Are Latino and Black interests at odds in the South? Will Pride, Prejudice, and Ambivalence: Toward a Asians form a coalition with Whites in California? These Unified Theory of Race and Ethnicity conversations, while animated, are tinged with ambivalence and confusion. Many Americans feel that paying attention Hazel Rose Markus to ethnic and racial differences is at odds with our ideals of Stanford University individual equality and our belief that, at the end of the day, people are people. Doesn’t highlighting racial and eth- nic differences come close to stereotyping? And isn’t even talking about race and ethnicity sort of, well, racist and ethnocentric—not to mention possibly illegal? What are For more than a century, hundreds of psychologists have race and ethnicity, anyway? studied race and ethnicity. Yet this scholarship, like For many psychologists, ambivalence and confusion American culture at large, has been ambivalent, viewing about race and ethnicity are not new. I know they have race and ethnicity both as sources of pride, meaning, and been with me at least since I was an undergraduate, when I motivation as well as sources of prejudice, discrimination, began my research career coding New York Times articles and inequality. Underlying this ambivalence is widespread about political conflict (Feierabend, Feierabend, & Nes- confusion about what race and ethnicity are and why they vold, 1971). For each article, my first task was to deter- matter. To address this ambivalence and confusion, as well mine whether racial groups or ethnic groups were involved as to deepen the American conversation about race and in the conflict. To explain the difference between race and ethnicity, the article first examines the field’s unclear ethnicity, my graduate student supervisor gave the example definitions and faulty assumptions. It then offers an of ethnic and racial ghettos: People choose to live in ethnic integrated definition of race and ethnicity—dynamic sets of ghettos, but not in racial ghettos. This example did not historically derived and institutionalized ideas and help me much, and at the time, I could not really under- practices—while noting that race, although often used stand the difference between race and ethnicity. interchangeably with ethnicity, indexes an asymmetry of My confusion about race and ethnicity only grew in power and privilege between groups. Further, it shows graduate school. I remember proposing a study on gender how psychology’s model of people as fundamentally and the self-concept and another on race and the self-con- independent, self-determining entities impedes the field’s— cept. It was Ann Arbor in the 1970s, and nobody said no. and the nation’s—understanding of how race and ethnicity Yet my advisors suggested that I would be better off study- influence experience and how the still-prevalent belief that ing just the self-concept. Their advice drew on a widely race and ethnicity are biological categories hinders a more held, implicit distinction between what is basic and what is complete understanding of these phenomena. Five first peripheral, what is process and what is content: The self is propositions of a unified theory of race and ethnicity are basic; being a self is process. Gender, race, and ethnicity offered. are peripheral; they are content. Keywords: race, ethnicity, diversity, culture, cultural psy- At about this time, James Jackson proposed the first chology nationally representative survey of Black Americans. Many at the Institute for Social Research insisted that he include Americans now talk daily about race and ethnicity. What is a White comparison group. Otherwise, they said, his re- it like to be Black in America? Does Obama’s candidacy search would not be sound—never mind that 30 years of mean that America can finally confront race? Is it a sign surveys without Black or Latino comparison groups were that America is postrace? Do Black churches influence the presumably robust. The debates raged. I walked away from Black vote? Do White churches influence the White vote? these two graduate school incidents with two new types of confusion: Why isn’t studying gender, race, and ethnicity “basic” science? And if race and ethnicity are so periph- Editor’s Note eral, why does everyone get so tense when they talk about Hazel Rose Markus received the Award for Distinguished these topics? Scientific Contributions. Award winners are invited to de- Then in 1992, as a University of Michigan faculty liver an award address at the APA’s annual convention. A member, I designed my first cultural psychology course, version of this award address was delivered at the 116th with sections on selves in European American, Japanese, annual meeting, held August 14–17, 2008, in Boston, Mas- Chinese, Indian, African American, Latino American, and sachusetts. Articles based on award addresses are re- Asian American contexts. Many colleagues and students viewed, but they differ from unsolicited articles in that they were enthusiastic, but one colleague was inconsolable. His are expressions of the winners’ reflections on their work family had survived the Holocaust, and he demanded to and their views of the field. know how a social psychologist could teach a course that November 2008 ● American Psychologist 651 he called Stereotyping 101. My head hurt: As a social psy- definitions of race and ethnicity and describe a view of the chologist, I shared my field’s passion for drawing attention person that readily accounts for how race and ethnicity to the evils of prejudice and discrimination. But also as a influence behavior. social psychologist, I shared my field’s passion for identi- Finally, I sketch five initial propositions of a unified fying patterns in social behavior. Where did science end theory of race and ethnicity. A complete theory will re- and stereotyping begin? quire multiethnic, multiracial networks of psychologists Grappling with race and ethnicity caused me problems with expertise in psychology, in race and ethnicity, and in again in 1995. My research lab was discussing the power the social histories of these phenomena both in America of popular media to create and maintain stereotypes. I was and in a global context. In the meantime, closely examin- arguing that Pocahontas (Pentecost, Gabriel, & Goldberg, ing and integrating the psychological research on race and 1995), unlike earlier Disney movies, included some posi- ethnicity will be extremely valuable for psychological sci- tive representations of underrepresented minorities. An ence and practice. American Indian student retorted, “White people would think that.” I was used to push-back in this lab, but I was Separate but Relevant Literatures surprised to hear myself called a White person. After all My sense that the time is right for an integration of re- these years studying race and ethnicity, I had somehow search on race and ethnicity within psychology developed failed to realize that I “have” race, too. Moreover my ob- when I was director of the Center for Comparative Studies servation that things were getting better for American Indi- in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. In my work ans was experienced as reflecting this White perspective. with colleagues from many fields, I have noticed that psy- More recently, I discovered that the struggle over what chologists are more likely to accept race and ethnicity as to think, say, and do about race and ethnicity is poured facts of the world than are many other scholars. As a field, into the very concrete of my office. The Stanford Psychol- we have done a good job discovering the universal causes ogy Department resides in a building named after David and consequences of prejudice but not such a great job Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford and, like many uncovering the history and specifics of the American case. educational leaders of his time, a noted eugenicist. Over We are less likely to ask what race and ethnicity are, the building’s entryway is a statue of Louis Agassiz, a where they came from, and what psychology has done to Swiss American naturalist, champion of the scientific create and perpetuate particular understandings of these method, highly accomplished Harvard professor, and pro- phenomena (for a significant recent exception, see Helms, ponent of the belief that some races are just biologically Jernigan, & Mascher, 2005). With respect to ethnicity, we better than others. How is it that Jordan Hall, home to gen- have shown increasing interest in comparing Americans erations of scientists trying to counter prejudice, stereotyp- with Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans or with Asian Ameri- ing, and discrimination, features the name and image of can or Latino American participants, and in characterizing two people whom some might now call racists? What do differences among these groups in various psychological we do about the Jordan name, the Agassiz statue? tendencies. At the same time, we have been much less as- My confusion and ambivalence about race and ethnicity tute in recognizing that “everyone is ethnic” and in exam- do not stem from a lack of interest, effort, or goodwill. ining how mainstream European American behavior is also They are also not mine alone. Instead, they reflect the as- ethnically and racially grounded. sumptions and anxieties of the field of psychology, which Within psychology, researchers across subfields study in turn embodies the assumptions and anxieties of Ameri- race and ethnicity, generating a variety of distinct litera- cans as a whole. tures that could be well integrated. One robust, empirical With race and ethnicity moving to the fore of our na- literature now demonstrates that race shapes psychological tion’s consciousness, the time has come for psychologists experience (for reviews see, e.g., Adams, Biernat, to examine our own ambivalence and confusion so that Branscombe, Crandall, & Wrightsman, 2008b; Cuddy, we may spell out, clearly and compellingly, what race and Fiske, & Glick, 2007; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004; Eber- ethnicity are and why they matter for behavior.