The DOI matches its Crossref record; 83 of the 83 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
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.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“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
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“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
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.98.2.224 · Cited by 21,995
The weirdest people in the world?
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x0999152x · Cited by 12,641
Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?
Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691610393980 · Cited by 9,996
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797611417632 · Cited by 6,567
Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.41.9.954 · Cited by 5,806 · cited 2×
“…leadership transforms organizations by changing norms, creating initiatives, establishing new knowledge, and modeling potential career paths to underrepresented group members (Crisp & Turner, 2011; Jeanquart-Barone, 2004; Markus & Nurius, 1986; Milner & Howard, 2004; Rowley & Camacho, 2015).”
WEIRD languages have misled us, too
Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2010) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x1000018x · Cited by 4,177
Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk
Berinsky, A. J., Huber, G. A., & Lenz, G. S. (2012) · Political Analysis · doi:10.1093/pan/mpr057 · Cited by 4,008
(2004) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.41-3121 · Cited by 2,725
Measuring the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices With Incentives for Truth Telling
John, L. K., Loewenstein, G., & Prelec, D. (2012) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797611430953 · Cited by 2,239
The study of culture, ethnicity, and race in American psychology.
Betancourt, H. M., & López, S. R. (1993) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.48.6.629 · Cited by 1,214
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Jacobson, M. F. (2017) · Journal of American History · doi:10.1093/jahist/jax014 · Cited by 1,169
The persistent sampling bias in developmental psychology: A call to action
Nielsen, M., Haun, D. B. M., Kärtner, J., & Legare, C. H. (2017) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.04.017 · Cited by 1,023
Constraints on Generality (COG): A Proposed Addition to All Empirical Papers
Simons, D. J., Shoda, Y., & Lindsay, D. S. (2017) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691617708630 · Cited by 986 · cited 1×
“Proposed by Simons, Shoda, and Lindsay (2017), this recommendation makes clear the extent to which authors’ conclusions generalize across samples.”
Race, race-based discrimination, and health outcomes among African Americans
Mays, V. M., Cochran, S. D., & Barnes, N. W. (2007) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190212 · Cited by 889
Positionality: Reflecting on the Research Process
Bourke, B. (2014) · The Qualitative Report · doi:10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1026 · Cited by 814
Replications in Psychology Research: How Often Do They Really Occur?
Makel, M. C., Plucker, J. A., & Hegarty, B. (2012) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691612460688 · Cited by 750
Rad, M. S., Martingano, A. J., & Ginges, J. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1721165115 · Cited by 746
Political diversity will improve social psychological science
Duarte, J. L., Crawford, J. T., Stern, C., Haidt, J., Jussim, L. J., & Tetlock, P. E. (2014) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x14000430 · Cited by 604
Graham, S. (1992) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.47.5.629 · Cited by 595
The origins of symbolic racism.
Sears, D. O., & Henry, P. J. (2003) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.259 · Cited by 584
Hughes, D. (2003) · American Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1023/a:1023066418688 · Cited by 572
When Prejudice Does Not Pay: Effects of Interracial Contact on Executive Function
Richeson, J. A., & Shelton, J. N. (2003) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/1467-9280.03437 · Cited by 538
Cognitive adaptation to the experience of social and cultural diversity.
Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2010) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0021840 · Cited by 427
The psychology of American racism.
Roberts, S. O., & Rizzo, M. T. (2020) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/amp0000642 · Cited by 348
Self-citationWhy genes don't count (for racial differences in health)
Goodman, A. H. (2000) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.90.11.1699 · Cited by 338
Rhodes, M., & Gelman, S. A. (2009) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2009.05.001 · Cited by 323
Morning, A. J. (2011) · University of California Press eBooks · doi:10.1525/9780520950146 · Cited by 320
Racism in the Structure of Everyday Worlds: A Cultural-Psychological Perspective
Salter, P. S., Adams, G., & Perez, M. J. (2018) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721417724239 · Cited by 299
Mattis, J. S., & Jagers, R. J. (2001) · Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1002/jcop.1034 · Cited by 291
Marginally Significant Effects as Evidence for Hypotheses
Pritschet, L., Powell, D., & Horne, Z. (2016) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797616645672 · Cited by 270
Zuckerman, M. (1990) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037//0003-066x.45.12.1297 · Cited by 258
Toward a Social Psychology of Race and Race Relations for the Twenty-First Century
Richeson, J. A., & Sommers, S. R. (2015) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115115 · Cited by 243
Craig, M. A., Rucker, J. M., & Richeson, J. A. (2018) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721417727860 · Cited by 213
Zuckerman, M. (1990) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.45.12.1297 · Cited by 174
White and Black American children's implicit intergroup bias
Newheiser, A., & Olson, K. R. (2011) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.08.011 · Cited by 173
Black Teachers, Black Students, Black Communities, and Brown: Perspectives and Insights from Experts
Milner, H. R., & Howard, T. C. (2004) · The Journal of Negro Education · doi:10.2307/4129612 · Cited by 168
Learning (not) to talk about race: When older children underperform in social categorization.
