Racial Preferences Research Articles

Racial residential segregation in multiple neighborhood markets: a dynamic sorting study

Various degrees of residential segregation by income and race generally exist in U.S. cities. This study extends Sethi and Somanathan’s theoretical model (J Polit Econ 112:1296–1321, 2004) by presenting an agent-based sorting, repeated-game model to quantify the patterns of segregation from a broader perspective. Based on the belief that residential racial segregation is a probabilistic problem without assured results, a numerical model—calibrated to U.S. household income data—is proposed to examine residential segregation by income and racial preferences. Similar to the SimSeg model developed by Fosset (J Math Sociol 30:185–274, 2006a; J Math Sociol 35:114–145, 2011), the numerical model we construct is based on a simple format which also explores segregation dynamics. The simulation results exhibit various degrees of segregation probability in a hypothetical three-neighborhood scenario. It also reveals that although income plays an important role, racial consciousness—the measurement of an agent’s attitude toward the racial composition of the neighborhood—is the dominant factor in determining residential segregation.

Preserving racial hierarchy amidst changing racial demographics: how neighbourhood racial preferences are changing while maintaining segregation

ABSTRACTDespite long-term, documented declines in racialized attitudes, racial inequality persists. Scholars have theorized why this dissonance exists but few have empirically demonstrated how views can become more progressive while simultaneously maintaining inequality. The present study uses neighbourhood racial preferences and their influence on racial residential segregation to demonstrate how in a diversifying context residents can become more “accepting” while simultaneously maintaining the racial hierarchy, the opposite of what most of the literature currently assumes. Using data from three distinct sources in the United States, this research finds that U.S. residents are increasingly willing to live amidst diversity yet whites still concentrate in white neighbourhoods. In short, white Americans are more willing to live in diverse neighbourhoods than in the past, but they are not willing to desegregate. We argue this preserves racial inequality. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and their implications for future research and practice.

The Best Way to Measure Explicit Racial Attitudes Is to Ask About Them

Direct assessments of explicit racial attitudes, such as reporting an overt preference for White versus Black people, may raise social desirability concerns and reduce measurement quality. As a result, researchers have developed more indirect self-report measures of explicit racial attitudes. While such measures dampen social desirability concerns, they may weaken measurement quality by assessing construct-irrelevant attitudes, thereby lowering correspondence between measure and construct. To investigate whether direct or indirect self-report measures better assess explicit racial attitudes, participants (N > 800,000) completed an implicit racial attitude measure and a subset of over 400 items that varied in the degree to which they were indirect or direct assessments of self-reported racial attitudes. More direct assessments of racial preferences were better predictors of implicit racial attitudes and maximized differences between Black and White participants. These results suggest that the best method to measure individuals’ explicit racial attitudes is to ask about them directly.

The colour of family happiness: adoption and the racial distribution of children in contemporary France

In France, the notion of itself – which echoes both (post-)colonialist discourses and a long history of state-regulated racism – is usually publicly inexpressible, despite its implicit presence that nonetheless saturates public debates. However, in some specific cases, such as transnational adoption, the verbalisation of racial preferences and desires are encouraged by social workers and family experts, as a mean to prevent racism. This article aims to analyse the kind of practical institutional framing which produces and supports such a verbalisation, and to explore its consequences with respect to the definition of racial hierarchies. Hence, instead of considering the preference of skin colour as a pre-established parental desire that informs the racial distribution of children, I suggest focusing on the French case to analyse the racialization of familial desires produced by and for the apparatus that frames adoption. Thus, by concentrating on the governance of family intimacy, this article aims to question the social dynamics that construct race as a meaningful performative category requiring professional expertise and action, that allow its public expression, and that even facilitate the verbalisation of racial preferences in an institutional context supposedly defined by colour-blindness.

Voting for one’s own: racial group identification and candidate preferences

ABSTRACTWe know that voters have a baseline preference for candidates with whom they share a racial background, but whether and why a shared racial identity influences political decisions is the critical question. This article examines how shared racial characteristics lead racial minority voters to vote for candidates of the same race. Using a unique online experiment, we test the social psychological bases for racial affinity. We expect that for higher status minority groups, identity- rather than interest-based motivations offer the greatest explanatory value. Our findings support this supposition. Our results provide new insights into the political behavior of racial minority voters, and have implications for theories of vote choice and affinity, as well as practical applications for party strategists and candidates.

