Reevaluation of the Influence of Appearance and Reflected Appraisals for Mixed-Race Identity

Abstract

Developed from Cooley’s looking-glass self, the theory of reflected appraisals is frequently used to explain how appearance influences the racial identity development of mixed-race people. However, postulating that racial identity develops via the internalization of the perception of what race one thinks others assume him or her to be rests on the assumption that others consistently perceive the individual in the same manner. Although true for many people, the appearance of mixed-race people is often ambiguous and changeable and is perceived differently depending on context, which results in mixed-race people’s being ascribed to, and interacted with as if a member of, a variety of different races and ethnicities. This fact illuminates a gap in our knowledge of how appearance influences racial identity absent consistent perception by others. Drawing on 30 interviews with mixed-race adults from a variety of racial backgrounds in the United States and United Kingdom, the author examines not only the particular experiences with differential racial perception that mixed-race people have but also the mechanisms by which appearance influences identity when one experiences varying perceptions from others. This work ultimately extends the theory of reflected appraisals by advancing the idea that, under certain conditions, identity can form from experiences being consistently inconsistently perceived when that consistent inconsistency itself functions as a reflected appraisal of a particular identity.

Keywords

reflected appraisals mixed-race identity physical appearance racial perception

Centuries-old norms of ascription prevent both environmental factors and personal preference from having a significant influence on most people’s racial identity. Some people, however, do have more “ethnic options” than others with regard to how they racially identify (Song 2003; Waters 1990). According to mixed-race studies scholars around the world (e.g., Brunsma, Khanna, and Rockquemore in the United States; Ali and Song in the United Kingdom; Mahtani and Roth in Canada), mixed-race individuals, meaning those whose immediate biological parentage consists of members from two or more socially constructed racial groups, have an increasing degree of “choice” with regard to racial identity.

Rockquemore’s early work created an enduring typology of the varying ways mixed-race people racially identify (Rockquemore 1999; Rockquemore and Arend 2002). From research with black/white individuals in the United States, she revealed that mixed-race people consistently identify with either single race, consistently identify with both races, situationally identify as either or both races (a “protean” identity), or reject group racial identification all together (a “transcendent” identity). Researchers have since investigated the correlations of particular variables with particular identity types considering individual-level variables such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status (e.g., Harris and Sim 2002; Kerwin et al. 1993; Rockquemore and Arend 2002; Roth 2005), interactional-level variables such as socialization and cultural exposure (e.g., Kerwin et al. 1993; Khanna 2004; Rockquemore and Laszloffy 2005), and ecological factors such as community racial composition and cultural context (e.g., Brunsma 2006; Herman 2004; Xie and Goyette 1997).

The influential role of appearance has been examined as well (e.g., Ali 2003; AhnAllen, Suyemoto, and Carter 2006; Doyle and Kao 2007; Khanna 2004; Khanna and Johnson 2010; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2004). In particular, the theory of reflected appraisals, the notion that identity forms from internalizing the view of ourselves we think others hold of us, is frequently used to explain how appearance influences racial identity for mixed-race people. However, because the phenotypes of many mixed-race people can often be read in multiple ways, there is a gap in our knowledge of how appearance influences racial identity in the absence of consistent perception. In this article, I summarize this literature and describe the limitations in using the theory of reflected appraisals to explain how appearance influences identity for mixed-race people. Then, in discussing the results of an empirical investigation with 30 mixed-race adults in the United States and United Kingdom, I expand the theory of reflected appraisals by theorizing how others’ varying racial ascriptions of a person, what I term “consistent inconsistent perception,” functions as a mixed-race reflected appraisal.

