Color-Blind: The Treatment of Race and Ethnicity in Social Psychology

Abstract

We explore the extent to which race and ethnicity have been incorporated in social psychological scholarship and argue that social psychologists should, and can, do better in this regard. First, we discuss why social psychologists should consider race more seriously. We question whether scholars can reasonably continue to assume that basic social psychological processes and theories apply equally well to different racial and ethnic groups. Second, we document the extent to which social psychology has engaged issues of race and ethnicity through a content analysis of the last three decades of Social Psychology Quarterly and the two most comprehensive sourcebooks for social psychology. Comparisons with other specialty journals in sociology and psychology and with the increasing research on gender over the same period highlight the extent to which race has been neglected in social psychology. Finally, in looking to the future, we discuss how race can be given more attention in light of recent methodological advances and emerging research programs.