Apfelbaum, E. P., Pauker, K., Ambady, N., Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0012835 · Cited by 166
Generic language in scientific communication
DeJesus, J. M., Callanan, M. A., Solis, G., & Gelman, S. A. (2019) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1817706116 · Cited by 157
Variation is the universal: making cultural evolution work in developmental psychology
Kline, M. A., Shamsudheen, R., & Broesch, T. (2018) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0059 · Cited by 157
Hobbs, A. (2014) · Harvard University Press eBooks · doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674735811 · Cited by 150
Sociocultural Influences on the Sociopolitical Development of African American Youth
Anyiwo, N., Bañales, J., Rowley, S. J., Watkins, D. C., & Richards-Schuster, K. (2018) · Child Development Perspectives · doi:10.1111/cdep.12276 · Cited by 147
Medin, D., Ojalehto, B., Marin, A., & Bang, M. (2017) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0088 · Cited by 146
How social experience is related to children's intergroup attitudes
McGlothlin, H., & Killen, M. (2010) · European Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1002/ejsp.733 · Cited by 143
Why developmental psychology is incomplete without comparative and cross-cultural perspectives
Nielsen, M., & Haun, D. B. M. (2015) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0071 · Cited by 143
Minority Children: Introduction to the Special Issue
McLoyd, V. C. (1990) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02777.x · Cited by 138
Lewis, R. S., Goto, S. G., & Kong, L. L. (2008) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167207313731 · Cited by 118
Bias Awareness Predicts Color Conscious Racial Socialization Methods among White Parents
Perry, S. P., Skinner, A. L., & Abaied, J. L. (2019) · Journal of Social Issues · doi:10.1111/josi.12348 · Cited by 110
Cross-cultural differences in children’s beliefs about the objectivity of social categories
Diesendruck, G., Goldfein-Elbaz, R., Rhodes, M., Gelman, S., & Neumark, N. (2013) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/cdev.12108 · Cited by 103
Face Processing in Infancy and Beyond: The Case of Social Categories
Quinn, P. C., Lee, K., & Pascalis, O. (2019) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102753 · Cited by 99
The neglected 95%, a challenge to psychology's philosophy of science.
Arnett, J. J. (2009) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/a0016723 · Cited by 94
Increasing Diversity in Cognitive Developmental Research: Issues and Solutions
Rowley, S. J., & Camacho, T. C. (2015) · Journal of Cognition and Development · doi:10.1080/15248372.2014.976224 · Cited by 94
Should social scientists be distanced from or engaged with the people they study?
Nzinga, K. L. K., Rapp, D. N., Leatherwood, C. J., Easterday, M. W., Rogers, L. O., Gallagher, N. M., & Medin, D. L. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1721167115 · Cited by 89
What Does It Mean to Be White?
DiAngelo, R. (2016) · doi:10.3726/978-1-4539-1848-7 · Cited by 88
The Role of Diversity Exposure in Whites’ Reduction in Race Essentialism Over Time
Pauker, K., Carpinella, C. M., Meyers, C., Young, D. M., & Sanchez, D. T. (2017) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550617731496 · Cited by 88
In search of cultural diversity: Recent literature in cross-cultural and ethnic minority psychology.
Hall, G. C. N., & Maramba, G. G. (2001) · Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology · doi:10.1037/1099-9809.7.1.12 · Cited by 79
Hartmann, W. E., Kim, E. S., Kim, J. H. J., Nguyen, T. U., Wendt, D. C., Nagata, D. K., & Gone, J. P. (2013) · Review of General Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0032260 · Cited by 78
Asymmetric cultural effects on perceptual expertise underlie an own-race bias for voices
Perrachione, T. K., Chiao, J. Y., & Wong, P. C. M. (2009) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.012 · Cited by 70
Verbally Expressed Modes of Transformation in the Fantasy Play of Black Preschool Children
McLoyd, V. C. (1980) · Child Development · doi:10.2307/1129554 · Cited by 65
Roberts, S. O., & Gelman, S. A. (2015) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/cdev.12410 · Cited by 64
Self-citationImplications of Racial Diversity in the Supervisor‐Subordinate Relationship
Jeanquart‐Barone, S. (1996) · Journal of Applied Social Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01118.x · Cited by 62
Dunham, Y. C., & Olson, K. R. (2016) · Journal of Cognition and Development · doi:10.1080/15248372.2016.1195388 · Cited by 62
Roberts, S. O., Guo, C., Ho, A. K., & Gelman, S. A. (2017) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.03.018 · Cited by 57
Self-citationRoberts, S. O., Weisman, K., Lane, J. D., Williams, A. D., Camp, N. P., Wang, M., Robison, M., Sanchez, K., & Griffiths, C. M. (2020) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspi0000233 · Cited by 55
Self-citationRoberts, S. O., & Gelman, S. A. (2016) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0000132 · Cited by 54
Self-citationEffect of group success and failure upon interpersonal attraction in cooperating interracial groups.
