Personality Characteristic Adaptations: Multiracial Adolescents\' Patterns of Racial Self-Identification Change

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, 20(2), 432–455 r 2010, Copyright the Author(s) Journal Compilation r 2010, Society for Research on Adolescence DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00638.x

Personality Characteristic Adaptations: Multiracial Adolescents’ Patterns of Racial Self-Identification Change Rodney L. Terry and Cynthia E. Winston Howard University For multiracial adolescents, forming a sense of self and identity can be complicated, even at the level of classifying themselves in terms of racial group membership. Using a Race Self Complexity (Winston et al., 2004) theoretical framework, this study used an open-ended question to examine the racial self-identification fluidity of 66 adolescents during the 7th, 8th, and 11th grades. This sample included 22 Black/White1 multiracial adolescents, as well as a matched sample of 22 Black and 22 White adolescents. Seventy-three percent of the multiracial adolescents changed their racial self-identification in the form of two time change patterns with a number of consolidating and differentiating racial self-identification variations. There was no change for the monoracial adolescents. These results suggest that within the lives of multiracial adolescents, the process of racial self-identification may be a personality characteristic adaptation to the meaning of race in American society that may change across time, place, and role.

People tend to want to label me one or the other. To make me say I’m one or the other is like making me deny one of my parents and part of myself. It’s like making me deny who I am, because I’m not White and I’m not Black—I am both. –Amanda, Black/White adolescent (Gaskins, 1999) Who is Amanda? The psychological task of answering this question can be engaged internally by the self or externally by others. Is Amanda Black? Is she White? Is she both? Is she neither? Is she multiracial? Individuals who are Requests for reprints should be sent to Rodney L. Terry, U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Research Division, Washington, DC 20233. E-mail: [email protected] Rodney L. Terry is now at the Statistical Research Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. 1 ‘‘Black/White’’ refers to the race of the sample of this study, as it focuses on Black/White adolescents as opposed to Black/Asian adolescents. However, ‘‘Black and White’’ refers to the reported racial self-identification of our sample in response to questions of racial self-identification.

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multiracial, or who are perceived by others to have a racially ambiguous appearance, can often have the experience of acquaintances or even strangers asking the question ‘‘what are you?’’ Compared with their monoracial peers, is the answer to this question more fluid for these adolescents across the time, place, and role in which they have the psychological task of racial self-identification? Because of the unique history of race relations in American culture and society, is the answer to this question unique for those who have a Black and White parent compared with those with other multiracial racial category combinations? Through a longitudinal investigation of racial self-identification, this study makes a contribution to understanding the life experiences of multiracial adolescents by answering some of the most basic elements of some of these questions. Adolescence is a critical period of personality development (Erikson, 1963). During this period, adolescents are in the infancy of trying to forge a sense of who they are and where they fit in the world. Habermas and Bluck (2000) suggest that this is a period of psychosocial pressure for adolescents to ‘‘get a life,’’ something they suggest begins to develop in the form of a narrative of self. For adolescents who are multiracial, forming a sense of self and identity can be complicated, even at the level of classifying themselves in terms of racial group membership. They are often influenced by external stimuli such as family, peers, and social myths to make the choice of identifying with one racial group over another (Hershel, 1995; Kerwin & Ponterotto, 1995). This process of racial self-identification is an aspect of personality development that intersects the centrality, regard, and ideology of racial group membership (see Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990; Sellers, Rowley, Chavous, Shelton, & Smith, 1997). This intersection is shaped by individuals’ characteristic adaptations to the social and cultural demands of living in a society where race and living in a universal context of racism (see Jones, 2003) matter. For adolescents who have parents of the same race, racial self-identification often consists of selecting the racial category used by their parents. However, for adolescents who have more than one racial category from which to choose, racial self-identification can be a complicated psychological task and experience. Within personality and developmental psychology, there is a paucity of theory and research in the area of multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification. To address this, the present study uses a Race Self Complexity theoretical framework (Winston, 2007; Winston et al., 2004; Winston, Philip, & Lloyd, 2007) to examine the racial self-identification choice and fluidity of multiracial adolescents across time. In doing so, it illuminates the utility of adopting a more complex theoretical and methodological orientation to studying racial self-identification and the overall meaning of race within the lives of multiracial adolescents. Research in this area is increasingly important, given that 46.8 million people—the majority of whom are adolescents and young adults—reported more than one race in the 2000 Census (Jones & Smith, 2001). It is also

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important because adolescence is the typical developmental period in which racial self-identification begins to be a highly challenging task in the life course (Stephan & Stephan, 1989). It is during this time that individuals effectively use life story schemas to organize their lives; this is largely a result of the advance in cognitive development that allows the adolescent to develop temporal, biographical, causal, and thematic coherence in developing an internalized narrative of self (see Habermas & Bluck, 2000). The present study addresses the following two research questions: (1) Across time, what racial categories do multiracial adolescents with one Black and one White biological parent (as well as a comparative sample of monoracial adolescents) select in their racial self-identification, and (2) is there a pattern of change across time in the racial categories used by these adolescents in their self-identification? A matched sample of monoracial Black and monoracial White adolescents was included in our analysis to examine potential racial self-identification change among those racial groups. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RELEVANT LITERATURE The theoretical framework for the current study emerged from several tenets of Race Self Complexity. These tenets integrate theory and research on personality, multiracial identity, and monoracial identity. Race Self Complexity is a new narrative theory of personality that seeks to explain how the meaning of race in American culture can add complexity to an individual’s identity construction and overall personality development (Winston, 2007; Winston & Kittles, 2005; Winston et al., 2004, 2007). Specifically, Race Self Complexity theory describes and explains the nature, form, and function of the meaning of race within persons’ internalized and evolving narrative of self as well as the motivational, affective, and cognitive processes and themes represented in narrative identity. This theory also predicts a relation between lived experiences of race, personality traits, characteristic adaptations, and narrative identity. According to the theory, within this process of Race Self Complexity, the individual engages in psychological negotiation of (a) internal and external stimuli associated with the meaning of race within racialized societies and cultures (Winston & Winston, in press) and (b) the related narrative reasoning and autobiographical processing used by an individual to interpret and integrate into his or her narrative understanding of the meaning of race in his or her life (Winston, in press-b). The Race Self Complexity process includes self-enhancement and selfprotective motives of psychological negotiation that result from living in a universal context of racism (Jones, 2003) and social contextual susceptibility to a mindset of the poles of Manichean cognition (Harrell, 1999). In addition, this process at the level of human nature includes processing of the psychological essentialism of human categories (see Prentice & Miller, 2007), including racial categories, as well as the implicit association of cultural

