Race plays an important role in how people think, develop, and behave. In the current article, we queried more than 26,000 empirical articles published between 1974 and 2018 in top-tier cognitive, developmental, and social psychology journals to document how often psychological research acknowledges this reality and to examine whether people who edit, write, and participate in the research are systematically connected. We note several findings. First, across the past five decades, psychological publications that highlight race have been rare, and although they have increased in developmental and social psychology, they have remained virtually nonexistent in cognitive psychology. Second, most publications have been edited by White editors, under which there have been significantly fewer publications that highlight race. Third, many of the publications that highlight race have been written by White authors who employed significantly fewer participants of color. In many cases, we document variation as a function of area and decade. We argue that systemic inequality exists within psychological research and that systemic changes are needed to ensure that psychological research benefits from diversity in editing, writing, and participation. To this end, and in the spirit of the field’s recent emphasis on metascience, we offer recommendations for journals and authors.

We theorized that from the perspective of U.S. Black Americans, a connection to Black ancestry-and the historical hardship associated with that ancestry-plays an important role in racial categorization. We found support for this across six studies. In Studies 1-3, participants categorized targets with Black ancestry and White experiences or targets with White ancestry and Black experiences. U.S. Black Americans' (more than non-Black Americans') racial categorizations were influenced by Black ancestry (more than by White ancestry). In Study 4, we replicated this effect under extreme conditions (e.g., even when targets had Black ancestry and were phenotypically, socially, culturally, self-identified, and advantaged as White for eighty years, U.S. Black Americans categorized them as Black). In Study 5, U.S. Black Americans were more likely than U.S. White Americans to associate their racial ancestry with hardship, and individual differences in those associations predicted the extent to which U.S. Black Americans categorized the target with Black ancestry and White experiences as Black. In Study 6, participants categorized a target with Black ancestry and ancestral hardship (i.e., their ancestors were kidnapped from Africa and experienced slavery) or a target with Black ancestry and ancestral success (i.e., their ancestors immigrated from Africa and experienced upward mobility). U.S. Black Americans (unlike U.S. White Americans) were more identified with the target with ancestral hardship. Collectively, our research suggests that from the perspective of U.S. Black Americans, the collective Black experiences of the past continue to shape the Black collective of the present.

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In diverse societies, peaceful intergroup relationships are necessary. Using a minimal groups paradigm, we randomly assigned 188 ethnically diverse U.S. 4-and 5-year-olds to groups with different norms about intergroup relationships. Some were given positive norms (e.g., their ingroup talks, shares, and plays with the outgroup), others were given negative norms (e.g., their ingroup does not talk, share, or play with the outgroup), and others were given no norms. Children then participated in a live and unexpected intergroup interaction. Broadly, the descriptive norms affected children's interactions with the outgroup member. For example, those given positive norms, compared to no norms, were more likely to communicate, share, and show positive affect with the outgroup member. Implications for intergroup conflict, particularly from a developmental perspective, are discussed. Public Significance StatementChildren care about the groups they belong to and the norms that define them, which can often lead them to expect and engage in negative intergroup relationships. However, as the present research suggests, children's commitment to groups can be harnessed-or redirected-to promote more peaceful and positive intergroup relationships.

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