For centuries, White people have been the dominant U.S. racial group in terms of power, status, and numbers (though Whites’ numerical majority status is diminishing). Despite their dominant position in society, White Americans sometimes perceive Whiteness as threatening and attempt to distance themselves from their racial identity. For example, White Americans will emphasize personal hardships they have experienced (such as divorce or emotional turmoil) or the discrimination they have faced based on other group memberships (such as social class or gender) after being reminded of Whites’ privileges.
White identity poses two potential threats related to the idea that White identity is a source of privilege. First, the idea of White privilege implies that White Americans’ successes are due to their race and not to individual merit. Second, White privilege may call White Americans’ own sense of morality into question if such privilege is considered unearned.
In my research, I test a third way that White identity may be threatening: White Americans may believe their identity is uninteresting and lacks depth, a phenomenon that sociologists refer to as “White debt”. That is, White people have the privilege of ignoring their racial identity in everyday life. Somewhat ironically, this means that Whiteness is often rendered invisible. People find it hard to generate examples of White culture or to describe how being White has affected them. As a result, White Americans may see their Whiteness as less unique and meaningful than other social identities. In a society like the US, which prizes distinctiveness, the perception of not being unique enough is especially aversive.
My colleagues and I have shown that encouraging White Americans to think of their identity in more complex ways—as more than “just plain White”—can lead them to feel they have more to add to diversity in groups and organizations. White Americans’ feelings of personal contributions to diversity in turn predict greater support for multiculturalism and less prejudice toward people of color.
One way to highlight the complexity of White identity is by encouraging White Americans to reflect on their membership in ethnic subgroups. We threatened White Americans’ sense of uniqueness by having them write about a time when they felt too much like other people. Whites threatened in this way believed they had less to contribute to diversity and endorsed multiculturalism less than did Whites whose sense of uniqueness was not threatened. However, the effects only emerged when participants had completed a demographic survey in which the relevant option for race/ethnicity was “White.” It disappeared when the relevant option was “European American,” a label that connotes a more distinctive and meaningful cultural heritage.
Do these findings mean that replacing “White” with “European American” on demographic surveys is a panacea for intergroup relations? Of course not, as doing so is unlikely to produce long-term changes in attitudes and behaviors. But our findings raise a broader point about the benefits of engaging more deeply with Whiteness.
Reflecting on one’s ethnic subgroup identity is not a substitute for acknowledging White privilege, but it might help counter the defensiveness that Whites often feel when reminded of White privilege. Furthermore, keeping in mind that there are many forms of Whiteness may make White Americans more receptive to organizations’ diversity-related policies.
White people are still the dominant racial group in the U.S., and diversity-related programs and initiatives have a lower probability of succeeding without support from dominant group members. Simply thinking about their ethnic subgroup identities may bolster White Americans’ openness to diversity.
For Further Reading
Rios, K. (in press). Harnessing the many facets of White identity to reduce feelings of threat and improve intergroup relations. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302241240688.
Rios, K., & Mackey, C. D. (2022). “White” self-identification: A source of uniqueness threat. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(2), 416-424. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211031082
Kimberly Rios is Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on how majority and minority group members respond to threats to their identities.