The Influence of Appearance on Racial Identity

One result of the social construction of race is cultural ideas of what members of each race physically “look like” (Omi and Winant 1994). These images are not based solely on actual physiological characteristics, however, but on the social perception of those features (Rockquemore and Brunsma 2004). From this understanding, much research into the role of appearance in mixed-race identity has examined whether a mixed-race individual’s approximation to “prototypical” images of given races influences his or her racial identity. Using mixed-race participants’ self-rated “similarity” to whites or members of their minority ancestry, Good, Chavez, and Sanchez (2010) found that participants who believed that their appearance was similar to those of others of their minority ancestry were more likely to identify themselves as that minority. Qualitative research yields similar findings, consistently showing, for example, that mixed-race black/white people who say that they “look black” tend to identify accordingly (Brown 1997; Khanna and Johnson 2010). Rockquemore and Brunsma (2004) found that black/white mixed-race people who said that they “appeared white” or could “pass” as white often eschewed racial identification (a “transcendent” identity), and those who described their appearance as ambiguous¹ and with skin color in the “middle of the spectrum” identified as biracial or protean. Research with mixed-race Asian populations has revealed that those who report “looking Asian” are more than twice as likely to identify monoracially as Asian compared with those who “looked white” (AhnAllen et al. 2006; Khanna 2004). Asian/white interviewees cited eye shape and physical stature as the features that determined whether their phenotypes “looked like” a given race, while black/white interviewees said that it was skin color.

Reflected Appraisals and Mixed-Race Identity Development

Scholars draw on the theory of reflected appraisals to explain the mechanism by which appearance influences racial identity. Developed from Cooley’s (1902) “looking-glass self,” the theory of reflected appraisals refers to the internalization of the perceptions that one thinks other people hold of him or her (Noels, Leavitt, and Clément 2010). Applied to mixed-race identity, it suggests that mixed-race individuals develop their racial identities because of others’ orienting toward and interacting with them as members of the given racial populations to which they ascribe them on the basis of their appearance. Khanna (2004), for example, explained that the reason her interviewees who reported that they “looked” Asian were more than twice as likely to identify monoracially as Asian versus those who “looked” white was because others’ reactions to their appearance influenced their identity development. Speaking of a Korean/white interviewee whom she quoted as saying “I look full Korean,” Khanna noted that “[Koreans and whites] interact with her as if she is Asian; not surprisingly, she identifies most strongly as Asian” (p. 125).

Others’ reaction to one’s appearance influences identity for black/white mixed-race people, women in particular, too. Rockquemore and Laszloffy (2005) explained that because black/white mixed-race women are frequently lighter skinned with less Afrocentric features than monoracial black women, and because there is a history of colorism in the black community due to Eurocentric beauty standards in the broader society, black/white mixed-race women and black women experience tension due to black men’s preference for the former. The authors reported that light-skinned mixed-race interviewees in multiple studies viewed these conflicts with black women as a rejection of their blackness and stated that they identified as mixed-race as a result.

As an explanation for the link between appearance and identity development, however, the theory of reflected appraisals rests on the assumption that other people similarly perceive an individual’s appearance (Noels et al. 2010 is an important exception and is discussed below). In other words, it assumes that Khanna’s (2004) Korean/white interviewee developed an Asian identity because she was at least somewhat consistently perceived as looking “full Korean” and that many people “interact[ed] with her as if she [were] Asian.” It likewise assumes that Rockquemore and Laszloffy’s (2005) black/white interviewees developed mixed-race identities because they were at least somewhat consistently perceived as “light-skinned” and that many black women interacted with them in a negative manner.

Noels et al. (2010) is a rare exception to reflected-appraisals research assuming consistent perception. Examining the difference between self and (their perceptions of) others’ identification of Chinese Canadians, the authors found that whether a person was perceived as Chinese or Canadian not only varied by who was doing the perceiving (e.g., Chinese or Anglo Canadians) but also varied in different situations (e.g., at home vs. at university). For example, second-generation Chinese Canadians felt more Canadian than Chinese at university and in the general community but felt that others perceived them as equally Chinese and Canadian in these spaces. At home, second-generation respondents said that they felt more Chinese than Canadian, but they perceived their families as seeing them as more Canadian than Chinese.

Noel et al.’s (2010) research, in examining reflected appraisals in different locations, demonstrates that consistent reflected appraisals cannot be assumed for everyone. However, the authors were studying Canadians’ “hybrid” national identities (e.g., French Canadian, Chinese Canadian) not mixed race identities (e.g., Canadians with one Chinese Canadian parent and one French Canadian parent). Studies of phenotype, perceptions of appearance, and their influence or association with mixed-race identity, however, focus more on mixed-race people who are consistently seen by others as members of particular racial groups (cf. Khanna 2011; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2001). This is limiting because research suggests that ambiguity and differential perception are the more frequent experiences.

