Double Consciousness and Racial Status Beliefs

Abstract

Double consciousness arises from a conflict between the negative appraisals of others and one’s own positive self-appraisal. In this study, we link double consciousness with racialized status beliefs, or beliefs about the competency and worth of group members. Using first-order and generalized second-order evaluations of explicit status beliefs, we examine the consistency between how individuals view their own racial group and how they perceive their group to be viewed by others. Drawing on survey data, we find high agreement in generalized second-order status beliefs among racial groups but misalignment between these evaluations and first-order status beliefs for marginalized groups. Black and Hispanic respondents exhibit double consciousness by rating their racial group as higher status than they understand most people to rate their group. The widespread existence of double consciousness in status beliefs has troubling implications for the development of racial identity among people of color and for equity.

Keywords

double consciousness race status status beliefs

Double consciousness can be described as a fractured identity arising from a conflict between the negative appraisals of others and one’s own positive self-appraisal. Coined by DuBois (1896 [2015]) in his Souls of Black Folks, this concept has continued relevance to studies of race. Although the racial landscape has shifted since DuBois first wrote, social conditions continue to create the alienation of “twoness” through remaining racial gaps in wealth, employment, and respect, among other areas (Thomas 2020).

Here we investigate double consciousness through the lens of racialized status beliefs, or beliefs about the competency and worth of group members. These beliefs connect group evaluations to individuals, causing those from lower-status groups to experience and expect lower levels of deference, respect, influence, and esteem (Berger et al. 1977; Ridgeway and Correll 2006). Individuals hold first-order status beliefs indicating their personal views, but their behavior within interactions is largely determined by what most people think (Correll et al. 2017; Melamed et al. 2019), which we refer to as generalized second-order status beliefs (Mize 2019). Although generalized second-order beliefs are presumed to be consensual, they may differ from first-order beliefs. We maintain that holding higher first-order beliefs about one’s own group when compared to generalized second-order beliefs exemplifies double consciousness. Using double consciousness here fruitfully connects DuBois’s concept with racialized status beliefs to reveal a mechanism of racial inequality. Those possessing double consciousness have the “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others,” both understanding their own view but accurately depicting and behaving according to the views of others (DuBois 1903:5).

Using first-order and generalized second-order status beliefs, we examine the consistency between how individuals view their own racial group and how they perceive their group to be viewed by others. Drawing on survey data, we find high levels of consistency in generalized second-order status beliefs among racial groups but misalignment between these evaluations and first-order status beliefs for marginalized groups. Previous studies show that individuals who highly identify with lower-status groups experience higher personal regard for their own racial group than that afforded by others (Crocker et al. 1994). We align with these findings, showing that Black and Hispanic/ Latino(a) respondents exhibit double consciousness, consistently rating their racial or ethnic group as higher status than they understand most people to rate their group. The connection between double consciousness and status beliefs has troubling implications for the prospect of equitable interactions in racially diverse groups. Although double consciousness protects self-esteem (Spencer-Rodgers and Collins 2006), because generalized second-order beliefs drive behavior, exercising double consciousness is not protective from the societal consequences of others’ appraisals (Ridgeway and Nakagawa 2017).

Background

Reflected Appraisals and Double Consciousness

Classic sociological social psychology maintains that humans come to view ourselves as we understand others to see us. Cooley’s (1902) notion of the looking-glass self maintains that we see ourselves through the filter or lens of society. Similarly, for Mead (1934), we come to understand the impressions of others through internalizing the “generalized other,” referring to crystalized conceptions of what others think. These conceptions of reflected appraisals beg the question: What do we do when others’ conceptions of us do not agree or align with our own?

When an individual’s group is considered as high status, the process of reflected appraisal can proceed uninterrupted, and we come to view ourselves as we understand others to see us (Wiley, Perkins, and Deaux 2008). Crocker and colleagues (1994) examined individuals’ beliefs about private and public esteem for their racial groups. They find a strong correlation between private and public regard for White and Asian respondents, in line with theories of reflected appraisals. There was almost zero correlation for Black respondents, however. When individuals are met with a view of their group that is overwhelmingly derogatory, we argue that reflected appraisal gives way to double consciousness.

