title: White selves: conceptualizing and measuring a dominant-group identity.
abstract: This article addresses the nature and measurement of White racial identity. White identification is conceptualized as an automatic association between the self and the White ingroup; this association is fostered through social exposure to non-Whites and serves to link self- and ingroup evaluations. Four studies validated a measure of White identification against criteria derived from this model. In Study 1, the White Identity Centrality Implicit Association Test (WICIAT) predicted response latencies in a task gauging self-ingroup merging. In Study 2, the WICIAT correlated with census data tapping exposure to non-Whites. In Studies 3 and 4, the WICIAT predicted phenomena associated with the linking of self- and ingroup evaluations: identity-related biases in intergroup categorization (Study 3) and self-evaluative emotional reactions to ingroup transgressions (Study 4). Together, the findings shed light on the antecedents and consequences of White identity, an often-neglected individual difference construct.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4910, USA. knowles_eric@gsb.stanford.edu
authors.forename: Eric D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Knowles
authors.forename: Kaiping
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Peng
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D002140:California; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010781:Photography; D011287:Prejudice; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011822:Race Relations; D011930:Reaction Time; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*