Race--Social, Biological, or Lemonade?

Comments on an article by R. L. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko, and K. K. Kidd (see record 2005-00117-006) and another article by H. Tang, T. Quertermous, B. Rodriguez, S. L. Kardia, X. Zhu, X., A. Brown, et al. (2005). On the day that I read Sternberg, Grigorenko, and Kidd's (January 2005) article on race, an article from the American Journal of Human Genetics (Tang et al., 2005) also crossed my desk. As part of their research, the latter authors compared the results of a cluster analysis of people using many genetic markers with the respondent's self-identified race/ethnicity: "Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity" (Tang et al., 2005, p. 268). I would very much like to hear a response to this finding from Sternberg et al. (2005), who maintained that "race is a socially constructed concept, not a biological one" (p. 49), that reifies those physical correlates of ancient population dispersions "as deriving from some imagined natural grouping of people that does not in fact exist, except in our heads" (p. 51). My take is that if we psychologists could use genetics (or any other biological variables) to distinguish those with schizophrenia from those with bipolar disorder with an error rate even a hundredfold greater than that of Tang et al. (2005), we would announce--and do it with no small fanfare--that there are valid, biological differences between the two disorders. I suspect that much of the difficulty in discussing this issue stems from a tendency to treat "social" and "biological" (or "genetic" and "environmental") phenomena as mutually exclusive. Placing a complicated construct like race into a discrete "social" or "biological" box makes as much sense as asking whether lemonade is (a) lemon juice, (b) water, or (c) sugar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cultural malleability of intelligence and its impact on the racial/ethnic hierarchy.

This commentary highlights previous literature (see record 2005-03637-001) focusing on cultural and environmental explanations for the racial/ethnic group hierarchy of intelligence. Assumptions underlying definitions of intelligence, heritability/genetics, culture, and race are noted. Historical, contextual, and testing issues are clarified. Specific attention is given to studies supporting stereotype threat, effects of mediated learning experiences, and relative functionalism. Current test development practices are critiqued with respect to methods of validation and item development. Implications of the genetic vs. culture-only arguments are discussed with respect to the malleability of IQ. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the complexity of race.

Although a variety of studies have indicated that using statistical clustering techniques to examine genetic information may allow for geographically based groupings of individuals that tenuously map onto some conceptions of race (P??bo, 2001), these studies have also indicated that the amount of genetic variation within these groupings is significantly larger than the variation that exists between them (even after controlling for "unused" portions of the human genetic sequence). However, irrespective of these problems with the concept of race, the study of race holds a prominent place within the social and behavioral sciences. In their recent article on this topic, A. Smedley and B. D. Smedley (see record 2005-00117-003) acknowledge the problematic position of race at the genetic level. However, Smedley and Smedley do not explicitly relate the nature of the analyses often conducted to discern race on a genetic level (e.g., forms of cluster and profile analysis) to the discussion of race at the social level. Although the problems of interpreting self-categorizations into racial categories as "real" in the same way that a genetic code is "real" are obvious (and thoroughly discussed by Smedley & Smedley, 2005), what is often less recognized is the fact that the human genetic code allows for an amazing amount of plurality, whereas the racial categories used in most psychological research are unbelievably restricting. Forgetting the serious problems associated with attempting to match the phenomenology of human life with a series of acids, at a minimum psychologists should pay more attention to the fact that the measurement of social constructs should be conceived at a level of complexity that is at least partially commensurate with that of the human genome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Race and genetics: Controversies in biomedical, behavioral, and forensic sciences": Correction to Ossorio and Duster (2005).

Reports an error in "Race and Genetics: Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic Sciences" by Pilar Ossorio and Troy Duster (American Psychologist, 2005[Jan], Vol 60[1], 115-128). In this article, Table 1 contains several errors due to an editorial mistake. In the Population and Incarceration columns, the data for Blacks and Whites were transposed. In addition, decimal points were omitted from the data in the Rate (%) of Incarceration per Population columns. The correct version of Table 1 appears in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2005-00117-011.) Among biomedical scientists, there is a great deal of controversy over the nature of race, the relevance of racial categories for research, and the proper methods of using racial variables. This article argues that researchers and scholars should avoid a binary-type argument, in which the question is whether to use race always or never. Researchers should instead focus on developing standards for when and how to use racial variables. The article then discusses 1 context, criminology, in which the use of racial variables in behavioral genetics research could be particularly problematic. If genetic studies of criminalized behavior use forensic DNA databanks or forensic genetic profiles, they will be confounded by the many racial biases of the law enforcement and penal system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pride, prejudice, and ambivalence: Toward a unified theory of race and ethnicity.