Scholars take DuBois’s conceptualization of double consciousness to refer to multiple phenomena, including the contradictions between the African and American consciousness (Bruce 1992) and the futile attempt for full Black citizenship in a racialized nation (Thomas 2020). Perhaps the clearest meaning, though, is the angst Black people experience through daily disrespect and misrecognition from those outside their group (Allen 2002; Rogers, Rosario, and Cielto 2020). Although most associated with Black Americans, scholars have successfully used double consciousness to examine identity formation in the African diaspora (Gilroy 1993), in instances of racialized gendered perceptions (Falcón 2008), and for explorations of sexuality (Orne 2013).

Double consciousness can be thought of as a coping strategy; this separation from the perceptions of others provides a level of protection and dignity in a racialized society. Those who can accomplish high private regard for their group and simultaneously recognize that the general public will not feel as positively are buffered psychologically from instances of discrimination (Sellers et al. 2006). The degree of awakening to double consciousness may vary (Itzigsohn and Brown 2015); as such, it may function consciously as a coping mechanism and at the subconscious level as a protective factor. Double consciousness is similar to the concept of social creativity from social identity theory (e.g., Jackson et al. 1996) in that both respond to unfavorable social comparisons. But social creativity seeks to reframe a negative assessment to something positive, for example by adding to a charge of poverty, “we are poor, but we are happy” (van Bezouw, van der Toorn, and Becker 2021:411). Double consciousness instead perceives the negative assessment of others without softening it and holds it in tension with positive self-assessment.

Racial Status Beliefs

Through group evaluations, status beliefs are intrinsic to conditions giving rise to double consciousness. Status distinctions organize inequality in group relations by ranking some groups as more worthy, competent, and intelligent than others (Ridgeway 2014; Weber 1968). Race is a diffuse status characteristic that shapes behavioral inequalities within mixed-race groups (Castilla 2008; Castilla and Benard 2010).¹ Diffuse status characteristics are socially significant differences linked to ideas of the capacity of persons with states of the characteristics (Berger et al. 1977; Fişek, Berger, and Norman 1991). Without specific knowledge about others’ competence, people are evaluated on the prestige and value afforded their group rather than their actual competence to perform a given task (Berger et al. 1977). As such, even when race is not related to the task at hand, race will be used to determine who should be advantaged in collectively oriented task groups unless steps are taken to ensure equal status interactions (Cohen and Lotan 1997; Goar and Sell 2005). Importantly, theories of status do not require that these be conscious deliberations; instead, status beliefs operate at a nonconscious level to bias impressions and beliefs without explicit reference to group beliefs (Kalkhoff et al. 2020).

Racial status beliefs affect interactions or behavior through generally accepted, rather than personal, beliefs. Individuals hold both first-order (what I believe) and generalized second-order (what most people believe) status beliefs.² Within interactions, individuals will act on generalized second-order beliefs even if they do not personally agree with them (Correll et al. 2017; Melamed et al. 2019). Acting on these generally accepted beliefs coordinates social interactions by determining who should defer to whom. Generalized second-order status beliefs are accepted as consensual by both those advantaged and disadvantaged by those beliefs (Jackman 1994; Ridgeway and Correll 2006). This means individuals from groups rated as lower status will support generalized second-order beliefs disadvantaging themselves because those beliefs are perceived as socially valid or legitimate (Walker, Rogers, and Zelditch 1988).

Widely held status beliefs imply the existence and content of racial stereotypes. Across multiple stereotype models, there is some consistency as to how racial groups are perceived. For example, Fiske et al.’s (2002) stereotype content model (SCM) proposes that stereotypes broadly rank groups by warmth and competence. Under this model, Whites are viewed as high in both competence and warmth, Asians are competent but lack warmth, and Blacks and Hispanics are moderate as to both warmth and competence. An alternative model, the racial position model, uses inferiority versus superiority as one of its dimensions and foreignness as the other (Zou and Cheryan 2017). This model holds Whites and Asians as superior relative to Blacks and Hispanics. Although these models differ in their dimensions, what they each show is a taken-for-granted perception of groups that informs their treatment on an interpersonal level. Given that these racial stereotypes are well established across groups, we expect that they reflect generalized second-order status beliefs that are equally consistent. Accordingly, drawing on SCM and existing work on status generalization, we expect Whites to be viewed as highest status; as the prototypical category, they are viewed to be high in both competence and warmth. They would be followed by Asians, who are high in status due to their perceived competence, which correlates with status, but lower than Whites and discriminated against due to a perceived lack of warmth (Fiske 2018). We maintain that this disadvantage will show up in differences in worth (but not competence), with Whites being viewed as more worthy and therefore higher status than Asians. Blacks and Hispanics, who fall into a midrange on both warmth and competence, would be viewed as low status relative to Whites and Asians.