The Mistaken Assumption of Consistent Perception and Its Theoretical Implications

Experimental social psychological studies have consistently shown that mixed-race people are viewed inconsistently. Chen and Hamilton (2012), for example, conducted six racial categorization experiments using both computer-generated and real faces of black, white, Asian, black/white and Asian/white individuals. In one study, though participants categorized black and white faces congruently 80 percent and 90 percent of the time, respectively, they only categorized mixed-race faces as mixed-race 58 percent of the time. Additionally, participants were timed during the experiment, and on average they took about one and a half times longer to categorize a mixed-race face as mixed-race than they took to concordantly categorize a black, a white, or an Asian face.

Nonexperimental research has demonstrated the variable perception of mixed-race people that stems from their ambiguity as well. In the United Kingdom, for example, Song and Aspinall’s (2012) mixed-race interviewees reported that others frequently could not determine their race. They also found that others frequently assumed mixed-race people to be members of races with which they did not identify.

In addition to ambiguity, another reason why mixed-race people are often varyingly perceived is because routine daily changes to their phenotypes (e.g., body work such as hairstyling) can drastically alter others’ perceptions of their appearance. In an experimental study using two identical computer-generated male faces, MacLin and Malpass (2001) added a hairstyle that had been identified in an instrument development test as either stereotypically Hispanic or black and then asked study participants to identify the race of the target. With the stereotypically Hispanic hairstyle, two thirds of participants selected Hispanic as the person’s race, and with the stereotypically black hairstyle, two thirds selected black as the person’s race.

Outside of the computer-generated world, a few of Khanna and Johnson’s (2010; see also Khanna 2011) mixed-race black/white female interviewees reported that changing their hairstyles affected how they appeared racially to others. One woman said that wearing her hair curly resulted in others asking what race she was. This suggests that it made her look more racially ambiguous. Another woman said that people thought she was Puerto Rican when she had curly hair and black when she had braids. A third woman revealed that with light-colored, straight hair, others assumed that she was white, and with dark, curly hair, they assumed that she was mixed-race (Khanna 2011).

A third reason that mixed-race people are inconsistently perceived is because context is “a crucial component in the relation between phenotype and socially perceived appearance” (Brunsma and Rockquemore 2001). Brunsma and Rockquemore (2001), for example, found statistical associations between the racial composition of respondents’ pre-adult social contexts and their self-perceptions of their phenotypes and appearance. For example, regarding self-perceptions of skin color, they found that “those Biracials who report having darker skin color came from contexts with more Whites, whereas those who perceive their skin color as lighter, came from pre-adult contexts of predominantly Blacks” (p. 44). Similarly, respondents’ self-perceptions of their appearance as black, ambiguous, able to “pass” as white, and so on, were associated with their contexts. The authors concluded that self-perception of both actual phenotype and socially perceived appearance are “heavily influenced by context.” By logical extension, so too are other’s perception of mixed-race peoples’ phenotypes and appearance.

Finally, perception varies by nonracial characteristics of environments as well. Rodeheffer, Hill, and Lord’s (2012) research examined whether changing economic conditions altered how white people categorized black/white mixed-race people. Simulating conditions of economic scarcity or abundance with priming via visual cues, white participants were instructed to list computer-generated faces as either black or white. All of the faces were racially “blended,” but participants in the scarcity condition categorized more of them as black than participants in the abundance and control conditions.

Research Question

From the review of the literature, it is clear that mixed-race people are not consistently perceived by others. As is, therefore, the theory of reflected appraisals, with its usual assumption of consistent perception, does not presently explain how appearance influences identification for those who are varyingly perceived. Moreover, given that “the direct link between appearance and identity is profoundly mediated by social context” (Rockquemore and Laszloffy 2005:120), the fact that the key works exploring and theorizing on this topic were all conducted in North America (the United States and Canada) is limiting. Khanna (2011) called for future work to “compare and contrast various biracial groups to further our general understanding of racial identity” (p. 56). Quoting U.K. scholar Miri Song (2003), she reiterated that “nuanced theorizing on multiracial people cannot progress without considering the peculiarities of different mixed experiences” (Song 2003:83). Thus, answering Khanna, Song and others’ call for attention to a wider range of mixed-race experiences when theorizing about mixed-race identity, the present research draws on the experiences of 30 mixed-race adults of varying backgrounds in two countries (one North American, one European) to address the gap in the theory of reflected appraisals’ explanation of how appearance influences identity for mixed-race people.