For more than a century, hundreds of psychologists have studied race and ethnicity. Yet this scholarship, like American culture at large, has been ambivalent, viewing race and ethnicity both as sources of pride, meaning, and motivation as well as sources of prejudice, discrimination, and inequality. Underlying this ambivalence is widespread confusion about what race and ethnicity are and why they matter. To address this ambivalence and confusion, as well as to deepen the American conversation about race and ethnicity, the article first examines the field's unclear definitions and faulty assumptions. It then offers an integrated definition of race and ethnicity--dynamic sets of historically derived and institutionalized ideas and practices--while noting that race, although often used interchangeably with ethnicity, indexes an asymmetry of power and privilege between groups. Further, it shows how psychology's model of people as fundamentally independent, self-determining entities impedes the field's--and the nation's--understanding of how race and ethnicity influence experience and how the still-prevalent belief that race and ethnicity are biological categories hinders a more complete understanding of these phenomena. Five first propositions of a unified theory of race and ethnicity are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era: An Introduction.

The mapping of the human genome has reawakened interest in the topic of race and genetics, especially the use of genetic technology to examine racial differences in complex outcomes such as health and intelligence. Advances in genomic research challenge psychology to address the myriad conceptual, methodological, and analytical issues associated with research on genetics and race. In addition, the field needs to understand the numerous social, ethical, legal, clinical, and policy implications of research in this arena. Addressing these issues should not only benefit psychology but could also serve to guide such thought in other fields, including molecular biology. The purpose of this special issue is to begin a discussion of this issue of race and genetics within the field of psychology. Several scholars who work in the fields of genetics, race, or related areas were invited to write (or had previously submitted) articles sharing their perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intelligence, Race, and Genetics.

In this article, the authors argue that the overwhelming portion of the literature on intelligence, race, and genetics is based on folk taxonomies rather than scientific analysis. They suggest that because theorists of intelligence disagree as to what it is, any consideration of its relationships to other constructs must be tentative at best. They further argue that race is a social construction with no scientific definition. Thus, studies of the relationship between race and other constructs may serve social ends but cannot serve scientific ends. No gene has yet been conclusively linked to intelligence, so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time. The authors also show that heritability, a behaviorgenetic concept, is inadequate in regard to providing such a link. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural Sensitivity in Conventional Psychotherapy: A Comment On Martínez-Taboas (2005).

A. Martínez-Taboas (2005) presents a compelling case of a woman with psychogenic seizures treated with a combination of cognitive therapy and an affirmation of espiritismo, the belief among some Latino individuals in spiritual possession and intercession (see record 2005-03040-003). Martínez-Taboas's sensitivity to the cultural beliefs of the patient is commendable; however, integrating cultural sensitivity with more conventional treatment approaches offers the potential for an effective, more generalizable model of intervention. In this article, the author argues for a greater appreciation of culture-bound syndromes in clinical presentation. In addition, the utility of more culturally sensitive adaptations of existing treatment models is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the confusion of "race" with biophysical diversity.

Responds to M. J. Zyphur's (see record 2006-01690-012) comments on the original article by A. Smedley and B. D. Smedley (see record 2005-00117-003). Race, as people live and understand it, inhabits a dimension of reality that transcends biology and cannot be reduced to genes, chromosomes, or even phenotypes. A biological or genetic view of race cannot encompass the lived social reality of race, nor does it represent biogenetic variations in human populations very well (Marks, 1995). As Zyphur notes, biogenetic variations in the human species were produced by evolutionary forces as different groups interacted with and underwent adaptation to the natural environments encountered in their migrations. The result was a pattern of variation that should be familiar to everyone: People with dark skin coloring remained adapted to tropical environments (with some internal variations resulting from amounts of tree cover, land elevation, rainfall, etc.). Peoples of tropical lands thus resemble one another in their varying shades of dark skin color and often curly or frizzy hair (known as polytopicity). Some of the darkest skins are found not in Africa but in India, Sri Lanka, Melanesia, and Northern Australia, as anyone who watched the news coverage of the recent tsunami would readily recognize. Groups migrating beyond the tropical areas gradually lost genes for dark skin as they adapted to cooler climates with less sunlight. Geneticists have shown that just as no two individuals are genetically alike (except for identical twins), no two human groups are precisely alike, even when they derive from a common ancestral population. Biogenetic variation has continued to increase as individuals once widely separated meet and mate. Quite apart from the controversy over races as biological taxa, the idea of race as it is known and lived in American society is composed of social values and meanings imposed on this biological variation over the past three or four centuries. As a social construct, race refers to an ideology. Since the 18th century, Americans and many other people in the world have been conditioned to believe that race as biology is the main source of human identities. As Americans have come into contact with peoples around the world, confusion has inevitably ensued, because U.S. racial categories do not necessarily apply in other countries. Given the complexity of the human genome and the history of (continuous) intermixtures, I doubt if it will ever be possible to correlate our genes with our racial (i.e., social) identities. Nor can I imagine at this point why anyone should want to do so. What service to society or science will this fulfill? Social constructs have their own complex dynamics and are vulnerable to change, just as is any other cultural phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race.