Hypothesis 1: Generalized second-order status beliefs align with racial stereotypes and hold Whites as higher status than Asians, who are higher status than Blacks and Hispanics.

Hypothesis 2: Persons of all racial groups hold consistent generalized second-order beliefs about the relative status of racial groups.

Double Consciousness and Racial Hierarchy

Although generalized second-order status beliefs determine action, there is a difference between acting on widely assumed beliefs and accepting them. That is where double consciousness comes into play. Although disadvantaged groups clearly understand the social reality—generalized second-order beliefs—that rank their group as lower status, their personal first-order beliefs may fight against those evaluations. Recent work has shown that generalized second-order beliefs are not identical to first-order beliefs but instead govern them such that people with high first-order beliefs may still be deferential if they have low second-order beliefs (Melamed et al. 2019). As is true in the concept of double consciousness, these participants can accurately see themselves through the eyes of others and act according to those generalized second-order beliefs. Despite this, they still maintain first-order beliefs that assert the competence and worth of their own group.

People of color do not share an identical experience in the U.S. context. Because Black and Hispanic people fight against stereotypes that challenge their competence, double consciousness may be a more crucial coping mechanism for them than for Asian people. Asians are viewed as model minorities; this image marks them as relatively hardworking and high achieving (Kiang et al. 2017). The model minority myth is harmful in other ways, for example, by adding pressure for Asian employees to meet excessively high expectations (Lee and Zhou 2015). Still, this assessment is mostly viewed as a net positive, particularly in the areas of competence and intelligence (Huang 2021). Because of this, Asian people may be less likely to use double consciousness when it comes to status measures aligning with competence as opposed to warmth, preferring to align themselves with the status granted them relative to Black and Hispanic people. Accordingly, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 3: Hispanic and Black people hold higher explicit first-order racial status beliefs than generalized second-order racial status beliefs about their own groups. For Asian people, explicit first-order racial status beliefs (what do I believe about a given racial group) and generalized second-order racial status beliefs for their group are aligned.

White people experience a different impulse in their perception and presentation of self. Because they can reasonably expect that others will treat them as high status, there is no need to deploy the protection of double consciousness. Instead, Whites may attempt to decrease the status difference between themselves and others to reassure themselves that they are not prejudiced (Swencionis, Dupree, and Fiske 2017). When Whites minimize racial status differences in their first-order beliefs, they can maintain a level of “not knowing” concerning race at a personal level (Mueller 2020).

Hypothesis 4: White respondents will report less status advantage for White people than racially minoritized respondents.

We collected novel survey data to assess participants’ first-order and generalized second-order racial status beliefs. In the next section, we describe our methods, followed by the results from the survey.

Methods

Data Acquisition

To field our survey, we used an existing panel maintained by Qualtrics, an online crowdsourcing website. We paid them to collect 3,000 complete cases. The sample was “representative” on gender, race, and age groups, but representative to Qualtrics means that the sample has the same marginal distributions as the population, not that the sample is representative in a probabilistic sense. Although Qualtrics is more politically and demographically representative of the United States than other crowdsourcing sites (Boas, Christenson, and Glick 2020), crowdsourced samples are more technologically literate and educated than the U.S. population as a whole (Berinsky, Huber, and Lenz 2012). We use poststratification weights (for race and age groups) to adjust sample estimates to be closer to population estimates (Little 1993) but note that our results cannot generalize to the U.S. population as a whole.

