The purpose of this study was to integrate and validate a multidimensional model of ethnic-racial identity and gender identity borrowing constructs and measures based on social identity and gender identity theories. Participants included 662 emerging adults (M age = 19.86 years; 75 % female) who self-identified either as Asian American, Latino/a, or White European American. We assessed the following facets separately for ethnic-racial identity and gender identity: centrality, in-group affect, in-group ties, self-perceived typicality, and felt conformity pressure. Within each identity domain (gender or ethnicity/race), the five dimensions generally indicated small-to-moderate correlations with one another. Also, correlations between domains for each dimension (e.g., gender typicality and ethnic-racial typicality) were mostly moderate in magnitude. We also noted some group variations based on participants' ethnicity/race and gender in how strongly particular dimensions were associated with self-esteem. Finally, participants who scored positively on identity dimensions for both gender and ethnic-racial domains indicated higher self-esteem than those who scored high in only one domain or low in both domains. We recommend the application of multidimensional models to study social identities in multiple domains as they may relate to various outcomes during development.
The present study based on social identity theory and phenotypic bias models examined how variations in phenotype and behavior related to in-group belonging and stereotyping for African American adolescents and emerging adults. Although ethnic-racial typicality is often considered as either phenotypic or behavioral, little research has investigated the interaction of these two dimensions. Forty African American high school students ( Mage = 15.38, SD = 0.81) and 42 college students ( Mage = 19.55, SD = 1.35) watched animated clips of African American male characters varying in typicality. Participants rated the character’s stereotypical traits, academic potential, and likelihood of intraracial group belonging. Results showed that characters who were stereotypical in behavior were rated with higher averages of stereotypical traits, lower averages of counterstereotypical traits, and more likely to belong than were characters with less-typical behaviors. There was also an interaction between a character’s behavior and phenotype for judgments of academic potential among high school students, but not college students. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for African American youth are discussed.
Guided by social identity and intergroup theory, we tested how two facets of ethnic-racial identity—felt typicality (perceived similarity to other ingroup members) and ingroup ties (felt closeness to other ingroup members)—potentially buffer the negative effects of outgroup discrimination and ingroup marginalization on self-esteem. Participants included 407 Latinx (65%) and Black (35%) undergraduates (Mage = 24.72 years, 79% women, 21% men) who completed an online survey. Our analyses yielded three key findings. First, both outgroup discrimination and ingroup marginalization predicted lower self-esteem; however, this association was significantly stronger with ingroup marginalization than outgroup discrimination. Second, the association between ingroup marginalization and self-esteem was reduced when ethnic-racial identity variables were controlled. Felt ethnic-racial typicality additionally moderated the association between ingroup marginalization and self-esteem—whereby the negative association was stronger when individuals felt higher ethnic-racial typicality. Our findings expand understanding of the impact of marginalization and discrimination from those within and outside of one’s ethnic-racial group, respectively. We also discuss the differing roles of ethnic-racial identity when experiencing outgroup discrimination and ingroup marginalization.
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