Racialized science seeks to explain human population differences in health, intelligence, education, and wealth as the consequence of immutable, biologically based differences between "racial" groups. Recent advances in the sequencing of the human genome and in an understanding of biological correlates of behavior have fueled racialized science, despite evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete, reliably measured, or scientifically meaningful. Yet even these counterarguments often fail to take into account the origin and history of the idea of race. This article reviews the origins of the concept of race, placing the contemporary discussion of racial differences in an anthropological and historical context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond the American Context.

Replies to Raven's comment (see record 2005-15840-018) on Papierno and Ceci's original article (see record 2005-01817-001). The authors agree with Raven's contention that the goals of some interventions (targeted or universalized) are consistent with an outcome that one society (or even a subgroup of that society) has defined as favorable. And it is certainly true that each society will define differently what is or is not advantageous, and certain forms of intervention will, by their very design, emphasize abilities that are entrenched in cultural partiality. However, the authors argue that in some cases, the criteria to which models predict are not constrained by any cultural bias. An analysis of the predictors of success in science, economics, and even the arts would reveal at least some factors that myriad societies share. Thus, the issue they put forth is one that is relevant beyond the American context and that clearly spans multiple domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multicultural approaches in psychotherapy: A rejoinder.

In this rejoinder, the authors address several issues raised by R. L. Worthington and F. R. Dillon (see record 2010-26150-001) and C. R. Ridley and M. Shaw-Ridley (see record 2011-00622-001) regarding (a) the measurement of multicultural competencies (MCCs), (b) sampling considerations in multicultural research, and (c) the conceptual frame of multicultural psychotherapy research. The authors challenge the wisdom of exploring MCCs in psychotherapy research and provide a different framework to understand therapists' multicultural effectiveness with clients based on their cultural race/ethnicity. Additionally, the concept of therapists' multicultural orientation or approach is introduced to illuminate the process of aligning with clients about salient cultural issues in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guest editor's introduction.

The last issue of Psychotherapy that focused on this topic was published over 20 years ago (1985). Since then, the field has witnessed considerable growth and development, and we intended the special issue to reflect that growth. This special issue celebrates the study of culture, race, and ethnicity in the context of psychotherapy. In the call for papers, our goal was to identify quality conceptual and empirical papers that addressed how to integrate cultural, racial, and ethnic factors in psychotherapy. We were particularly interested in articles that would move beyond the admonishment of the field for greater cultural sensitivity to actually advancing our understanding of the process and outcome of psychotherapy where culture, race, and ethnicity play a central role. The response has been most encouraging. We were quite pleased with not only the number of submissions but also the range of conceptual perspectives, the levels of analyses, and the different backgrounds of the clients/patients under study. We believe that the diversity of approaches speaks well for this growing area of theory and research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Meaning of Race in Psychology and How to Change It: A Methodological Perspective.

The primary purpose of this article was to offer a methodological critique in support of arguments that racial categories should be replaced as explanatory constructs in psychological research and theory. To accomplish this goal, the authors (a) summarized arguments for why racial categories should be replaced; (b) used principles of the scientific method to show that racial categories lack conceptual meaning; (c) identified common errors in researchers' measurement, statistical analyses, and interpretation of racial categories as independent variables; and (d) used hierarchical regression analysis to illustrate a strategy for replacing racial categories in research designs with conceptual variables. Implications for changing the study of race in psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intersectionality and research in psychology.

Feminist and critical race theories offer the concept of intersectionality to describe analytic approaches that simultaneously consider the meaning and consequences of multiple categories of identity, difference, and disadvantage. To understand how these categories depend on one another for meaning and are jointly associated with outcomes, reconceptualization of the meaning and significance of the categories is necessary. To accomplish this, the author presents 3 questions for psychologists to ask: Who is included within this category? What role does inequality play? Where are there similarities? The 1st question involves attending to diversity within social categories. The 2nd conceptualizes social categories as connoting hierarchies of privilege and power that structure social and material life. The 3rd looks for commonalities across categories commonly viewed as deeply different. The author concludes with a discussion of the implications and value of these 3 questions for each stage of the research process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining unproven assumptions of Galton's nature-nurture paradigm.

