Sources of self-categorization as minority for mixed race individuals

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Sources of Self-Categorization 18Multiracial individuals whose appearances are more minority prototypical or who feel moreconnected to the minority community are more likely to view themselves as eligible forprograms aimed specifically at ethnic minorities, because they are more likely to self-categorizeas minority.Limitations and Future DirectionsThe main limitation of the current study is its correlational design. Although path analysiscan be used to infer causal pathways and test between them, we cannot determine causalitywithout experimentation. In the present study, we only sampled minority-White multiracialindividuals. Therefore, we cannot address the effect of choosing one particular minority racialidentity over another minority identity in minority-minority mixed race individuals. Doeschoosing to identify as one racial minority still predict perceived eligibility for minority-basedscholarships, or does the relationship only hold true when the other identity choice is aparticipant’s White racial background? Future research should test the model presented in thecurrent study on various multiracial populations to determine its utility across populations.Additionally, because of the gender subsample size, we were unable to conduct meaningfulbetween gender comparisons. Future research should test whether the processes found in thecurrent study are the same for both men and women.The present study was administered online, providing many advantages for datacollection, as well as some limitations. The most immediate advantage was that we were able toget a relatively large sample of minority-White multiracial participants. By utilizing onlinesampling, we were able to obtain a more ethnically and geographically diverse sample, whichprovides greater generalizability of our findings than we would typically have from subject poolsamples. 5 Conversely, online sampling procedures may limit the generalizability of the results to
Sources of Self-Categorization 19multiracial samples who actively seek online communities. We recruited participants frommultiracial campus groups as well as Facebook and Yahoo online groups aimed at multiracialindividuals. Therefore it is possible that the people who viewed our recruitment ads may havebeen more focused on their racial identities than other multiracial individuals, and those whochose to participate may have been particularly interested in exploring their racial identities.While we acknowledge this limitation of our sampling strategy, we maintain that the advantageof obtaining a sample of minority-White multiracial participants in which to measure theseimportant constructs relating to self-perceived minority similarity and minority selfcategorizationoutweighs the disadvantages of the recruitment strategy.While the present study is unique because we investigate sources of self-perceived racialidentity among multiracial individuals, others’ perceptions also play a role in racial selfcategorization.Self-categorization does not occur in a vacuum. Instead, categorization is a sociopsychologicalprocess. Indeed, research on multiracial individual’s reflected appraisals suggeststhat self-perceptions of appearance are influenced by others’ appraisals of their appearance(Khanna, 2004). Future research should include others’ perceptions as well as self-perceptions inpredicting racial self-categorization among multiracial individuals.ConclusionsThe present research tested a unique case of SCT in a sample of multiracial participants,for whom multiple racial category options exist within the so-called indelible domain of race.We have shown that for these individuals, both affective (connectedness to the minoritycommunity) and observable (physical appearance) characteristics serve as sources of perceivedsimilarity to the minority racial group and self-categorization as minority. Additionally, formixed race people, self-categorizing as minority may lead to practical benefits in the form of
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