What it Means to be ‘Mixed’: Social Identities of Persons with Biracial Heritage

Abstract

Social identity theory addresses general psychological mechanisms of social identification that are assumed to be valid for all persons and diverse social identities. While the theory thus implicitly postulates universality of basic social identity mechanisms, both theorizing and research in the social identity domain have largely focused on people with distinct and stable group memberships. This simplifying approach to social identities does not cover the broad range of experiences of people with multiple, mixed, and/or flexible identities. This dissertation focuses on individuals with these identities, more specifically on persons with mixed racial-ethnic heritage (e.g., with one Black and one White parent), for whom racial-ethnic group memberships and social identity are frequently characterized by ambiguity and resist straightforward categorization. These individuals are assumed to be in the rather distinct position of being associated with at least two different racial-ethnic categories. Such an extended range of options for social identification may imply far more complex social identification and identity navigation processes than described in prior theorizing. This thesis aims at understanding these general processes along with potential interindividual differences in chronic and situational racial-ethnic identification in Mixed individuals. This project is divided into three parts which resulted in separate publications. The first publication offers a theoretical basis for studying Mixed identification, providing a critical examination and discussion of classical theorizing of social identity theory and self-categorization theory, which I integrate with more modern approaches into a novel theoretical framework for Mixed identification. The second paper investigates interindividual differences in chronic racial-ethnic self-identification of mixed-race individuals, testing the presence of identity typologies suggested by previous research. The findings underscore the heterogeneity of the way in which mixed-race individuals define and perceive their racial-ethnic identities. While some integrate their monoracial-ethnic identities into one distinct Mixed identity, others perceive their racial-ethnic group memberships as more separated and adapt these to the respective situation. Across both studies of this empirical paper, mixed-race participants consistently reported medium levels of identification with Mixed, Minoritized and White identities – showing similar identification patterns across identity types. Shifting the focus from stable identification patterns to context-dependent identification, the third paper examined whether and to what extent experiences of ingroup acceptance and rejection elicit shifts in Mixed individuals’ situational identification. In two experiments, mixed-race participants showed an increase in identification with racial-ethnic groups that accepted them as ingroup members. Rejection experiences, however, did not elicit a change in identification with the rejecting group. Instead, recalling rejection from one monoracial-ethnic group elicited increased identification with alternative non-rejecting racial-ethnic groups. Overall, the findings of this dissertation underscore the complexity and flexibility of mixed-race identification. It provides initial insights into how social identities are navigated and (re-)negotiated within the social environment and thus emphasizes the socially constructive nature of racial-ethnic categories. Above all, it provides a roadmap for future research, proposing several next steps.