Minority status stress, racial centrality, and racial socialization as predictors of Black Americans’ preference for counselor race in a United States sample

In the United States, Black Americans’ counseling experiences are associated with concerns that are unique to their racialized status. Understanding the range of cultural factors that influence Black Americans’ preferences in the context of counseling remains an important topic in marketing and providing high-quality counseling services to this population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of racial centrality, affirming socialization around race, and minority status stress on counselor racial preference among Black college students (N = 139) in the United States. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression revealed that racial centrality and minority stress independently predicted preference for a racially similar counselor in this sample of respondents. A significant interaction between minority stress and affirming racial socialization revealed that the effect of minority status stress on counselor racial preference was attenuated at high levels of affirming racial socialization. Findings are discussed in the context of racial identity and racial socialization theories, with emphasis on implications for counseling practice and clinical training.

How to integrate economic analysis into classroom discussions of diversity?

The companion issues of racial preferences in college admissions and minority representation in the faculty ranks figure prominently and provocatively in social discourse today. As a result, questions related to these potentially divisive issues arise naturally in the course of classroom discussions of current events. This paper advances a set of teaching principles that serves to frame the debate and integrate economic analysis into the objective assessment of these issues. This framework is then applied to the examination of three seminal, real-world questions related to diversity in higher education.

The effect of heterogeneous race exposure during infancy

Over the first year of life face processing passes through a period of perceptual narrowing. Such narrowing reflects the closure of a sensitive period associated with a loss of perceptual and neural plasticity. One example of perceptual narrowing is the “other-race” effect (ORE), in which humans more easily recognize and discriminate faces of one’s own race than faces different from their own. In the present study, we sought to understand the consequences of having limited racial experience versus exposure to a diverse racial environment with regard to infants’ looking preferences to different race faces. We employed a looking time paradigm with 47 infants to examine race preferences as a function of differential exposure to multiple races in the caregiving environment at 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months of age. The results revealed: 1) Caucasian and African-American infants were more likely to have homogenous race exposure to caregivers of their own race; 2) there was no difference in preferential looking behavior between infants exposed to a single race versus multiple races at all ages except 10-months (infants exposed to multiple races fixated longer to a race than infants exposed to only one race); 3) infants allocate their gaze more uniformly across the face pairs over time, and 4) infants in this sample did not exhibit own-race preferences. The results suggest that racial exposure to caregivers has little influence on face preference among infants and that face preferences tend to disappear with age. Further studies are needed to evaluate the role of race preference on the child’s neurobehavioral and social development.

Race, Resources, and Representation

What explains the persistence of racial or ethnic inequalities in descriptive representation in the absence of strongly politicized racial or ethnic cleavages? This article uses new data to demonstrate a substantial racial gap between voters and politicians in Brazil. The authors show that this disparity is not plausibly due to racial preferences in the electorate as a whole, for instance, deference toward white candidates or discrimination against nonwhites, and that barriers to candidate entry or discrimination by party leaders do not likely explain the gap. Instead, they document persistent resource disparities between white and nonwhite candidates, including large differences in personal assets and campaign contributions. The findings suggest that elite closure—investments by racial and economic elites on behalf of elite candidates—help perpetuate a white political class, even in the absence of racialized politics. By underscoring this avenue through which representational disparities persist, the article contributes to research on elite power in democratic settings.

Race, Resources, and Representation: Evidence from Brazilian Politicians

What explains the persistence of racial or ethnic inequalities in political representation, in the absence of strongly politicized racial or ethnic cleavages? This paper uses new data to demonstrate a substantial racial gap between voters and politicians in Brazil. We show that this disparity is not plausibly due to racial preferences in the electorate -- for instance, deference towards white candidates, or discrimination against non-whites. Nor do barriers to candidate entry or discrimination by party leaders likely explain the gap. Instead, we document the importance of persistent resource disparities between whites and non-whites -- especially, differences in personal assets and in campaign contributions. Our findings show how the power of numerical ethnic minorities may persist in democracies, even in the absence of ethnicized politics, and highlight the consequences of investments by economic elites in a setting in which race and class substantially overlap.

