agree with the light-skinned applicant\u2019s self-presentation as white than they were for the dark-skinned applicant. In other words, skin color was a greater predictor of how participants interpreted the race of multiracial applicants who asserted a\u00a0<\/span>white<\/span><\/i> identity.\u00a0Skin-color was a greater predictor of how participants interpreted the race of multiracial applicants who asserted a\u00a0white identity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The racial identity of the participant also mattered. White participants were more likely to state that the applicant was non-white, particularly for the dark-skinned applicant. These findings — highlighting the conflict between skin color and self-asserted racial identification for how people perceive one another’s race — show us the persistence of racial boundaries even in a society that is more racially tolerant than the past. Since this is especially true for multiracial individuals who identify as white, it is clear that the category\u00a0white<\/em>\u00a0has decidedly fewer shades of gray.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casey Stockstill, “Does Asserting a Nonblack Identity Elicit Positive Evaluations? White Observers\u2019 Reactions to Black, Biracial, Multiracial, and White Job Applicants,” Sociological Perspectives, 2017 Race and racial identity shape the ways people treat us, and people generally classify one another\u2019s race quickly. This becomes more complex, however, for those who don\u2019t fit neatly into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,14],"tags":[40260,32540,14907,123,347,37332,1123,37333,37569,3355,82,109361],"class_list":["post-9364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-inequality","category-race","tag-biracial","tag-colorism","tag-sociology-of-culture","tag-ethnicity","tag-identity","tag-inequality","tag-multiracial","tag-race","tag-racial-identity","tag-racialization","tag-racism","tag-skin-color"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9364"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9375,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364\/revisions\/9375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}