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historical symbols of race (see Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008). Racial self-identification is one essential aspect in which this categorization is at work, as a process posited to be particularly complex in the self-categorization of multiracial adolescents in comparison with their monoracial peers. RACIAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION AS A CHARACTERISTIC ADAPTATION TO RACE Regarding the first tenet of the theory of Race Self Complexity, we posit that adopting a multilevel conception of human personality, which includes both characteristic adaptations and narrative identity, has utility in research on racial self-identification. This conceptual utility is particularly critical in understanding the psychological task of multiracial adolescents’ racial selfidentification, an aspect of their life experiences that has the potential to be fluid in time, place, and role for some adolescents. In recent years, there have been significant advances in personality theory and research that have important implications for adolescence research. Of the most significant advances is a new and promising conceptualization of personality. In a recent article published in American Psychologist, McAdams and Pals (2006) conceptualize personality as ‘‘an individual’s unique variation on the general evolutionary design for human nature, expressed as a developing pattern of dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations and self defining life narratives, complexly and differentially situated in culture and social context’’ (p. 204). Adopting this multilevel conceptualization of personality allows for the study of individual personality components within the context of attempting to understand the whole person. It also theoretically allows for the interplay between more than one level of personality in the study of racial self-identification during adolescence. There are several examples of personality studies on adult development that theoretically and empirically adopt this same multilevel personality orientation (see Bauer & McAdams, 2004; Bluck & Gluck, 2004; Conway & Holmes, 2004; Pals, 1999; Woike, 1995). In this study, racial self-identification is conceptualized as the racial category or categories individuals select in response to questions about their racial group membership (Brunsma, 2005; Hitlin, Brown, & Elder, 2006). We interpret it as fitting within McAdams and Pals’ (2006) conceptualization of personality as a characteristic adaptation to race in American society and culture. Characteristic adaptations may generally be defined as motivational, social, and developmental adaptations that are situated in time, place, and social role (McAdams & Pals, 2006). Included within characteristic adaptations are values and strategies that meet the psychological demands of these adaptive concerns. In a racially stratified American society, where knowing a person’s racial group membership is an essential (yet often taken for granted)

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foundation for future interaction, multiracial adolescents often are confronted with questions about their racial self-identification (Gaskins, 1999; Tashiro, 2002; Williams, 1996). In comparison with their monoracial peers, multiracial adolescents’ unique set of possible responses to racial self-identification questions, as well as general proclamations of racial group membership, may have positive or negative consequences. The nature of the consequences depends on the time, place, and social role of all actors involved in racial self-identification situations. For example, one cultural historical context of racial self-identification is the one-drop rule, which has also been named by anthropologists as the rule of hypodescent. Although this varies legally by state, between 1865 and 1965, anyone in American society who had Negro ancestry anywhere in the family was classified by the state as Negro (Frazier, 1949). Later, this became a custom extending beyond individuals who were Black to those who had one parent who was from any other racial minority group. Historically, this meant that the race of a multiracial child is that of the racial group of the ‘‘lower status’’ parent (Fernandez, 1996; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002; Spickard, 1992). Attitudes about the one-drop rule vary across inquiring individuals. As a result, multiracial adolescents may experience rejection (or acceptance) based on their responses to this single question (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2005). Because of this psychologically significant implication, multiracial adolescents must consider their values (e.g., understandings of what it means to have a Black and White parent) when devising strategies (e.g., ‘‘I will say I’m ‘Black’ to a Black person so it doesn’t look like I’m rejecting Black people.’’) of how to adapt to their racially stratified environment. We include a comparative monoracial sample in this study to examine the potential uniqueness of racial self-identification change for multiracial adolescents. However, we do not expect a complex pattern of change for the monoracial sample. Not only is there a lack of evidence in the research literature to support complexity of racial self-identification change for monoracial individuals, but also monoracial adolescents have parents from only one race. Although racial self-identification as a characteristic adaptation is an important part of the racial identity process for multiracial adolescents, it is not explicitly incorporated within most theory and research on multiracial adolescents’ racial identity development (see Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002; Shih & Sanchez, 2005). Within the larger body of racial identity research, racial identity is most often conceptualized as the meaning and significance of a person’s racial group membership (see Sellers et al., 1997) or as a person’s racial reference group orientation (see Cross, 1991). Both racial self-identification and racial identity likely reflect an interpretation of the meaning of being multiracial. However, racial self-identification as a characteristic adaptation to race differs from racial identity in that the former is a specific behavior. This behavior does require the individual to

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answer the self question ‘‘Who am I?’’ This is indeed an identity question. But the answer to this question may have multiple sources. One source may be the biological race of the parents of the individual. Another source may be a person’s internalized and evolving narrative of self. Within McAdams and Pals’ (2006) conceptualization of personality, identity is conceptualized as an internalized and evolving narrative of self. Thus, from this perspective, racial self-identification behavior may be informed by the person’s internalized narrative of self but is not the same thing. This presents a significant theoretical and methodological challenge that is addressed in the current study by focusing more narrowly on the racial self-identification behavior as a characteristic adaptation that can change in time, place, and role (see McAdams & Pals, 2006).

RACIAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION AND THE UNIQUE CHOICE OF MULTIRACIAL ADOLESCENTS Regarding the second tenet of the theory of Race Self Complexity, we posit that racial self-identification can involve a complex process of choice and negotiation. This is likely the most challenging for individuals who are multiracial. For example, in research that conceptually and empirically links complex choice and meaning-making processes to the lives of Black and White multiracial persons, Rockquemore and Brunsma (2002) use mixed methods to develop a descriptive categorical model of racial identity. The individuals on whom this model was based were late adolescents in college. This model describes the meaning of choosing a particular racial category. Though not described by Rockquemore and Brunsma as a racial self-identification model per se, racial self-identification choice is intertwined in their racial identity model for multiracial individuals. Within this model, Black and White multiracial individuals can construct four general types of identity choice: (a) Border, (b) Singular, (c) Protean, and (d) Transcendent. Across Rockquemore and Brunsma’s (2002) identity types, racial selfidentification varies in terms of choice among single, multiple, or no racial categories. Multiracial individuals with a Border Identity understand themselves to exist between two socially distinct racial classifications. They do not understand themselves to be either Black or White, but instead integrate both Blackness and Whiteness into a unique hybrid understanding of the self (i.e., ‘‘I’m multiracial,’’ ‘‘I’m mixed,’’ etc.). Those with a Singular Identity understand themselves to be exclusively either Black or White, despite having both a Black and White parent (e.g., ‘‘I’m Black’’). Those with a Protean Identity possess Black, White, and multiracial identities. Because of this, they are able to shift their identity, and the resulting actions thereof, according to their present social context (e.g., ‘‘When I’m with my father’s side of the family, I consider myself Black’’). Multiracial people with a Transcendent Identity

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claim to have no definable racial identity and therefore avoid classifying themselves in terms of racial categories (e.g., ‘‘My race is the human race’’). In their study of multiracial college students, Rockquemore and Brunsma (2002) found that the majority of their participants’ identities were characterized as a Border Identity. Overall, their model suggests that racial selfidentification is a complex process of choice and negotiation that reflects multiracial individuals’ characteristic adaptations to race within their lives. Such a personality adaptation requires further investigation and inquiry. The present study seeks to understand the process of racial self-identification choice by examining such choices at three time points across the adolescent trajectory. RACIAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION AND UNIQUE FLUIDITY FOR MULTIRACIAL ADOLESCENTS The unique experience of having a choice in racial self-identification also creates an opportunity for racial self-identification fluidity. Regarding the third tenet of Race Self Complexity, we posit that racial self-identification can be fluid across time and depends on the contextual features of the environment. This is consistent with existing theory and research on racial selfidentification and racial identity (Brown, Hitlin, & Elder, 2006; Harris & Sim, 2002; Hitlin et al., 2006; Nagel, 1994; Tatum, 2004; Xie & Goyette, 1997). The interpersonal and contextual features of the environment have been theoretically formulated and empirically linked to racial self-identification fluidity for multiracial individuals. Using national survey data, Harris and Sim (2002) found that 12% of multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification differed in interviews conducted at home compared with those conducted in school within the same year. Specifically, these adolescents were more likely to not racially self-identify as ‘‘multiracial’’ if their parents were present during the interview. Harris and Sim (2002) explain that this finding is linked to parental socialization of parents whose own childhood and adolescence occurred during historical periods dominated by the one-drop rule. Consistent with Race Self Complexity, this suggests that cultural historical dimensions of the meaning of race, as well as contexts in which multiracial individuals respond to questions of racial self-identification, are important to consider in theoretical formulations of racial self-identification. Another similar example of racial self-identification as a potentially fluid characteristic adaptation to race is the Protean Identity type within Rockquemore and Brunsma’s (2002) descriptive categorical model of identity. Within this model, racial self-identification varies largely on the perceived appropriateness in the social setting of racial self-identification as either Black, White, or multiracial. Researchers have developed similar conceptualizations and terms to describe this type of fluidity, including situational race (Root, 1990; Stephan, 1992) and integrative identity (Daniel, 1996).