Implicit Racial Bias in Medical School Admissions.

Implicit white race preference has been associated with discrimination in the education, criminal justice, and health care systems and could impede the entry of African Americans into the medical profession, where they and other minorities remain underrepresented. Little is known about implicit racial bias in medical school admissions committees. To measure implicit racial bias, all 140 members of the Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM) admissions committee took the black-white implicit association test (IAT) prior to the 2012-2013 cycle. Results were collated by gender and student versus faculty status. To record their impressions of the impact of the IAT on the admissions process, members took a survey at the end of the cycle, which 100 (71%) completed. All groups (men, women, students, faculty) displayed significant levels of implicit white preference; men (d = 0.697) and faculty (d = 0.820) had the largest bias measures (P < .001). Most survey respondents (67%) thought the IAT might be helpful in reducing bias, 48% were conscious of their individual results when interviewing candidates in the next cycle, and 21% reported knowledge of their IAT results impacted their admissions decisions in the subsequent cycle. The class that matriculated following the IAT exercise was the most diverse in OSUCOM's history at that time. Future directions include preceding and following the IAT with more robust reflection and education on unconscious bias. The authors join others in calling for an examination of bias at all levels of academic medicine.

Racialized Femininity and Masculinity in the Preferences of Online Same-sex Daters

This study considers how online dating preferences reflect gendered racial inequality among same-sex daters. Research shows that heterosexuals reproduce gendered racial hierarchies through partner preferences, yet little work examines the preferences of sexual minorities, especially lesbians. Moreover, few studies examine racial heterophily (a preference for racial groups other than one’s own), which may influence interracial pairings. Using data from 4,266 Match.com dating profiles, we find that Asian, Latino, and Black lesbians and gays exhibit higher rates of racial heterophily than do Whites. Lesbians of color are less likely to self-exclude or to prefer Whites, and are more likely to not state a race preference than are minority gays. Self-exclusionary minority daters often discuss ideal masculinities and femininities in their profiles, suggesting that such exclusions are motivated by both racialized and gendered ideals for partners. Drawing on theories of homonormativity, we conclude that gays conform more to racialized, gendered ideals than do lesbians.

State affirmative action bans and STEM degree completions

This paper investigates the effect of statewide affirmative action bans on minority STEM degree completions at US public four-year colleges. The number of minority students completing STEM degrees at highly selective colleges falls by 19% five years after affirmative action bans, while there is no change in the total number of students completing STEM degrees. This indicates that a nontrivial number of minority students only admitted to highly selective colleges because of affirmative action graduate in STEM during periods of race preferences in college admissions. There is no convincing evidence of effects at moderately selective colleges. These findings speak to the recent debate about the extent to which minority students admitted to top ranked colleges due to affirmative action may have higher probabilities of graduating in the sciences if they had attended lower ranked colleges. Results are presented with the caveats that changes in race reporting caused by affirmative action bans may upwardly bias estimated effects, and that estimated aggregate effects may not fully capture all student-level responses.

Assessing Racial Preferences in Movies: The Impact of Mere-Exposure and Social Identity Theory

Current media attention on the lack of racial diversity in the movie and TV industry in the US suggests that there is an innate bias of Whitewashing in the US media by media executives (Jones, 2016). However, some have suggested that the Whitewashing is an audience preference. Is the preference for White actors a product of bias by media executives or driven by audience preferences? This study tested whether social identity theory or the mere-exposure effect would have an impact on the racial preference of actors for monoracial People of Color, Multiracial, and White individuals. We found a preference for White actors and Whitewashing, but this preference was only found for Western stories and by monoracial People of Color Minorities when they were exposed to Asian actors. These findings suggest that other factors, specifically cultural values may be important in understanding preference for White actors in the media.

How Cranial Shapes Led to Contemporary Ethnic Classification: A Historical View.