Methods

Participants

Phenotypically racially ambiguous mixed-race adults in the United Kingdom (n = 12) and United States (n = 18) were located via online advertising on mixed-race Web sites and snowball sampling from professional and personal contacts. Recruitments for research participation specifically sought self-identified mixed-race individuals to participate in research examining physical appearance and “experiences being asked questions like ‘what race are you?’ and ‘where are you from?’” The latter specification was intended to ensure the acquisition of a theoretical sample of not only mixed-race individuals but more specifically phenotypically racially ambiguous mixed-race individuals, that is, those who are “not readily assigned to existing racial categories” by others (Song and Aspinall 2012:8).

The sample was 63 percent female, and the mean age was 31.36 years (SD = 7.13 years). Although one third reported growing up working class or in poverty as adults, all but three were middle-class, upper-class, or on career trajectories (e.g., in law school, medical school, or various PhD programs) likely to yield middle- or upper-class status. Two participants were bisexual, and the remainder were heterosexual. All interviewees were cisgender.

The most frequently reported racial backgrounds were black/white (60 percent) and Asian²/white (20 percent). The remaining 20 percent consisted of Asian/black, black/Latino³, Native American/white, and/or individuals who reported three or more races. Regarding identity, 43 percent identified as mixed-race (e.g., “I’m both,” “I’m a mixture”), 40 percent identified with a single race (e.g., “I’m black,” “I say Filipino”), 13 percent identified as both mixed-race and as members of singular races (e.g., a “mixed-race black man”), and one person identified “broadly as a person of color” rather than having any particular race(s). Table 1 displays the interviewees’ racial identification tabulated by gender, nationality, and black versus nonblack ancestry.

Table 1.

Racial Identification by Key Demographic Variables.

Variable	n ^a	Mixed^b	Single^b	Both^b	Neither^b
Gender
Female	19 (63%)	11 (58%)	5 (26%)	2 (10%)	1 (5%)
Male	11 (37%)	2 (18%)	7 (64%)	2 (18%)	—
Nationality
British	12 (40%)	8 (66%)	2 (17%)	2 (17%)	—
American	18 (60%)	5 (28%)	10 (56%)	2 (11%)	1 (5%)
Ancestry
Black	23 (77%)	8 (35%)	11 (48%)	4 (17%)	—
Nonblack	7 (23%)	5 (71%)	1 (14%)	—	1 (14%)
Total	30	13 (43%)	12 (40%)	4 (13%)	1 (3%)

Rounded percentages of total sample.

Rounded percentages of indicated variable.

Phenotypically, almost three quarters (73 percent) were, both by their own opinions and their reports of others’ characterizations of them, considered “light-skinned” for a nonwhite person. A little less than half (all of whom had African ancestry) reported that their hair was an “in between-y” texture (i.e., a texture that is not as coarse and curly as prototypical African hair, nor as smooth and straight as prototypical white or Asian hair).

Data Collection and Analysis

Semistructured in-depth interviews (25 in person, 5 via telephone) were conducted in the summers of 2011 (United Kingdom) and 2012 (United States). Interviewees were asked open-ended questions about their racial backgrounds, identities, and early racial socialization. This was followed by a discussion of their experiences with questions such as “What are you?” and “Where are you from?” and being varyingly perceived by others. The third set of questions pertained to their use, and the resulting effects, of body work such as hairstyling that the literature demonstrates alters perceived racial appearance. Interviews ended with collection of general demographic information and offering the interviewees the opportunity to ask me any questions about the project or about me personally.

Using NVivo, both inductive coding (i.e., following Glaser and Strauss 1967 in examining the data to define what was happening and what it meant to the participants) and deductive coding (i.e., specific attention to data points that relate to the research question) were conducted to identify themes, processes, and potential associations. Verification of results with participants has, albeit not uncontroversially, been the predominant practice of qualitative researchers attempting to follow Guba and Lincoln’s (1981) prescriptions for assessing the reliability and validity of analysis. Morse et al. (2002) noted that one potential problem with this practice is that “investigators who want to be responsive to the particular concerns of their participants may be forced to restrain their results to a more descriptive level in order to address participants’ individual concerns” (p. 7). To avoid this pitfall, instead of seeking verification from a study participant, I instead requested feedback on the analysis and results from a member of the study population whom I had not interviewed. Additionally, despite not seeking verification of results from any study participant, I nonetheless received it in an unsolicited e-mail when, unbeknownst to me at the time, a participant was in the audience when I presented preliminary findings at a conference. Comments from these two individuals such as “Totally happened to me” and “You’ve really helped me to understand myself” support both the analysis presented herein and the claim that it has utility for understanding mixed-race experiences and identity.