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Stephan (1992) describes situational race as an adaptation that occurs when ‘‘individuals feel a part of one group in one situation, and parts of other groups in other situations. Individuals may also change from one single identity to another as a response to life changes’’ (p. 51). These fluidity concepts are examples of how racial self-identification may psychologically exhibit itself as a characteristic adaptation in personality that shifts in time, place, or role. The dearth of research on racial self-identification has the potential to mask important racial fluidity dynamics that may be unique to multiracial adolescents’ personality development. However, two notable studies provide a theoretical and methodological context for the focus of the present study on the longitudinal fluidity of racial self-identification. Studies by Hitlin et al. (2006) and Doyle and Kao (2007) are the only other studies that examined racial selfidentification change over an extended time period. The current study and the Hitlin et al. (2006) study examine racial self-identification fluidity across a 5year span. Using a nationally representative sample of 14–18-year-olds, Hitlin et al. (2006) found that twice as many adolescents had fluid racial self-identification compared with those with stable racial self-identification. Among those adolescents for whom racial self-identification changed, half moved from a ‘‘consolidated’’ racial self-identification (e.g., ‘‘I am Black and White, or multiracial’’) to a ‘‘differentiated’’ one (e.g., ‘‘I am Black’’). The other half shifted in the opposite direction across time. THE PRESENT STUDY Using Race Self Complexity as a theoretical framework, the present study examines the fluidity of multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification. This framework integrates theory and research on personality, multiracial identity, and monoracial identity. The present study seeks to extend research by Hitlin et al. (2006) and Doyle and Kao (2007) on multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification over time by examining its fluidity over three different time periods (i.e., 7th, 8th, and 11th grades) instead of just two different time periods. The inclusion of a third time period provides an opportunity to examine fluidity patterns that may change more than once, thus allowing for the demonstration of fluidity in a more robust and detailed way. Although the sample for the current study is considerably smaller and less representative than that in Hitlin et al.’s (2006) study, it provides a unique opportunity to examine racial self-identification change at two closely related time periods (i.e., 7th and 8th grade) and compare these with a time period toward the end of their high school experience (i.e., 11th grade). This has potential to make theoretical contributions to understanding multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identifications. Furthermore, given the adolescent’s task of having to develop a sense of who he or she is within various social contexts, shifting peer, school, and

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neighborhood ecologies have the potential to lead to significant self-concept changes from year to year (for a review, see Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Many models of multiracial identity development (i.e., Jacobs, 1992; Kerwin & Ponterotto, 1995; Poston, 1990) describe multiracial individuals experiencing the conflict of having to adopt one particular race or ethnicity over another. The inclusion of a third data collection time period may further illustrate this conflict during adolescence, as well as the need to be conservative when making conclusions regarding racial self-identification in studies that examine only two data collection time periods. This last period may not represent a ‘‘resolution’’ of multiracial identity development, which is a theme of the multiracial models described previously. Instead of representing a selfidentification ‘‘resolution,’’ this last period may represent one of a series of future racial self-identifications that may be different or similar to the last time period. This framing would be consistent with the idea that racial selfidentification is a personality characteristic that changes in time, place, and social role across the life course. METHOD Participants The sample for this study was selected from a larger sample of 1,482 (approximately 61% Black, 35% White) families participating in a longitudinal study of academic and social development. Within an economically and ethnically diverse sample of adolescents and their families, this longitudinal study was designed to examine the influences of multiple levels of social context on adolescent development. The sample was drawn from a county on the mid-Atlantic coastal region of the United States with varied ecological settings (i.e., low-income urban, middle-class suburban, and rural farmbased neighborhoods). Participant Selection For the present study, three strategies were employed to select the participants who were Black/White multiracial within the larger longitudinal study. In the first selection strategy, adolescents were selected who both racially self-identified as being ‘‘mixed’’ on the survey and described these races as ‘‘Black’’ and ‘‘White.’’ In the second selection strategy, adolescents were selected whose racial self-identification was different from the racial self-identification of their primary caregiver. Within this selection strategy, the primary caregiver had to be the biological parent of the adolescent. In the third selection strategy, adolescents were selected whose biological primary caregivers’ racial self-identification was different from that of their biological secondary caregiver.

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All but one of the 31 multiracial adolescents originally selected for this study were selected using the first strategy. These participants racially selfidentified using more than one race at least once during Times 1 (1991), 2 (1993), and 3 (1997) of data collection. Employing the second selection strategy produced no multiracial adolescents for the present study. The other participant was selected using the third selection strategy. The adolescent’s biological primary caregiver racially self-identified as being ‘‘White,’’ and racially identified the biological secondary caregiver as being ‘‘Black.’’ When we conducted the data analysis, we found that although this adolescent had a racially self-identified Black parent and White parent, this adolescent racially self-identified as being ‘‘White,’’ ‘‘Latino,’’ and ‘‘Latino/White’’ during Times 1, 2, and 3, respectively, of data collection. There were several reasons why we decided to include the adolescent selected using the third strategy. It is well established that parent reports on demographic factors are more reliable than their children’s reports. As such, this adolescent met the criteria for inclusion in the study of having a biological parent that is White and one that is Black. Another reason we decided to include this adolescent is related to the first. If we did not include the adolescent, we would have arbitrarily eliminated a participant who fit one of our selection criteria simply because he or she does not racially self-identify in a way that is consistent with the racial background of his or her biological parents. This is, in fact, the very question under investigation in this study: Across time, what racial categories do multiracial adolescents with one Black and one White biological parent select in their racial self-identification? Furthermore, this decision is consistent with the United States Census, which classifies individuals who self identify ‘‘ethnically’’ as ‘‘Hispanic’’ as either ‘‘Black’’ or ‘‘White’’ racially (Jones & Smith, 2001). Nine of the original 31 multiracial adolescents were excluded because they had missing racial self-identification data for at least one of the three time periods. These adolescents did not significantly differ from the rest of the adolescents in terms of gender, primary caregiver gender and race, or socioeconomic status. Using Time 1 data, each of the remaining 22 multiracial adolescent was individually matched on gender, age, school attended, and school grade level with two adolescents: one who racially self-identified as White and one who racially self-identified as Black. This matching procedure increased the total number of adolescents to 66. We used this matching to understand if racial self-identification change is unique to multiracial adolescents. The overall sample has a mean age of 12 years and has somewhat more females than males. Furthermore, the overall sample’s median family pretax income range was US$50,000–55,000, with 86% of the primary caregivers having earned at least a high school diploma. Separate characteristics of the multiracial and monoracial subsamples are shown in Table 1. Of the final 22 multiracial adolescents, most of their primary caregivers were their mothers;

