Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or gender equality within a workplace or educational context. The effort of including a token individual in work or school is usually intended to create the impression of social inclusiveness and diversity.
Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. It is theorized to be a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. Since its introduction into the academic literature, stereotype threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology.
Claude Mason Steele is a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, where he is the I. James Quillen Endowed Dean, Emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, Emeritus.
William E. Cross Jr. is a theorist and researcher in the field of ethnic identity development, specifically Black identity development. He is best known for his nigrescence model, first detailed in a 1971 publication, and his book, Shades of Black, published in 1991. Cross's nigrescence model expanded upon the work of Black psychologists who came before him and created an important foundation for racial/ethnic identity psychology. It has proved a framework for both individual and collective social change. Throughout his career, Cross has been concerned with racial/ethnic identity theory and the negative effects of Western thought and science on the psychology of Black Americans, specifically the need for “psychological liberation under conditions of oppression.”
Barbara C. Wallace is a clinical psychologist and the first African-American woman tenured professor at Teachers College of Columbia University. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association within divisions 50 and 45. She is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Equity in Health.
Ethnocultural empathy refers to the understanding of feelings of individuals that are ethnically and/or culturally different from oneself. This concept casts doubts on global empathy, which assumes that empathy is "feeling in oneself the feelings of others" regardless of the other's characteristics or context. Ethnocultural empathy, on the other hand, assumes that empathy toward others probably increases if the other is similar to oneself in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, or cultural background.
Minority stress describes high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatized minority groups. It may be caused by a number of factors, including poor social support and low socioeconomic status; well understood causes of minority stress are interpersonal prejudice and discrimination. Indeed, numerous scientific studies have shown that when minority individuals experience a high degree of prejudice, this can cause stress responses that accrue over time, eventually leading to poor mental and physical health. Minority stress theory summarizes these scientific studies to explain how difficult social situations lead to chronic stress and poor health among minority individuals.
Ethnic identity development includes the identity formation in an individual's self-categorization in, and psychological attachment to, (an) ethnic group(s). Ethnic identity is characterized as part of one's overarching self-concept and identification. It is distinct from the development of ethnic group identities.
J. Nicole Shelton is an American psychologist and Stuart Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. Her research focuses on racial prejudice and interactions between whites and ethnic minorities.
The term shooting bias, also known as "shooter bias", is a proposed form of implicit racial bias which refers to the apparent tendency among the police to shoot black civilians more often than white civilians, even when they are unarmed. In countries where white people aren't the majority, shooting bias may still apply, with different minority groups facing discrimination.
Intergroup relations refers to interactions between individuals in different social groups, and to interactions taking place between the groups themselves collectively. It has long been a subject of research in social psychology, political psychology, and organizational behavior.
The Marley hypothesis is a psychological theory on how racial groups may have different perceptions of the current racism in society due to a difference in their extent of knowledge and awareness of racial history. The study hypothesizes a strong correlation between how much one knows about past racial discrimination, and how well they recognize racism in a given situation. This study is executed through social experiments, which theorizes how this behavioral pattern may arise due to members of a racial subgroup viewing racial discrimination through a social lens that has been shaped by their past attuned knowledge and understanding of racist incidents in history. Researchers of the Marley Hypothesis propose that members of minority groups, the African Americans, will have a higher understanding of racial history, while the majority group, European Americans, denies or overlooks such cases.
Diversity ideology refers to individual beliefs regarding the nature of intergroup relations and how to improve them in culturally diverse societies. A large amount of scientific literature in social psychology studies diversity ideologies as prejudice reduction strategies, most commonly in the context of racial groups and interracial interactions. In research studies on the effects of diversity ideology, social psychologists have either examined endorsement of a diversity ideology as individual difference or used situational priming designs to activate the mindset of a particular diversity ideology. It is consistently shown that diversity ideologies influence how individuals perceive, judge and treat cultural outgroup members. Different diversity ideologies are associated with distinct effects on intergroup relations, such as stereotyping and prejudice, intergroup equality, and intergroup interactions from the perspectives of both majority and minority group members. Beyond intergroup consequences, diversity ideology also has implications on individual outcomes, such as whether people are open to cultural fusion and foreign ideas, which in turn predict creativity.
Racial-ethnic socialization describes the developmental processes by which children acquire the behaviors, perceptions, values, and attitudes of an ethnic group, and come to see themselves and others as members of the group.
Denise O'Neil Green is an American academic, and currently the Vice-president, Equity and Community Inclusion at Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto. She took up the position in April 2017, after serving as the inaugural Assistant Vice-president/Vice-provost Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Toronto Metropolitan University, becoming the first person to hold this rank of senior leadership in Canadian higher education. Ryerson was the first Canadian university to create such a position. Green has been recognized nationally for her leadership in with several honours and awards.
Stephanie Johnson Rowley is a developmental psychologist and academic administrator known for her work on racial identity and parental socialization of race and ethnicity. She is the dean of University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development.
Mia A. Smith-Bynum a clinical psychologist who specializes in family science and is known for her research on mental health, parenting, family interactions, communication, and racial-ethnic socialization in ethnic minority families. Smith-Bynum is associate professor of Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland-College Park, where she is also affiliated with the Maryland Population Research Center. She is Chair of the Black Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Kevin Cokley is an African-American counselling psychologist, academic and researcher. He is University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, Associate Chair of Diversity Initiatives, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Previously he was the Oscar and Anne Mauzy Regents Professor of Educational Research and Development, Department Chair of Educational Psychology, and Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he directed the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis. He was a Fellow of the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Identity safety cues are aspects of an environment or setting that signal to members of stigmatized groups that the threat of discrimination is limited within that environment and / or that their social identities are welcomed and valued. Identity safety cues have been shown to reduce the negative impacts impact of social identity threats, which are when people experience situations where they feel devalued on the basis of a social identity. Such threats have been shown to undermine performance in academic and work-related contexts and make members of stigmatized groups feel as though they do not belong. Identity safety cues have been proposed as a way of alleviating the negative impact of stereotype threat or other social identity threats, reducing disparities in academic performance for members of stigmatized groups, and reducing health disparities caused by identity related stressors.
Margaret Rosario is a health psychologist who studies the development of sexual identity and health disparities associated with sexual orientation. Rosario was President of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 44, the Society for Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, from 2017-2018. Rosario received the APA Division 44 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Ethnic Minority Issues in 2008 and the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 2012, as well as the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award in 2021.