Participants read the instructions and completed a survey designed to better understand explicit status beliefs toward White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic/Latino people. The sample was 61.4 percent White, 18.1 percent Black, 6.8 percent Asian, and 11.2 percent Hispanic/Latino; 2.5 percent identified as another race. Aside from participant race and their status beliefs, we measured a variety of demographics and controls. The sample was 50.8 percent female and 44 years old, on average. We measured education using a seven-item ordered scale, ranging from less than high school to doctoral or other professional degree. On average, respondents had completed some college. We measured political orientation on a six-item ordered scale, ranging from very conservative to very liberal. On average, respondents identified between slightly conservative and slightly liberal. Additionally, we gathered information on which region of the United States each participant resides: 41.1 percent are from the South, 17.2 percent are from the West, 20.4 percent are from the Midwest, and 18 percent are from the Northeast.³

Status Belief Measures

We measured first-order status beliefs using seven items. Participants answered the seven items across four different racial categories (White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic). Participants were asked: (1) How intelligent are [racial group]? (2) How worthy are [racial group]? (3) Are [racial group] inferior or superior? (4) Are [racial group] better or worse? (5) How able are [racial group] to do things? (6) How well do you expect [racial group] to do in situations in general? (7) In terms of things that count in this world, how do [racial group] fare? These questionnaire items were developed by Zeller and Warnecke (1973) to assess explicit first-order status beliefs, and although the items have been supplemented with more questions (Rashotte and Webster 2005; Thye 2000), they are still routinely used in research (Webster and Walker 2022).

Generalized second-order status beliefs were measured using six items. Participants were asked, “For each of the following pairs of adjectives, please tell us where you think most people would rank [racial group]” with the following adjective pairs: not respected/respected, powerless/powerful, low status/high status, follower/leader, incompetent/competent, unknowledgeable/knowledgeable, and incapable/capable. These items also have precedent (Correll 2004; Ridgeway et al. 1998).

The items on both scales (first-order and generalized second-order beliefs) had 9-point responses. The individual questionnaire items were reliable, so we averaged over the items to create an explicit first-order status beliefs scale (α≥ .9) and a generalized second-order status beliefs scale (α≥ .93) for each racial group. Finally, we define status advantage as the difference between what the respondent thinks “most people” think and what the respondent personally thinks. Because both status belief measures are on different metrics, we z-transform them before computing status advantage.

Results

Figure 1a presents the average generalized second-order status beliefs for White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian respondents. For each racial category of respondents, we show their average status beliefs for four racial groups—Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Figure 1a shows remarkable consensus in generalized-second order status beliefs. Respondents report that “most people” think Whites are highest in status, with Asians second and Black and Hispanic people about equivalent at the bottom of the status hierarchy. While we observe some variation in the means by the race of the respondents, the pattern of the hierarchy is identical regardless of respondent race (all four lines are U-shaped). Descriptively, this is consistent with Hypotheses 1 and 2, predicting the racial status order and that it is consensually held, respectively.

Figure 1.

Average (a) Generalized Second-Order Status Beliefs and (b) First-Order Status Beliefs.

Figure 1b present the first-order status beliefs. We point out that there is less variability by group than in Figure 1a, meaning that participants personally view race as less imbued with status than they think most people view race. We also point out that each group shows an ingroup bias (Brewer 1979)—Asian respondents think Asians are the highest in status, Black respondents think Blacks are the highest in status, Hispanic respondents think Hispanics are the highest in status, and the same is true for White respondents.

To assess our hypotheses more formally, we estimated a series of linear mixed models. We treated first-order and generalized second-order status beliefs as separately nested in respondents. With this data structure, the race of the four groups being evaluated is nested within respondents, and respondent race is a Level 2 or respondent-level predictor. The baseline model for status beliefs is presented in Equation 1. In Equation 1, i indexes the race of the group being evaluated; j indexes respondents; k refers to the four respondent-level racial categories (parameterized as dummy variables); q indexes the seven control variables (age, gender, education, liberal, and three dummies for region of the country),⁴ which are represented by α; π_0i refers to the variance component on the intercept corresponding to status beliefs in respondents; and ϵ_ij is the model residual. In estimating this model, we assume $π_{0 i}$ ~iid N(0, $σ_{j}^{2})$ and $ε_{ij}$ ~iid N(0, $σ^{2})$ ).⁵ Parameter estimates were obtained using maximum likelihood estimation.⁶