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TABLE 1 Demographic Characteristics for Multiracial and Monoracial Subsamples During Time 1 (N 5 66)

Mean age Female Median family income range Primary caregivers with a high school diploma

Multiracial (n 5 22)

Monoracial (n 5 44)

12.45 64% US$60,000–65,000 82%

12.45 64% US$45,000–50,000 95%

Note. Time 1 5 1991. Each multiracial adolescent was matched on gender, age, school attended, and school grade level with one Black adolescent and one White adolescent.

one was a father and another was a grandmother. The primary caregivers racially self-identified themselves in the following ways: White (56%), Black (28%), Hispanic (4%), Black/White multiracial (4%), White/Native American multiracial (4%), and Other (4%). Measures Racial and ethnic self-identification. During face-to-face interviews, both the adolescent and his or her primary caregiver were asked to describe their race and/or ethnicity. During Time 1 (1991), adolescents were asked, ‘‘What is your race or ethnicity?’’ During Time 2 (1993), adolescents were asked, ‘‘What race are you?’’ During Time 3 (1997), adolescents were asked, ‘‘First of all, tell me your racial ethnicity.’’ Race contexts of participants’ racial self-identification. Some researchers suggest that there are contexts of racial socialization that help shape multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification (Harris & Sim, 2002; Herman, 2004; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002). Three contexts of multiracial adolescents’ racial socialization were included in this study: (a) interracial contact with Whites in school, (b) racial composition of friends, and (c) the frequency of talking about race at home (see Appendix). These three contexts were chosen for analysis because of their suggested relationship with the racial self-identification and overall identity development of multiracial individuals (Poston, 1990; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002). Although phenotypic variation (i.e., variation in skin color, hair texture, and facial feature typology) has also been found in previous research to be important, this type of data was not included in the dataset and therefore was not included in our analyses. Multiracial adolescents’ interracial contact with Whites in school was measured using the race demographics of each adolescent’s middle school and high school during Times 1, 2, and 3 of data collection (National Center

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for Education Statistics, 2005). White race demographics from each school were categorized into two categories defined by the percentage of White students attending the school. These categories of interracial contact with Whites are the following: ‘‘low’’ (49% or less) and ‘‘high’’ (50% or greater). Racial composition of friends refers to the amount of the adolescent’s friends who are Black and the amount of the adolescent’s friends who are White.

Procedures Data collection. Using both face-to-face interviews and self-administered questionnaires, data were collected from both primary caregivers and adolescents in their homes. The face-to-face interviews were completed in approximately 50 minutes, while the self-administered questionnaires typically were completed in 30 minutes. Both the interview and self-administered questionnaire contained open-ended questions. Each participant received US$50.00 for each interview he or she completed. All trained interviewers were hired from the local community and earned at least a high school diploma or a general educational diploma. Interviewers and participants were matched for race and gender when possible. During the fall of 1991, letters were sent to the homes of 1,700 seventh graders of selected schools of a county in the Mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The letter requested parents’ permission for their adolescent, his or her parent, and older sibling, if applicable, to participate in the study. This study only utilized data reported by the adolescent and his or her primary caregiver. Another letter was sent to all of the secondary caregivers, asking them to participate in the study. This procedure was repeated in the spring of 1993 and the spring of 1997. Data collected during 1991, 1993, and 1997 are referred to in this study as Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3, respectively.

RESULTS Racial Self-Identification Categories The first research question that guided this study was what racial categories do multiracial adolescents with one Black and one White biological parent, as well as a comparative sample of monoracial adolescents, select in their racial self-identification across time? Across all three time periods, multiracial adolescents used seven different racial categories in their racial self-identification. Among 66 total responses across three time periods, the racial categories used by multiracial adolescents were Black and White (62%), Black (24%), White (4%), Other (4%), Hispanic (2%), Latino (2%), and Latino and White (2%). In the matched monoracial sample, all of the White

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adolescents used the racial category ‘‘White’’ in their racial self-identification, while all of the Black adolescents used the racial category ‘‘Black.’’

Patterns of Racial Self-Identification Change Across Time The second research question that guided this study was whether there is a pattern of change in the racial categories multiracial adolescents and their monoracial peers use in their racial self-identification across time. In order to analyze the racial self-identification patterns of the sample, we employed a modified form of descriptive pattern analysis. Pattern analysis is a qualitative data analysis method designed to create an explanatory or inferential code that identifies an emergent theme or configuration of explanation (see Miles & Huberman, 1994). Pattern coding generally involves making inferences about the code or placement of a certain data segment within the pattern created. However, because our data were coded by time and category, we created our patterns based on the exact racial category each participant used in racial self-identification. Overall, the results indicate that racial self-identification changed over time for the majority of multiracial participants (see Tables 2 and 3). Sixteen participants (73%) changed their racial self-identification across time, whereas only 6 participants (27%) maintained the same racial self-identification. The participants who did not change their racial self-identification across time racially self-identified as ‘‘Black and White.’’ Among the matched sample of Black adolescents and White adolescents, there was no change in racial self-identification across time. Among the multiracial adolescents who did change their racial self-identification, there were two predominate patterns of change, each with several variations. Participants’ most predominate pattern of change was fluctuation in their use of a single race as opposed to two races in their racial selfidentification. There were several variations within this pattern. In the first, participants’ racial self-identification was the same at Times 1 and 2 but TABLE 2 Multiracial Adolescents’ Racial Self-Identification Time Change Patterns (n 5 22) Time Change Pattern Time 1 5 Time 2 6¼ Time 3 Time 1 5 Time 3 6¼ Time 2 Time 1 6¼ Time 2 6¼ Time 3 Time 2 5 Time 3 6¼ Time 1 Time 1 5 Time 2 5 Time 3 (no change) Note. Time 1 5 1991; Time 2 5 1993; Time 3 5 1997.