In the medical literature, various ethnic terms such as Caucasian or Mongolian,are sporadically cited to indicate the relationship between certain disorders and the geographical origin of individuals. Few scientists recognize that those definitions stem from a medical thesis written by the German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1775. Through considering cranial shapes, Blumenbach proposed five race varieties including the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Malayan, the Ethiopian, and the American. While he favored only beauty, his contemporaries reclaimed an intellectuality arrangement among those race types and gave the highest credibility to Caucasian, which therefore, besides defining an ethnicity, has conveyed a discriminatory meaning. The term had been widely used in the medical literature without knowledge of its historical background. Although not commonly used any longer, the Caucasian and similar terms that reflect racial preference should be abandoned in medical text and replaced by more favorable definitions.

People Like Us: Dominance-oriented Racial Affiliation Preferences and the White Greek System on a Southern U.S. Campus

ABSTRACTStudying in-group affiliation preferences can be a valuable tool for understanding race relations in the contemporary United States. We draw on theories of social dominance and social identity to analyze racial attitudes, as measured by the Social Distance Scale, for a subset of black and white students at the University of Mississippi. While both black and white students expressed strong in-group preference, this preference was stronger for whites than for blacks, especially for white women presently affiliated or planning to affiliate with campus Greek organizations. Social dominance orientation, a measure describing whether social inequalities are accepted and justified, mediated the greater in-group preference of many whites, especially for intimate or high-power relationships. We discuss possible individual and institutional causes for the differences we observe, and we draw implications for understanding continued self-segregation both on- and off-campus in a society that implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, espouses “color-blind” ideals.

Parent–child closeness and acculturation in predicting racial preference in mate selection among Asian Americans.

Parent–child closeness and acculturation in predicting racial preference in mate selection among Asian Americans.

A Comparative Investigation of 18 Interventions to Reduce Implicit Racial Preferences

Many methods for reducing implicit prejudice have been identified, but little is known about their relative effectiveness. We held a research contest to experimentally compare interventions for reducing the expression of implicit racial prejudice. Teams submitted seventeen interventions that were tested an average of 3.70 times each in four studies (total N = 17,021), with rules for revising interventions between studies. Eight of seventeen interventions were effective at reducing implicit preferences for Whites compared to Blacks, particularly ones that provided experience with counterstereotypical exemplars, used evaluative conditioning methods, and provided strategies to override biases. The other nine interventions were ineffective, particularly ones that engaged participants with others’ perspectives, asked participants to consider egalitarian values, or induced a positive emotion. The most potent interventions were ones that invoked high self-involvement or linked Black people with positivity and White people with negativity. No intervention consistently reduced explicit racial preferences. Furthermore, intervention effectiveness only weakly extended to implicit preferences for Asians and Hispanics.

Reducing implicit racial preferences: II. Intervention effectiveness across time.

Implicit preferences are malleable, but does that change last? We tested 9 interventions (8 real and 1 sham) to reduce implicit racial preferences over time. In 2 studies with a total of 6,321 participants, all 9 interventions immediately reduced implicit preferences. However, none were effective after a delay of several hours to several days. We also found that these interventions did not change explicit racial preferences and were not reliably moderated by motivations to respond without prejudice. Short-term malleability in implicit preferences does not necessarily lead to long-term change, raising new questions about the flexibility and stability of implicit preferences. (PsycINFO Database Record

Weeds in the Ivy: college admissions under preference constraints

ABSTRACTIn a series of cases spanning more than three decades, the courts have attempted to establish boundaries on the permissible use of racial preferences in college admissions. Proponents of these policies believe that race-based preferences are needed to create a diverse student body that facilitates effective learning and social inclusion. Opponents of such policies contend that racial preferences are inherently discriminatory and eliminating them would yield a more able student body. Whereas race-based preferences have garnered the most attention, elite colleges regularly employ other types of preferences, including those for alumni and talented athletes. To inform this important policy debate, we develop a simple model comprised of a rational college administrator that maximizes a linear combination of student body ability and the college endowment through the choice of race, legacy and merit admission shares. We find that relaxing the racial-preferences constraint can produce a ‘less-able’ student body even when the college administrator places greater weight on student body ability than she does on the college endowment. The change in admissions policy may serve only to increase the number of admissions that can be ‘sold’ to wealthy alumni through legacy preferences and thereby foster the growth of weeds in the Ivy.