A review of White‐centering practices in multiracial research in social psychology

Abstract

AbstractMultiracial people—those whose racial ancestry is comprised of two or more races—have always had a presence in the United States. However, since the recent US Census shift to allow people to identify with multiple racial groups, social psychologists have shown increased interest in multiracial identity. However, we argue multiracial research tends to emphasize the perceptions, thoughts, and interests of White people through White‐centering research practices, which reproduces racial inequality. To understand how multiracial research within social psychology has been shaped by White‐centering research practices, we reviewed literature in social psychology examining multiraciality. We show that White‐centering practices exist within this literature and explore how White‐centering research practices lead to misrepresentations of the conclusions that may be drawn from multiracial research, underscoring how these conclusions affirm racial power or Whiteness. We suggest Critical Race Psychology as a possible framework to help dismantle the affirmation of Whiteness in multiracial research.