Percentage 32 14 9 18 27

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TABLE 3 Multiracial Adolescents’ Racial Self-Identification Label Change Patterns (n 5 22) Time 1 Black and White Black and White Black Black Black White White Other Other Black and White

Time 2

Time 3

Percentage

Black and White Black and White Black Black and White Black and White Black and White Latino Black and White Black and White Black and White

Black White Black and White Black Black and White Hispanic Latino and White Black and White Black Black and White

15 4 15 9 9 4 4 9 4 27

Note. Time 1 5 1991; Time 2 5 1993; Time 3 5 1997.

changed at Time 3. Within the first variation of this pattern, participants racially self-identified as ‘‘Black and White’’ across the first two times and used a single race at Time 3. The single race used at Time 3 was either ‘‘Black’’ or ‘‘White.’’ Within the second variation of this pattern, participants used the same single race in their racial self-identification for Times 1 and 2 and used two races for their racial self-identification at Time 3. A second pattern of change relates to racial and ethnic self-identification. In this change pattern, the racial self-identification of the participants was not the same at any of the three times. Furthermore, this change pattern was the only one in which adolescents in this study used ‘‘Hispanic,’’ ‘‘Latino,’’ or ‘‘Latino and White’’ in their racial self-identification.

Black and White Racial Self-Identification Across Time: Who Are These Adolescents and What Is the Stability of Their Racial Ecology and Racial Socialization? Of the six multiracial adolescents who did not change their racial self-identification, all but one were male. Furthermore, all of their primary caregivers were White mothers with the exception of one mother. Although all of these adolescents come from families with a wide range of incomes, they were all involved in a diversity of school, church, and volunteer activities. Given the nature of the study and the complexity of findings for racial self-identification change patterns, we thought the group of adolescents who did not exhibit any racial self-identification change was unique and warranted further understanding. Therefore, we conducted descriptive analyses across the three time points to get a portrait of their race family, school, and peer

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contexts (see Appendix). These variables were item-level or scale-level variables in the larger survey study. We found that how often these adolescents talked about race at home as well as the racial composition of their schools and peers was similar. For all of these adolescents, with the exception of one, they reported that they almost never or never talked about race at home in their family. This is consistent across all three time points. There was one adolescent who reported talking about race at home once a month during the 11th grade, yet reported almost never talking about race in this context at previous times. In terms of the racial composition of their schools, they attended predominately Black schools in the 7th, 8th, and 11th grades. Yet, only one adolescent had all Black friends, another had all White friends, and the other adolescents reported having a mixture of Black and White friends. Although it is not clear how many friends were in their friendship group, they reported that the racial composition of these adolescent friendship groups did not change across time. DISCUSSION This study examined the fluidity of Black/White multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification at three times during the adolescent trajectory. In general, the results indicate that racial self-identification is fluid for this sample. Furthermore, they support previous research that found variation in the mono- and multiracial categories used by multiracial adolescents in their racial self-identification (Brunsma, 2005; Harris & Sim, 2002; Herman, 2004; Hitlin et al., 2006). Taken together, these findings support the theoretical utility of conceptualizing racial self-identification as a personality characteristic adaptation that can change across time. Also, they imply that the meaning of being a multiracial adolescent is a complex phenomenon. The multiracial adolescents in this study used ‘‘Black and White’’ most frequently in their racial self-identification. This can be interpreted in multiple ways. It could be that this pattern of multiracial self-identification represents a general shift to a more flexible way of thinking in American society about what it means to be a multiracial person. This interpretation is consistent with arguments made by scholars of multiracial identity (Brunsma, 2005; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002; Roth, 2005). For example, Rockquemore and Brunsma (2002) assert: ‘‘In the final analysis the one-drop rule seems headed for a slow death. The plurality of racial identity options chosen by biracial people, illustrates the fruitless nature of attempting to capture racial identity in a singular category’’ (p. 117). However, this interpretation of shifting racial thinking should be made with caution. Patterns of racial self-identification are complex. In the present study, although ‘‘Black and White’’ was used most frequently, when the adolescents did racially self-identify with a single race, ‘‘Black’’ was selected more often than ‘‘White.’’ This finding is consistent with Harris and Sim (2002), who found that