Results

I first present the results detailing the interviewees’ experiences being differentially perceived because of ambiguity, routine body work, and changing context. This is followed by an explanation of how experiences with others’ multiple perceptions influenced interviewees’ senses of self and how the theory of reflected appraisals can be extended to encompass that reality. All names are interviewee-chosen pseudonyms.

“They Can Never Really Figure It Out”: Phenotypic Racial Ambiguity

Whether at school, work, bars, grocery stores, or standing on the street awaiting public transportation, as Table 2 reveals, the majority (70 percent) of the interviewees in this sample reported frequently being asked⁴ about their race. Frost (age 28, U.S., black/Latino), for example, revealed that he is asked what race he is “all the time.” Fleur (age 34, U.K., black/white) estimated that she is asked where she is from “at least once a week on average.” Smith (age 25, United Kingdom, Asian/white) ironically was asked mere hours before we met for our interview.

Table 2.

Frequency of Inconsistent Perception by Identity and Key Demographic Variables.

Variable	n ^a	Frequent^b	Occasional^b	Rare^b
Identity
Mixed	13 (43%)	11 (85%)	2 (15%)	—
Single	12 (40%)	8 (67%)	1 (8%)	3 (25%)
Both	4 (13%)	2 (50%)	2 (50%)	—
Neither	1 ( 3%)	—	1 (100%)	—
Gender
Female	19 (63%)	14 (74%)	4 (21%)	1 (5%)
Male	11 (37%)	7 (64%)	2 (18%)	2 (18%)
Nationality
British	12 (40%)	8 (67%)	4 (33%)	—
American	18 (60%)	13 (73%)	2 (11%)	3 (16%)
Ancestry
Part black	23 (77%)	16 (70%)	1 (17%)	3 (13%)
Nonblack	7 (23%)	5 (64%)	2 (29%)	—
Total	30	21 (70%)	6 (20%)	3 (10%)

Rounded percentages of total sample.

Rounded percentages of indicated variable.

An additional 20 percent recalled being asked quite often as children, but, like Lisa (age 40, U.K., black/white) and Heather (age 25, U.S., Asian/black), they felt that it occurs “not so much now.” Only 10 percent, three interviewees, reported that they “very rarely” are asked about their race. Table 2 presents these frequencies tabulated by identity, gender, nationality, and ancestry.

When asked to consider what they thought caused others to question them about their race, many cited their ambiguous appearance. Sally (age 19, U.S., Asian/white) explained that she is asked about her race because other people “can never really figure it out right away.” The aspects of appearance that stumped observers were similarly reported by interviewees in both countries yet varied by gender and mixed-race ancestry. For example, black/white men felt that their light skin color, especially in combination with African facial features such as a broad nose, was what caused people to question their race; black/white women, however, felt that it was their curly hair texture that caused their ambiguity. Light skin for part-black men and curly hair for part-black women appear to suggest that a person is mixed-race; and as Sara (age 38, U.K., black/white) pointed out, this leads people to seek confirmation because they are “not satisfied until they know.”

Eyes, their color for those with African heritage and their shape for those with Asian heritage, were cited by women, but not men, as important in causing people think “you look like you’re kind of something going on,” as one man told Fleur (age 34, U.K., black/white). A light-brown-skinned woman with light brown hair and “striking” blue eyes, she explained that “having blue eyes kind of throws people.” Anna (age 25, U.S., Asian/white) mentioned her eyes as well but said that it is “that lid crease that a lot of Asians have” that is “what kind of makes people wonder.”

