Dimensions of Racial Essentialism and Racial Nominalism: A Mixed-Methods Study of Beliefs About Race

Abstract

The researcher used a mixed-methods approach to examine the breadth and prevalence of people’s understandings of race. Open-ended qualitative interviews with undergraduate students at a private university (N = 28) were used to inductively develop a multidimensional model of beliefs about race; eight beliefs about race were subsumed under two broader categories including racial essentialism (i.e., belief in race as naturally occurring entities) and racial nominalism (i.e., belief in race as a social idea). In the quantitative stage, a broader community sample (N = 575) completed an online survey comprised of questions generated from qualitative interviewees’ descriptions of their beliefs. Analyses of survey responses offer estimates of the prevalence of the eight beliefs about race as well as point to demographic variation in endorsement of these beliefs. Essentialist beliefs tended to more frequently be endorsed by males, people of color, immigrants, and non-college students; nominalist beliefs tended to be endorsed by females and college students. Findings are discussed in relation to the conceptualization of beliefs about race and the potential impact of this model for the study of inter-group behavior.