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Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future
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Abstract
Race plays an important role in how people think, develop, and behave. In the current article, we queried more than 26,000 empirical articles published between 1974 and 2018 in top-tier cognitive, developmental, and social psychology journals to document how often psychological research acknowledges this reality and to examine whether people who edit, write, and participate in the research are systematically connected. We note several findings. First, across the past five decades, psychological publications that highlight race have been rare, and although they have increased in developmental and social psychology, they have remained virtually nonexistent in cognitive psychology. Second, most publications have been edited by White editors, under which there have been significantly fewer publications that highlight race. Third, many of the publications that highlight race have been written by White authors who employed significantly fewer participants of color. In many cases, we document variation as a function of area and decade. We argue that systemic inequality exists within psychological research and that systemic changes are needed to ensure that psychological research benefits from diversity in editing, writing, and participation. To this end, and in the spirit of the field’s recent emphasis on metascience, we offer recommendations for journals and authors.
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“with the bulk of this research conducted among predominantly white participants (Roberts et al., 2020).”
From Studying Ethnic-Racial Identity among White Youth: White Supremacy as a Developmental Context (2022) · cites this paper as Roberts et al., 2020
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“The lack of focus on racial/ethnic identity represents a widespread issue in psychological science (Roberts et al., 2020), and researchers from the body image and disordered eating literatures have recently called for an intersectional perspective and a clearer focus on the experiences of People of Color (e.g., Beccia et al., 2019; Burke et al., 2020; McEntee et al., 2020; Watson et al., 2019).”
From The Perfect Storm: A Developmental-Sociocultural Framework for the Role of Social Media in Adolescent Girls' Body Image Concerns and Mental Health. (2022) · cites this paper as Roberts et al., 2020
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Metadata
- Authors
- Roberts, S. O., Bareket-Shavit, C., Dollins, F. A., Goldie, P. D., & Mortenson, E.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Roberts, Steven O.
- Venue
- Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-06-24
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1295-1309
- ISSN
- 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-6924
- OpenAlex
- W3037526009
- Cited by
- 1,049
- References
- 83
- Citations by year
- 2026: 100 · 2025: 161 · 2024: 230 · 2023: 211 · 2022: 182 · 2021: 148 · 2020: 16
- FWCI
- 134.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Keywords
- authorship diversity, journal editors, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, research participation, meta-research, diversity in psychology, publication trends
- MeSH terms
- Authorship, Female, Humans, Male, Periodicals as Topic, Psychology, Editorial Policies, Behavioral Research, Research Subjects, White People, Research Report, Racism
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