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when Black and White multiracial adolescents were forced to report their ‘‘best single race,’’ 75% selected Black. Although it is not clear if this can be attributed to racial thinking aligned with the one-drop rule, two previous studies have found that having a phenotypic appearance that is more characteristic of a minority group makes it more likely for the individual to racially self-identify using a non-White single race category (Bowles, 1993; Harris & Sim, 2002). Both interpretations may be at work for different types of multiracial adolescents, who as a diverse group vary in their life experiences. Future research should utilize narrative theoretical and methodological approaches that allow for a diversity of explanations; a one-size-fits-all model of racial self-identification patterns may oversimplify the multiracial lived experience. For example, Terry (2009) used a narrative theoretical framework and guided autobiography methodology and found that multiracial college students constructed identities that are largely associated with the Black lived experience. It was surprising that at Time 2, adolescents overwhelmingly racially selfidentified using the ‘‘Black and White’’ category and then moved back to single racial self-identification racial categories 3 years later. This racial selfidentification movement pattern cannot be explained by cognitive developmental advances (Erikson, 1963) that afford these adolescents the opportunity for greater differentiation. Distinctions between the self and identity when studying adolescents may be informative when making theoretical interpretations. In a review of adolescent research, Steinberg and Morris (2001) assert that most of the identity ‘‘work’’ associated with adolescence occurs during late adolescence and young adulthood. Thus, research on identity during early adolescence has focused on ‘‘self-conceptions’’ as opposed to ‘‘identity’’ in the Eriksonian tradition. This could explain racial self-identification fluidity. That is, racial self-identification change may not represent a forged identity that changes, but rather a looser self-concept based on personal beliefs and standards that can change over time. This would also be consistent with the conceptualization of racial selfidentification as a personality characteristic adaptation that changes across time. Although fluidity was characteristic of most of the multiracial adolescents in this study, there was also a group of adolescents who maintain their racial self-identification. In doing so, they racially self-identified as ‘‘Black and White.’’ This pattern may be explained by Rockquemore and Brunsma’s (2002) Border Identity type. Individuals with a Border Identity racially selfidentify with two races and understand themselves to exist between two socially distinct racial classifications. Another possible interpretation is related to racial socialization and the race of the primary caregiver. All of the adolescents in this group had non-Black mothers; these mothers may have encouraged them to acknowledge both their White and Black racial heritages. This result is opposite to that in other research studies finding that families with White mothers and fathers of a minority group had children who were more likely to racially self-identify with the minority group (e.g., see Brunsma, 2005; Herman, 2004; Xie & Goyette, 1997).

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Much like in the Hitlin et al.’s (2006) study, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the post hoc analysis of the racialized peer, school, and home contexts of adolescents who maintain their racial self-identification. However, it does raise important questions for future multiracial self-identification theory development and research. For example, does choosing a more racially mixed or White peer group in a predominantly Black school context make it more likely for a multiracial adolescent to maintain their racial self-identification as multiracial across time? Or, does racially selfidentifying as multiracial lead a multiracial adolescent being more open to and interested in having friends from a diversity of racial groups? Perhaps, the answer to these two questions depends on the personality development and life experiences of the particular individual. Also, it would be important to explore whether talking infrequently about race at home during the adolescent period influences a multiracial adolescent to use multiple racial categories in their racial self-identification. It could be that not talking frequently about race may provide the adolescent with the opportunity to independently forge his or her own sense of what it means to be multiracial. Therefore, they may be less influenced by others who are more influenced by American society and culture’s master race narratives about what it means to be Black, White, or multiracial.

Racial Self-Identification as a Personality Characteristic Adaptation: What Are the Methodological Implications of Racial Self-Identification Fluidity? There are several methodological implications of the findings of change across time. They illustrate that one major methodological challenge for researchers is identifying the appropriate research methods for determining who is multiracial. Without considering the possibility that the racial self-identification of some multiracial adolescents can change, researchers risk oversimplifying their understanding of the process of racial self-identification (Harris & Sim, 2002; Hitlin et al., 2006). The findings of the present study also suggest that racial self-identification questions found in surveys and interviews should allow the participant to self-select more than one racial category in lieu of a forced-choice response format that may not be aligned with their own racial self-identification preferences. It is also important to include, for each participant, a race self-report for each biological parent. This strategy was employed in a few other multiracial identity studies (Brunsma, 2005; Harris & Sim, 2002; Herman, 2004; Xie & Goyette, 1997). Employing this strategy will likely be beneficial, as it is well established in survey research that parents’ demographic self-reports are likely more reliable than those of their children. These findings also suggest that research designs using secondary data need to be cautious in their use of cross-sectional racial self-identification data in general, and particularly in the absence of biological parent racial

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self-identification data. If the present study did not include data on the race of the biological parents and also stopped at only examining the racial categories that multiracial adolescents use for racial self-identification at one time, it would have been assumed that the racial self-identification of each adolescent was stable across time. Clearly, for some of the adolescents, there was a great deal of fluidity in their racial self-identification. In other words, if we relied only on each adolescent’s racial self-identification at Time 1 (and not self-reported race of the parents) in defining who was multiracial within our larger survey sample of more than 1,400, many of these adolescents would have been assigned to one of the single-race categories. The findings from this study imply that future research using biographical and lifestory idiographic methods (see Winston, in press-a) would be useful in explaining the longitudinal patterns of change found in the present study, as well as in studies by Hitlin et al. (2006) and Doyle and Kao (2007). For example, using a guided autobiography strategy of inquiry would be useful in understanding multiracial adolescents’ racial self-identification in the context of selected critical life episodes, as well as the intersections of the individual and psychosocial contexts of the lived experience of race as part of American culture. Although the format and use of the guided autobiography technique varies across researchers and purposes, it is a technique that has largely been used with older adults in personality research, counseling, and group therapy settings designed to guide the individual in organizing the meaning of his or her life experiences (see Birren & Cochran, 2001). Of particular utility would be the use of the Guided Race Autobiography (Burford & Winston, 2005; Winston et al., 2007; Winston, in press-a), a new personality research instrument that was developed based on the Guided Autobiography (McAdams et al., 2004). The Guided Race Autobiography is designed to elicit narratives about race experiences across the following seven life scenes: (a) earliest memory, (b) childhood experience, (c) adolescent experience, (d) nadir experience, (e) peak experience, (f) turning point, and (g) continuity experience. Life scenes with racial self-identification themes would illustrate a person’s detailed narrative constructions of the (a) setting, (b) characters, (c) plot, and (d) psychological significance of racial self-identification scenes. Studying these narrative constructions would provide details of prior experiences and the meaning of these experiences in the task of racial self-identification in answering the internal or external question ‘‘what are you?’’ Used in conjunction with other nomothetic research methods to understand the meaning of race and personality within lives, this narrative methodology could help extend the understanding of racial self-identification as a static or fluid construct. Limitations There are several limitations of this study. The most important limitation is that the racial self-identification question was worded slightly differently

