Toward a Critical Race Psychology

Abstract

Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged as an identity‐conscious intervention within critical legal studies and has subsequently developed an interdisciplinary presence. We draw upon CRT perspectives to articulate five core ideas for a Critical Race Psychology (CRP). CRT perspectives (1) approach racism as a systemic force embedded in everyday society (rather than a problem of individual bias); (2) illuminate how ideologies of neoliberal individualism (e.g., merit, choice) often reflect and reproduce racial domination; (3) identify interest convergence as the typical source of broad‐based support for reparative action; (4) emphasize possessive investment in privileged identities and identity‐infused realities that reproduce racial domination; and (5) propose practices of counter‐storytelling to reveal and contest identity‐infused bases of everyday society. In summary, we propose a CRP that consider race not as one domain (among many) for psychological investigation but instead as a conceptual lens through which to analyze all of psychological science.

Forging Diversity‐Science‐Informed Guidelines for Research on Race and Racism in Psychological Science

“…However, an approach to conducting research on race and racism that is broader than any one of these particular elements is needed. Building on the legacies of multicultural psychology and scholars of racism and sexism, researchers in recent years have proposed a systematic approach of diversity science to capture the psychological processes related to the persistence of inequality in the face of changing demographics (e.g., Jones, ; Mendoza‐Denton & España, ; Plaut, ; see also the proposal for a Critical Race Psychology by Salter & Adams, ). Diversity science is not a topic of study or analysis of any particular social group.…”

Racialized physical space as cultural product

“…In doing so, we also offer ideas for future research in areas that remain unexplored. We end by discussing the social significance of studying racialized physical space, and acknowledge its relationship to the theory of critical race psychology (Salter & Adams, ).…”

Critical social psychology and interdisciplinary studies of personal life: Greater than the sum of its parts

“…Whilst changes in neoliberal subjectivities have been approached through various critical social psychology fields, including health (Crawford, ; Lyons & Chamberlain, , p. 535; Riley, Evans, & Robson, ), organisational psychology (McDonald, Wearing, & Ponting, ), race theory (Salter & Adams, ), gender (Evans, Riley, & Shankar, ), and education (Bansel, Davies, Gannon, & Linnell, ), to name just a few, a focus on intimacy is often omitted. Psychoanalytic concepts such as trauma and shame have been productively reworked to explain how neoliberalism has taken a hold in contemporary western society (Layton, ; ), and to show the stubbornness of gender inequalities through women's internalisation of them (Seu, ).…”

“…Whilst changes in neoliberal subjectivities have been approached through various critical social psychology fields, including health (Crawford, 2006;Lyons & Chamberlain, 2017, p. 535;Riley, Evans, & Robson, 2018), organisational psychology (McDonald, Wearing, & Ponting, 2007), race theory (Salter & Adams, 2013), gender (Evans, Riley, & Shankar, 2010), and education (Bansel, Davies, Gannon, & Linnell, 2008), to name just a few, a focus on intimacy is often omitted.…”