Psychological Science Is Not Race Neutral
Open accessAbstract
In their analysis in a previous issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, Roberts and colleagues argued that the editors, authors, and participants throughout subfields of psychological science are overwhelmingly White. In this commentary, we consider some of the drivers and consequences of this racial inequality. Drawing on race scholarship from within and outside the field, we highlight three phenomena that create and maintain racial inequality in psychology: (a) racial ignorance, (b) threats to belonging, and (c) racial-progress narratives. We close by exploring steps that journals and authors can take to reduce racial inequality in our field, ending with an appeal to consider the experience of scholars of color in race scholarship and in psychological science more broadly.
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Cites
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Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future
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Constraints on Generality (COG): A Proposed Addition to All Empirical Papers
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“This alone could help prevent researchers from relying exclusively on mostly White convenience samples (Rowley & Camacho, 2015) and help encourage making generalizability statements (a separate but related recommendation; Simons et al., 2017).”
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- Authors
- Dupree, C. H., & Kraus, M. W.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Dupree, Cydney H.
- Venue
- Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-03-02
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 270-275
- ISSN
- 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-6924
- OpenAlex
- W3133908965
- Cited by
- 84
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 11
- FWCI
- 16.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (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 › Sociology and Political Science › Critical Race Theory in Education
- Keywords
- scholars of color, racial ignorance, diversity in psychology
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