Safety at the boundaries of race: Black people derive identity safety from Black-White biracial people.

Abstract

Objectives: This research investigated whether Black people experience social identity threat when anticipating an interaction with a Black-White biracial person.

Method: In both studies, we led Black participants to believe that they would have a discussion with either a Black, Black-White biracial, or White interaction partner. Participants then reported the degree to which they considered their partner a racial ingroup member, their perceptions of their partner's prejudice, their perceived similarity to their partner, and measures of social identity threat that focused on how they expected to be perceived and treated during the interaction.

Results: Participants considered the Black and Black-White biracial partners as racial ingroup members and the White partner as a racial outgroup member. Participants perceived the Black and Black-White biracial partner as being less prejudiced than the White partner. In addition, participants expected to be perceived and treated more positively by both the Black and Black-White biracial partner than by the White partner. Notably, no significant differences existed between the Black and the Black-White biracial partner on any of these dependent variables. Mediational analyses revealed that participants' perceptions of their partner's prejudice and their perceived similarity to their partner independently mediate the effect of the race of the interaction partner on how they expected to be perceived and treated by their partner.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that Black people consider Black-White biracial people to be racial ingroup members and therefore do not anticipate experiencing social identity threat when interacting with a Black-White biracial person. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).