Blanchard, F. A., Adelman, L., & Cook, S. W. (1975) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0076953 · Cited by 53
Philbrook, L. E., Hinnant, J. B., Elmore-Staton, L., Buckhalt, J. A., & El-Sheikh, M. (2017) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0000319 · Cited by 52
Why Traditional Metrics May Not Adequately Represent Ethnic Minority Psychology
Syed, M. (2017) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691617709590 · Cited by 50
Diversity (Psychological) Science Training: Challenges, Tensions, and a Call to Action
Neblett, E. W. (2019) · Journal of Social Issues · doi:10.1111/josi.12357 · Cited by 46
The Conduct and Publication of Research on Afro-American Children: A Content Analysis
McLoyd, V. C., & Randolph, S. M. (2009) · Human Development · doi:10.1159/000272904 · Cited by 44
Culture, Memory, and Narrative Self-Making
Wang, Q., Song, Q., & Koh, J. B. K. (2017) · Imagination Cognition and Personality · doi:10.1177/0276236617733827 · Cited by 44
Poor representation of Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans in medicine.
Rodríguez, J. E., Campbell, K. M., & Adelson, W. J. (2015) · PubMed · Cited by 43
Brown, C. S., Mistry, R. S., & Yip, T. (2019) · Child Development Perspectives · doi:10.1111/cdep.12340 · Cited by 42
Berry, B. M. (2006) · Demography · doi:10.1353/dem.2006.0020 · Cited by 39
Hu, A. W., Zhou, X., & Lee, R. M. (2017) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0000421 · Cited by 39
Toward More Comparability and Generalizability of Developmental Research
Bell, R. Q., & Hertz, T. W. (1976) · Child Development · doi:10.2307/1128278 · Cited by 34
Rogers, L. O. (2019) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0000640 · Cited by 31
Father-daughter identification and its impact on her personality and drug use.
Brook, J. S., Whiteman, M., Gordon, A. S., & Brook, D. W. (1986) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/0012-1649.22.6.743 · Cited by 22
Cole, K. (2016) · Politics Groups and Identities · doi:10.1080/21565503.2016.1198708 · Cited by 22
Psychological Science as a Complex System: Report Card
Medin, D. L. (2017) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691616687746 · Cited by 22
Now you see race, now you don’t: Verbal cues influence children’s racial stability judgments
Roberts, S., & Gelman, S. (2017) · Cognitive Development · doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.03.003 · Cited by 15
Self-citationCulture in the Organization of Autobiographical Memory
Wang, Q. (2019) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198784845.003.0005 · Cited by 13
Development of Detection and Recognition of Orientation of Geometric and Real Figures
Stein, N. L., & Mandler, J. M. (1975) · Child Development · doi:10.2307/1128131 · Cited by 9
Tan, E. (2016) · Science Education · doi:10.1002/sce.21224 · Cited by 4
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The psychology of American racism.
Roberts, S. O., & Rizzo, M. T. (2020) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/amp0000642 · Cited by 348
Self-citationChoukas-Bradley, S., Roberts, S. R., Maheux, A. J., & Nesi, J. (2021) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/ju92a · Cited by 331
Self-citationChoukas-Bradley, S., Roberts, S. R., Maheux, A. J., & Nesi, J. (2022) · Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review · doi:10.1007/s10567-022-00404-5 · Cited by 333
Self-citationTimmons, A. C., Duong, J. B., Simo Fiallo, N., Lee, T., Vo, H. P. Q., Ahle, M. W., Comer, J. S., Brewer, L. C., Frazier, S. L., & Chaspari, T. (2023) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916221134490 · Cited by 263
Linxen, S., Sturm, C., Brühlmann, F., Cassau, V., Opwis, K., & Reinecke, K. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445488 · Cited by 254
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
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
