Beyond Black and White: Conceptualizing and Essentializing Black-White Identity

Objective: Psychological research suggests that Black-White individuals are often conceptualized as Black and White, and that essentialist beliefs about race are negatively associated with conceptualizing Black-White individuals as such. The present research examined what people think it means to be Black and White (e.g., a mixture of Black and White vs. completely Black and completely White) and whether essentialism is indeed negatively associated with such concepts. Method: We used multiple methodologies (e.g., surveys, open-ended explanations, experimental manipulations) to examine how Black, White, and Black-White perceivers conceptualized Black-White individuals (Studies 1-3) and the extent to which essentialist beliefs, both dispositional (Studies 2-3) and experimentally induced (Study 4), predicted those concepts. Results: We find that U.S. Black-White individuals most often conceptualized "Black and White" to mean a mixture of Black and White (Study 1), as did U.S. White individuals and U.S. Black individuals (Studies 2 and 3), and that racial essentialism-both dispositional (Studies 2 and 3) and experimentally manipulated (Study 4)-was positively associated with this conception. Conclusion: Our data shed new light on the complexity of race concepts and essentialism and advance the psychological understanding of Black-White identity. Public Significance Statement It has been suggested that in the U.S., Black-White individuals are commonly conceptualized as Black and White and that racial essentialism is negatively associated with this concept. Our research suggests that Black-White individuals are commonly conceptualized in a way that goes beyond the notion that they are simply Black and White (i.e., Black-White participants, Black participants, and White participants commonly conceptualize Black-White individuals as mixtures of Black and White), and that this conception is positively associated with essentialism (i.e., Black-White individuals are fixed between Blackness and Whiteness). Implications for Black-White identity and social cognition are discussed.