Research
The overarching goal of our research is to understand and inform efforts to mitigate racial inequity and interracial tension.
We do this by examining how people experience and perceive
racial disadvantage, racial privilege, and racial diversity.​
Interracial interactions
Many Americans must engage with people from outside of their own racial group. However, these interracial interactions are often stressful and anxiety-provoking, in part because they elicit identity threat -- concern about being mistreated or judged based on one's group membership(s).
We are working to uncover the factors that have the potential to instead promote identity-safety in interracial encounters -- feeling supported, valued, and respected because of one's group membership(s). Our findings will help clarify what racial minority group members look for from Whites -- behaviors and comments -- that make them feel identity-safety. We also study how identity-safety (vs. threat) in interactions with White people (e.g., a colleague) can boost racial minority group members' sense of belonging in a setting (e.g., at work).
We are particularly interested in promoting racial minority group members' identity-safety during conversations with White people that involve race-relevant topics, such as publicized incidents of racism or workplace anti-racism efforts.
Key Questions
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How do people manage race-relevant discussions in diverse settings?
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What makes racial minority group members feel valued and respected when they interact with White people?
White identity
We take a Critical Race Psychology approach (Salter & Adams, 2013), by examining Whiteness, White identity, and privilege as meaningful processes that influence White people's thinking and behavior. That is, we position White people as racial actors who behave in particular ways because of their Whiteness.
We are currently documenting the wide range of ways that White people describe their race. We find that although some White Americans report that they do not think about their race, others explicitly reject the idea that they benefit from privilege, and others conceptualize their race as a privileged identity. Future work will investigate the causes and consequences of these different racial identity ideologies among Whites.
Key Questions
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How do White Americans think about being White, if at all?
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How do White Americans incorporate ideas about racial privilege into their own identity?
Race and Physical Space
In addition to racial stereotypes about people based on their race, individuals also hold racial stereotypes about physical spaces -- homes, schools, neighborhoods -- that they associate with different racial groups.
People often stereotype Black areas as poor and rundown, whereas they stereotype White areas as the opposite: wealthy and well-kept (see word clouds below).
These stereotypes have consequences: White people tend to assume that a home in a Black (vs. White) neighborhood is less desirable, worth less money, and they are less willing to live there (Bonam et al., 2018). This likely happens, in part, because White Americans can easily imagine White space as upper-class and desirable, but simultaneously have trouble imagining Black space as upper-class and desirable (Yantis & Bonam, 2020).
Traits that White Americans listed when we asked them to describe either Black space or White space (i.e., physical locations with mostly Black[White] residents). Data from Yantis & Bonam (2020).
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Key Questions
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How do people develop assumptions about what predominantly Black vs. predominantly White neighborhoods look like?
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What stereotypes do people have about spaces that are racially diverse?