{(Status Beliefs)}_{ij} = β_{0} + β_{1} {(Racial Group Evaluated)}_{ij} + β_{2 k} {(Respondent Race)}_{j} + \sum_{q = 1}^{7} β_{2 + q} {(α)}_{j} + π_{0 i} + ε_{ij}

Hypothesis 1 predicted a relative ordering of generalized second-order status beliefs, with White people having the highest status, Asian people having the second highest, and Hispanic and Black people having the lowest status in “most people’s” eyes. The race of the group being evaluated strongly predicts generalized second-order status beliefs. To illustrate, Figure 2 shows marginal means from Model 1 in Table A1 (online supplement) averaging over all of the other covariates in the model. Net of the controls in Model 1, our respondents report that “most people” view White people as highest in status, with Asian people having significantly less status than White people and with Black and Hispanic people having about the same status that is significantly lower than that of Asian people. This constitutes strong support for Hypothesis 1. We also find that older respondents, more liberal respondents, and those from the West (compared to the South) report lower generalized second-order status beliefs for all groups.⁷

Figure 2.

Marginal Means of Generalized Second-Order Status Beliefs for Four Different Racial Groups

Hypothesis 2 predicted consistent generalized second-order beliefs across respondent racial categories; that is, we predicted a consensual status hierarchy. To assess this, we estimated a mixed model that was specified the same as previously described except it included an interaction effect between respondent race and the type of racial status beliefs. A test of nested models between Models 1 and 2 in Table A1 shows that the interaction is significant, $χ_{(12)}^{2}$ = 87.5, p < .001, meaning that status beliefs do vary by participant race. Figure 3 shows the marginal means from this model (Model 2). Note that all four lines in Figure 3 are U shaped. In support of Hypothesis 2, we find that White respondents and racially minoritized respondents maintain the same racial status ordering (White > Asian > Black = Hispanic); the significant interaction results from absolute rather than relative differences. In particular, we find that Black and Hispanic respondents report significantly higher generalized second-order status beliefs for their ingroups compared to the rest of the sample. Although the means are significantly different from one another, they maintain the hierarchical ordering regardless of the respondents’ race.

Figure 3.

Marginal Means of Generalized Second-Order Status Beliefs for Four Different Racial Status Beliefs

We now turn to our evaluation of Hypotheses 3 and 4. Recall, Hypothesis 3 predicts that Black and Hispanic individuals will hold higher first-order beliefs about their group than generalized second-order beliefs; that is, despite recognizing their social disadvantage, minoritized individuals will maintain a double consciousness (DuBois 1896 [2015]) and avoid fully integrating the lens of society to their own view (Cooley 1902). And Hypothesis 4 predicts that White respondents, as opposed to racially minoritized individuals, will report the smallest status advantage for White people. Put differently, racially minoritized individuals will perceive Whites to have a larger status advantage than White respondents. We evaluate both hypotheses with a single linear mixed model. Both imply an interaction between the race of the respondent and the race of the group being evaluated. Hypothesis 3 implies that the status advantage scores for Black and Hispanic people for their own group will be negative. Hypothesis 4 implies that the status advantage scores for White respondents will be smaller than the status advantage scores for minoritized respondents. A test of nested mixed models shows that the interaction between respondent race and the race of the group being evaluated should be included in the model, $χ_{(12)}^{2}$ = 160.98, p < .001. Model 3 in Table A1 presents the model parameter estimates.

Figure 4 visually illustrates the results for Hypotheses 3 and 4. In line with Hypothesis 3, in Figure 4a, we see that Black and Hispanic respondents maintain a racial double consciousness—that is, they hold higher ingroup evaluations of status than they recognize most people to afford members of their group. We also see that Asian respondents do not exhibit a racial double consciousness. They expect most people to view members of their group to be as competent and worthy as they see themselves. For everyone in the sample regardless of their racial status, respondents think Black and Hispanic individuals are higher status than most people would say they are. That is, it is consensual that Black and Hispanic people are at a socially valid or legitimate status disadvantage. The opposite appears true for White and Asian people, meaning that on average, respondents think most people view them as higher status than the respondents think they are. Practically, these beliefs mean that at baseline, people racialized as Black or Hispanic will receive fewer rewards and less deference, esteem, and honor when working in mixed race task groups (Berger and Fişek 2006).