Sir Francis Galton's (1869/1892) notion of nature versus nurture is a cornerstone of psychology: It was recently featured in two issues of the Monitor (March and April 2004) and was infused throughout the January 2005 issue of the American Psychologist. R. L. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko, and K. K. Kidd (see record 2005-00117-006) offered keen insights into the pitfalls in the study of intelligence and race, discerning between folklore and science. Similar scrutiny is needed of the premise underlying these articles: that the nature-nurture paradigm is a scientific fact. Ultimately, the validity of statistical formulae derived from Galton's thesis depends on unproven assumptions. Further, a dimensional ontology allows expansion of the theoretical perspective. The idea that nature and nurture make us who we are is easily distilled into a statistical formula: In terms of variance, "heritability and environmentality add to unity" (Sternberg et al., 2005, p. 53). The first assumption, termed exclusivity, stems directly from that idea: Only nature and nurture make us who we are. This leads to a paradigmatic requirement: No influences exist other than genetics and environment. The second assumption implicit in the body of nature-nurture research, termed universality, is that the paradigm is valid for every human trait studied. A discussion of phenylketonuria is presented as an example of a possible exception to the universality assumption. A third assumption, complementarity, must also be addressed: Nature and nurture constitute a linear dichotomy, even in interaction. As Sternberg et al. (2005) noted, "Heritability has a complementary concept, that of environmentality" (p. 53). This dichotomous structure requires that variation from any other source automatically be included under heritability, environmentality, and/or their interaction, thus precluding its consideration outside of the paradigm (Biddell & Fischer, 1997). In the example of PKU, if heritability is minimized, is environmentality correspondingly increased? However, as mentioned earlier, the ability to choose likely has become the greatest source of variability. A dimensional ontology allows a more parsimonious inclusion of these factors. From a clinician's standpoint, the small arena of choice is likely the most powerful fulcrum available for change. For decades, Galton's (1869/1892) nature-nurture paradigm has anchored psychological research and theory. Though renowned, his idea and its derivations were never scientifically validated. Galton's idea, and all studies based on it, bear reconsideration. Inclusion of the no?tic dimension and its intercourse with genetics and environment allows the researcher to consider the person in studies of human development. It is time for a new paradigm: Nature, Nurture, and the No?tic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are genetically informed designs genetically informative? Comment on McGue, Elkins, Walden, and Iacono (2005) and quantitative behavioral genetics.

M. McGue, I. Elkins, B. Walden, and W. G. Iacono (see record 2005-14938-011) presented the findings from a twin study examining the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the developmental trajectories of parent-adolescent relationships. From a behavioral genetics perspective, this study is well conceptualized, is well implemented, and raises some interesting developmental questions. Yet, the classic twin methodology and heritability estimates obfuscate the dynamic gene-ecology transactions that underlie these social developmental trajectories. There is a growing divide between the findings of quantitative behavioral genetics, with its foundational estimate of a statistical genetic influence, and developmental molecular genetics. This comment provides a brief overview of this divide and its implications for the findings of McGue et al. as well as quantitative behavioral genetics more broadly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genes, Environment, and Race: Quantitative Genetic Approaches.

Understanding the origins of racial health disparities is currently a central focus of health-oriented funding agencies and the health policy community. In particular, the role of genetics in the origin of racial health disparities is receiving growing attention and has been susceptible to considerable misinterpretation. In this article, the authors provide a basic discussion about the concept of genes and race, an introduction to quantitative genetics, and some examples of quantitative genetic analyses of health conditions in an underserved population. The intent is to outline the conceptual limitations of exclusivist views of either environmental or genetic determination and to emphasize the coaction and interaction of genes and environments in health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meaning making and psychological adjustment following cancer: The mediating roles of growth, life meaning, and restored just-world beliefs.

Cancer survivors' efforts at meaning making may influence the extent to which they successfully make meaning from their experience (i.e., experience posttraumatic growth, find life meaningful, and restore beliefs in a just world), which may, in turn, influence their psychological adjustment. Previous research regarding both meaning making processes and meanings made as determinants of adjustment has shown inconsistent effects, partly because of the lack of clearly articulated theoretical frameworks and problematic research strategies. In a 1-year longitudinal study, the authors distinguished the meaning making process from the outcomes of that process (meanings made), employing specific measures of both. The authors tested pathways through which meaning making efforts led to 3 different meanings made (growth, life meaning, and restored just-world belief) in a sample of 172 young to middle-age adult cancer survivors, and they explored whether those meanings made mediated the effect of meaning making efforts on psychological adjustment. Cross-sectional and longitudinal path models of the meaning making process indicate that meaning making efforts are related to better adjustment through the successful creation of adaptive meanings made from the cancer experience. The authors conclude with clinical implications and suggestions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)