Mixed individuals’ self-similarity judgements draw on experiences and feelings, not just appearance.

Evidence

Some empirical findings indicate that similarity may not only be based on observable characteristics like appearance or behaviour. For example, Mixed individuals’ similarity to a minoritized racial-ethnic group may additionally be predicted by affective factors, like the feeling of connectedness with a group (Good et al. 2010) and by making similar experiences. For example, some Mixed individuals may perceive themselves to be more similar to minoritized groups because they share discrimination experiences (Franco 2019; Wilton et al. 2013). Alternatively, some Mixed individuals might not experience discrimination to the same extent as their mono-racial peers or experience privileges associated with a White identity (Waring 2023). These could decrease perceived similarity to minoritized groups and maybe increase perceived similarity with the White identity. Similarly, the shared experience of a questioned or invalidated racial-ethnic identity (discussed below) may reduce perceived similarity to mono-racial groups and increase perceived similarity with a more abstract Mixed group. — Anna X. Huang, Jacqueline M. Chen, and Juliane Degner, Being One or the Other, Both or Neither, 45

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Shared discrimination or invalidation experiences shape Mixed individuals’ felt similarity to groups. (similarity 0.94)
• Mixed individuals shift self-categorization across situations because similarity tests prove inconclusive. (similarity 0.88)
• Mixed-race individuals use their own observable behavior as similarity evidence when self-categorizing racially. (similarity 0.87)
• Research gives conflicting results on whether appearance predicts Mixed individuals’ racial identification (similarity 0.86)
• Perceived similarity to a racial category drives self-categorization among mixed-race people (similarity 0.86)
• Mixed-identity people shift self-categorizations situationally because prototype-similarity assessments stay inconclusive (similarity 0.85)
• Mixed individuals strategically select contextual identity to jointly satisfy affiliation and uniqueness. (similarity 0.85)
• Mixed individuals receive contradictory phenotypic similarity cues across their parental categories (similarity 0.85)
• Stereotype alignment can heighten a mixed person’s felt similarity to a racial category. (similarity 0.85)
• Mixed individuals shift racial self-categorization situationally, but only within boundary conditions. (similarity 0.84)
• Mixed individuals endorse less essentialist racial beliefs than monoracial peers. (similarity 0.84)
• Different identity motives drive Mixed individuals toward different target groups. (similarity 0.84)
• Mixed individuals’ identity choices are frequently invalidated by mono-racial others. (similarity 0.84)
• Mixed-identity individuals shift ingroup identification according to which dimension holds higher status (similarity 0.83)
• Mixed-race individuals often shift self-categorization across contexts and lifespan. (similarity 0.83)