Figure 4.

Marginal Means Drawn from Model 3 in Table A1

Figure 4b shows that Black respondents report a larger status advantage for White people than that reported by White respondents (the reference line in Figure 4). And although Asian and Hispanic respondents report a larger status advantage for White people than White respondents, this difference is not significant. In sum, we find that Hypotheses 3 and 4 are mostly supported. We find that Black and Hispanic respondents maintain a double consciousness regarding their status in the United States and that Asian respondents expect to be treated in line with their own, first-order conceptions of status. Similarly, although White, Hispanic, and Asian respondents report similar magnitudes of White status advantage, Black respondents perceive a significantly larger status advantage for White people.

We conducted sensitivity analyses to assess whether our main results are moderated in any meaningful way by our control variables. We find only absolute differences—in all cases the moderating effects do not alter the consensual nature of the overall racial hierarchy.⁸

Discussion

Status is an independent form of inequality that privileges and awards certain actors based on their attributes (Ridgeway 2014). We find that members of all racial groups award Whites top position in the racial status hierarchy, with Asians falling significantly below Whites but significantly above Blacks and Hispanics. These beliefs are consistent and consensual generalized second-order beliefs concerning relative racial status. This consistency aligns well with stereotype models (Fiske et al. 2002), allowing these generalized second-order beliefs to guide behavior within interactions.

Consent to racial status beliefs does not mean agreement with them. Status beliefs are a site of double consciousness for both Black and Hispanic people who display significantly higher first-order racial status beliefs compared to generalized second-order racial status beliefs. Despite their lower status relative to Whites, Asian people do not employ this strategy, aligning with the generalized second-order status beliefs for their group. Although Asians are viewed as lower status than Whites, they are still viewed as highly competent, perhaps creating less of a threat to status than for other people of color. This lack of double consciousness in the current study may also reflect the specific measures used. Although the markers of racial status used correlate with competence (where Asians are higher status), they are less indicative of warmth. It is quite possible that a composite measure focused on status/competency and warmth dimensions would result in double consciousness for Asian people as well. Racial hierarchy is multidimensional, and multiple measures are needed to capture the distinct experiences of Asian Americans, particularly those rooted in discriminatory perceptions of warmth or foreignness (Zou and Cheryan 2017).

Understanding status beliefs through the lens of double consciousness provides a step forward in theorizing how minoritized people cope with the negative appraisals of others. Social creativity from social identity theory proposes that individuals reframe a negative assessment of their group to something positive (Jackson et al. 1996). The presence of social creativity would make it less likely that we would find double consciousness because reframing negative views rooted in stereotypes requires a level of agreement to those negative views. Our results show that Black and Hispanic individuals instead differ with negative status assessments about their groups, choosing to personally reject instead of reframe them. They maintain high personal regard for their group but hold their view and that of others in tension as they navigate society. Future study is needed to determine when double consciousness is employed as opposed to social creativity. Measures of being low status, such as being incompetent, unknowledgeable, or incapable, are so undesirable that it is difficult to blunt their impact via reframing. When negative assessments cannot readily be made less undesirable, double consciousness may be more effective as a response for disadvantaged group members.

Our results underscore a troubling reason that racial status hierarchies are so firmly entrenched. Equity cannot be arrived at by building Black and Hispanic self-esteem; it requires grappling with White racial status privilege. Racial status is a relative measure, which means high status for Whites relies on continuing to hold Black and Hispanic people as lower status. Increases in the resources and public regard of Black people are generally met with White backlash designed to reinforce racial hierarchies (Willer, Feinberg, and Wetts 2016). What’s more, status processes allow racial bias to elide culpability through the protection of “what most people think.”