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across time. However, this change in wording did not result in a change of racial self-identification for the matched monoracial Black and White adolescents; this may suggest that wording alone could not account for the change shown by multiracial adolescents. It is not clear if the observed racial self-identification change patterns were due to a wording change or a real psychological one. However, based on existing multiracial identity theory and research (e.g., Harris & Sim, 2002; Hitlin et al., 2006; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002), it is very plausible that because of the element of choice, change is due to the fluid nature of identity for multiracial adolescents. A second limitation of the study is that it is a secondary data analysis, which did not allow us to include all of the variables that we think may explain some of the racial self-identification patterns we found. Previous research, for example, suggests that multiracial adolescents’ racial identity can be shaped by their skin color, facial features, and hair texture (Herman, 2004; Rockquemore, 1999; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002; Root, 1990). To address this limitation and the previously discussed future direction, we are currently conducting a mixed method narrative experimental survey study (the Personality and Lives Study) that includes these phenotypic variables, as well as guided autobiography techniques for understanding the more contextualized meaning of the multiracial lived experiences across time, place, and role within a person’s life (Terry, 2009; Winston, Philip, Mangum, Terry, & Goins, 2007). Summary and Conclusion I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners—an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. –Barack Obama (2008) Being a multiracial in the 21st century has a diversity of meanings. Unraveling this complexity in research on racial self-identification is a challenge. For some, being multiracial means having to choose one race over the other in racial self-identification. For others, it means adopting a unique

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racial self-identification as a new racial category that is neither singularly ‘‘Black’’ nor ‘‘White’’ in name, but rather ‘‘Black’’ and ‘‘White.’’ Thus, it is important that future research include theoretical and methodological formulations that account for the choice and fluidity of racial self-identification while allowing for consistency. The present study provided support for the utility of conceptualizing racial self-identification as a personality characteristic adaptation to race, as well as an example of the importance of longitudinal racial self-identification studies. Understanding the role of family, geographic, school, peer, and other social contexts in racial self-identification of multiracial individuals is complicated, yet important to pursue. Barack Obama’s construction of his story of what it means to be born of parents of two different races powerfully illustrates the complexity of the constellation of life experiences of Blackness, Whiteness, and Multiracialness that a multiracial person can psychologically negotiate during racial self-identification and identity construction. The methodological approach to the study of multiracial individuals’ racial selfidentification must continue to engage investigation of both the person and social ecology of the lived experience. American society is at a cultural historical turning point that further complicates the study of the lives of multiracial adolescents. The number of individuals born to parents of different racial groups is rapidly increasing throughout the nation; most of these individuals are children and adolescents (Jones & Smith, 2001). At the same time, there remains a contentious public policy debate about the political, economic, and psychological implications of including a multiracial category in the U.S. Census (DaCosta, 2003; Fernandez, 1996). Psychological research has an important role to play in informing this debate, yet as this study and related studies suggest, who is multiracial and what it means to be multiracial is psychologically, methodologically, and politically complicated. For some, cultural historical contexts of race, such as the one-drop rule, may be dying as a rule for racial self-identification. However, for many, it is still alive and well, further complicating the psychological task of identity formation within the lives of multiracial adolescents. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported in part by a grant to the second author from the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (no. 0238485) and by grants to Jacquelynne S. Eccles and Arnold J. Sameroff from the MacArthur Network on Successful Adolescent Development in High-Risk Settings and the National Institutes for Child Health and Human Development. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to thank the following people

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for their comments on drafts of this manuscript: Tanisha Burford, Stacey Billups, Steve Harris, Jackie Hamilton, Cheri Philip, Afiya Mangum, Ian Niles, and Michael Winston. This research used the MADICS Study of Adolescent Development In Multiple Contexts: 1991–2001, Waves 1–4 data set (made accessible in 2005, computer data files). These data were collected by Jacquelynne Eccles and made available through the archive of the Henry A. Murray Research Center of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (Producer and Distributor). An earlier version of this paper was presented at a poster session at the 19th Annual Association for Psychological Science Convention in Washington, DC, in 2007.

APPENDIX. QUESTIONS OF RACIAL COMPOSITION OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY DISCUSSIONS ABOUT RACE Racial Composition of Friends Time 1 (1991) Youth Face-to-Face Interview 1. Now think about all of your friends both at school and out of school. How many of the friends you spend most of your time with are Black? 2. How many of the friends you spend most of your time with are White? Time 2 (1993) Youth Self-Administered Questionnaire 1. How many of the friends that you spend most of your time with are Black? 2. How many of the friends that you spend most of your time with are White? Time 3 (1997) Youth Face-to-Face Interview 1. How many of the friends that you spend most of your time with are Black? 2. How many of the friends that you spend most of your time with are White? Family Discussion About Race Time 1 (1991) Youth Face-to-Face Interview 1. How often do you talk in the family about being (Race)?

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Time 2 (1993) and Time 3 (1997) Youth Face-to-Face Interview 1. How often do you talk in the family about your racial background?

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