Abstract
This study focuses on the measurement and modeling of Racial Identification among non-Hispanic White and Black Americans. Using data from the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS), we compare the structure of racial identity among Whites and Blacks in two ways. First, using factor and reliability analysis on items tapping five aspects of racial identity (prominence, salience, private self-regard, public self-regard, and verification), we examine the underlying structure of racial identity. Here, our focus is on whether a comparable and reliable composite measure of Racial Identification (RI) can be constructed for use among both non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks; our results suggest that it can. We then turn to an examination of how RI is distributed in the social structure, with a special focus on the effects of race and other social and political background variables. Specifically, we examine (1) whether there are racial group differences in RI, (2) if any such differences hold net of the effects of the other background variables, and (3) if Whites and Blacks differ with respect to any of these RI determinants. Our results show noteworthy racial group differences both in levels of RI, and in several of its determinants. We discuss our results in relation to scholarship on race in identity theory as well as to broader calls for greater incorporation of race/ethnicity into social psychological research.
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Notes
- 1.
We use the terms race, race/ethnicity, and race and ethnicity interchangeably in this paper, while recognizing that race and ethnicity can be conceptualized as distinct or overlapping bases of identification (Cornell & Hartmann, 1997).
- 2.
By “seriously consider,” Hunt et al. (2000, 2013) mean any article that uses race in its title, uses race as an independent or dependent variable (including racial attitudes, for example), or which tests the “assumption of race/ethnic similarity,” that is, whether findings generalize across race/ethnic lines.
- 3.
Hunt (2020) examined such a five-item measure, which he termed “racial identity intensity,” in a study of white GSS respondents. Stets and Fares (2019) used a four-item measure of the same construct, which they refer to as Racial Identification. We follow Hunt’s lead on measurement while adopting Stets and Fare’s terminology in the current study.
- 4.
See also Stets (2021) for a discussion of how micro, meso, and macro levels of social structure relate to the issue of identity.
- 5.
From 2006 to 2014, the GSS fielded both a nationally representative cross-section and a repeating panel. See NORC’s “Release Notes for the GSS 2014 Merged File” for more background on weighting with the 2014 merged data. See Appendix A of the GSS codebook for full details on sample design and weighting. The WTCOMBNR variable additionally corrects for non-response occurring during the two-stage subsampling process the GSS introduced in 2004.
- 6.
Oliver and Wong (2003) show that, at the neighborhood level, greater interethnic propinquity reduces intergroup prejudice and competition, consistent with the expectations of intergroup contact theory. However, they also observe that—at the level of metropolitan areas—larger minority population shares increase intergroup hostility, a finding consistent with other research on group threat, for example, Taylor (1998). Krysan and Farley (2003) document Blacks’ reluctance to move into all or mostly White neighborhoods, as such “pioneering” is associated with White hostility. And, Hunt and colleagues (2007) find that Blacks report higher levels of racial discrimination in neighborhoods where Blacks represent a smaller share of the local population.
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Hunt, M.O., Reichelmann, A.V. (2023). The Structure of Racial Identity: Comparing Non-Hispanic White and Black Americans. In: Stets, J.E., Reichelmann, A.V., Kiecolt, K.J. (eds) Advancing Identity Theory, Measurement, and Research. Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32986-9_15
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