Previous investigations have largely focused on self-esteem, where double consciousness can be protective. When double consciousness is instead tied to status, the consequences of public regard become clear. Whatever status difference individuals do or do not attach to racial groups, their behavior is based on generalized second-order status beliefs, which show Black and Hispanic people at a socially valid status disadvantage. Because this is agreed on, there is not a social penalty for giving less deference or esteem to Black and Hispanic people within group interactions. In fact, Black and Hispanic people are pressured to go along with these biased perceptions of themselves to be seen as reasonable and may experience backlash if they fail to do so (Livingston and Pearce 2009; Ridgeway and Nakagawa 2017). Essentially, Black and Hispanic people can never escape the fracture of double consciousness because they have to know and act according to the perceptions of others. This has real-world implications for performance in classrooms and boardrooms, all while reinforcing historical racial hierarchies.

We recognize several limitations of this study. Our results are based on survey data, and as such, first-order beliefs may reflect social desirability bias and may be more in line with generalized second-order beliefs than reported. Furthermore, our sample is not technically representative of the U.S. population, and we are unable to quantify those effects. Despite these limitations, this study provides evidence to the continued application of double consciousness across low status groups. These groups still feel their “twoness” and will continue to do so until their own positive appraisals of themselves are the consensus of others.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-spq-10.1177_01902725221114141 – Supplemental material for Double Consciousness and Racial Status Beliefs

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-spq-10.1177_01902725221114141 for Double Consciousness and Racial Status Beliefs by Corey D. Fields, Verna M. Keith, Justine E. Tinkler, Oneya Fennell Okuwobi, Bradley Montgomery and David Melamed in Social Psychology Quarterly

Footnotes

1

Of course, the expectation state theories are restricted in scope to groups that are collectively oriented and trying to complete a task that they believe has a correct answer. But here we are interested in status beliefs, whether or not participants are in encounters that satisfy the scope of the theory.

2

Second-order status beliefs refer to what a particular individual believes, but these beliefs are irrelevant to our discussion.

3

Approximately 3 percent of respondents did not report their region. These individuals were coded separately in analyses.

4

We included a category for those respondents with missing values on region; otherwise, they would be dropped or included in the reference category.

5

This assumption means that respondent-level deviations from the marginal means follow a normal distribution with mean zero (i.e., the estimated coefficient) and a constant and estimable variance component. Alternatively, we could have estimated separate regression models for each racial category being evaluated or used fixed effects to remove respondent-level effects. The former is less parsimonious and less powerful than the mixed models we estimated. The latter removes respondent-level effects so we would be unable to examine how respondent race shapes perceptions of racial status beliefs.

6

The contains a table summarizing the parameter estimates from three similarly specified mixed models, varying the type of status beliefs as the outcome and whether race of the group being evaluated interacts with respondent race.

7

Model 1 in Table A1 cannot assess whether second-order racial status beliefs vary with covariates. For example, the effect of age denotes that older respondents rated everyone lower on generalized second-order beliefs. We would need to specify an interaction effect between age and the type of racial status beliefs to assess whether age affects race-specific status beliefs. We report these results in the Sensitivity Analyses section.

8

See .

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research reported here was funded in whole under a research grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-1917256) to the last author. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the National Science Foundation.

ORCID iDs

Oneya Fennell Okuwobi

David Melamed

Data Accessibility Statement

The data and a replication script are available at Harvard’s Dataverse under the title of this paper. Additional supporting information may be found at .

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Bios

Oneya Fennell Okuwobi is a Rice University Academy junior fellow in the Religion and Public Life Program and the Department of Sociology. Her research integrates the sociology of race, organizations, and religion to interrogate how practices in diverse organizations affect racial inequality. Her work has appeared in American Sociological Review, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and Sociology of Religion, among other venues.

David Melamed is an associate professor of sociology at the Ohio State University, where he is also an affiliate of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. His research interests include group processes, social networks, and mathematical/computational sociology. His work has appeared in American Sociological Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science Advances, among other venues. He is the editor of Sociological Methodology and hopes you send your best methods articles there.

Bradley Montgomery is a PhD candidate in the Ohio State University’s sociology department. His research focuses on group processes and the causal mechanisms affecting cooperative behavior. His current research uses online experiments to investigate the relationship between status process and prosocial behavior in public goods dilemmas. His work has also been featured in American Sociological Review.

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