Testing Cross's revised racial identity model: An examination of the relationship between racial identity and internalized racialism.

Abstract

This study tested William Cross’s (1991, 1995) revised racial identity model. The relationship between racial identity attitudes and internalized racialism was examined in 153 African American college students attending a historically Black university. Participants completed the Cross Racial Identity Scale (B. J. Vandiver et al., 2000) and the Nadanolitization Scale (J. Taylor & C. Grundy, 1996). Findings indicated that the pre-encounter racial identity attitudes of miseducation and self-hatred, and immersion– emersion anti-White attitudes, were positively related to beliefs in the mental and genetic deficiencies of Blacks as well as the sexual prowess of Blacks. Pre-encounter assimilation attitudes were negatively related to beliefs in the natural abilities of Blacks, whereas internalization Afrocentricity attitudes were positively related. These results provide support for Cross’s revisions of his racial identity model. Perhaps no other topic in the multicultural counseling and psychology literature has been as heavily researched with African Americans as that of racial identity. During a span of over 30 years dating back to Cross’s (1971) seminal contribution, research on racial identity has increased considerably. A review of dissertations pertaining to African Americans reveals that racial identity has been an increasingly popular area of inquiry for graduate students. These studies have overwhelmingly relied on the original nigrescence model (Cross, 1971). The original nigrescence model described developmental stages that Blacks in America go through to obtain a psychologically healthy Black identity. In the original model, there were five stages (pre-encounter, encounter, immersion– emersion, internalization, and internalization commitment). The model was then operationalized using the Racial Identity Attitudes Scale (RIAS; Parham & Helms, 1981). The RIAS currently has three different versions (RIAS, RIAS-B, and RIAS-L) and has been the subject of a number of psychometric investigations that have raised concerns about the validity of the instruments (Fisher, Tokar, & Serna, 1998; Ponterotto & Wise, 1987;