One national difference regarding these experiences is that in the United States, but not the United Kingdom, “What are you?” can be the first question a person receives at the start of a conversation. Sophie (age 22, U.K., black/white) explained that in the United Kingdom, despite being curious, “They’re not gonna wanna just say ‘Oh hi, you’re Sophie! Where you from?’” In the United States, however, interviewees described this exact scenario occurring frequently. When I asked Tia (age 37, U.S., black/Native American/white) if people ask her what race she is, she responded, “Oh yeah. Right away. Sometimes it’s the first thing people ask. Sometimes people I’m not even talking to will stop and go, ‘I just really want to know, what race are you?’” These experiences demonstrate that in the United States and the United Kingdom, but more so in the United States, racial perception is not only an important part of social interaction but also ambiguous appearance creates “a momentary crisis of racial meaning” (Omi and Winant 1994).

“I See You as Proper Black Now”: Routine Body Work and Changing Racial Perception

As discussed in the literature review, routine changes to phenotype (i.e., body work) can alter some people’s perceived racial appearance. Beginning with hair, the mixed-race adults in this sample had diverse types of hair, and over the course of their lives have worn their hair long and short, curly and straight, natural and chemically altered (e.g., permed, dyed), in Afros, dreadlocks, braids, flattops, Mohawks, mullets, ponytails, and weaves. As in previous studies, changes in hairstyle were found to influence racial perception.

For part-black men, hair length influenced others’ perception. Dean (age 27, U.K., black/white), who usually wears his hair short out of convenience, recalled that once when he grew an Afro, a friend commented, “‘Oh no offence but I see you as proper black now.’” In other words, with an Afro, Dean was perceived unambiguously as black, while when his hair texture is unapparent because of short length, his light skin but African facial features, as noted above, cause others to be unsure of what race he is. Dave (age 30, U.K., black/white) similarly explained that he is perceived as “black, just light skin” when his hair is long enough to form an Afro, but said that he is perceived as “Turkish, Asian, even white” if it is so short that the texture is not apparent.

In contrast, U.S. part-black men did not report that longer versus shorter hair was associated with black perception. Bo (age 36, U.S., black/white), for example, despite wearing his hair in different styles, maintained that in the United States, “You can’t look more black because of a haircut.” A haircut can potentially make one look nonblack, however. Chris (age 30, U.S., black/white) has worn his hair in many different styles and reported that with a shaved head he was perceived as a Spaniard more often than usual.

U.S. men’s facial hair, alone or in combination with head hair, was reported to influence racial appearance more than head hair alone. Frost (age 28, U.S., black/Latino), who said that he inherited more of his Mexican mother’s phenotype, reported that wearing a full beard makes him look even more Latino, while a goatee makes him “come across as more neutral,” that is, as not readily identifiable as black or Latino. As evidence that his facial hair changes others’ perceptions of him, he explained that when he has a goatee, unlike when he wears other styles, “People don’t comment on whether I look more African American or more Mexican.”

Mark (age 49, U.S., Native American/white) felt that it was certain combinations of facial and head hair styles that were perceived differently. He explained,

Well, truth be told, my short hair and the fact that I have a mustache and goatee probably make me appear more white . . . if I let my hair grow out, I suspect I’d probably get taken more readily for being Native American.

None of the men in the U.K. sample discussed facial hair’s influencing racial perception; however, this should not be taken to suggest that it does not occur in that context. Unlike the American men, the British men did not change how they wore their facial hair. Four of the five were always clean shaven, and the fifth only ever wore a goatee. As such, they were not in a positon to discuss how different facial hair styles influenced their appearance because none of them reported ever trying anything different to compare.

Returning to the influence of head hair, women in both countries, as would be expected (cf., Synnott 1987), reported even more varied hair work than men. As mentioned above, black/white women felt that their curly hair texture caused their ambiguity. Nevertheless, although Fleur (age 34, U.K., black/white) believes that changing her hair color (from brown to blonde) made her look even more ambiguous, all other comments on changing hairstyles’ altering racial perception were from U.S. interviewees. Because of black women’s historical practice of straightening their hair (Johnson 2013), the black/white women in the U.S. sample were in agreement that others perceived them as mixed-race or ambiguous when it is naturally curly but “with my hair straightened, I look like a black girl with straight hair,” to quote Annette (age 31, U.S., black/white). Black/white women in the United Kingdom often straightened their hair too; for example, Sophie (age 22, U.K., black/white) discussed wearing her hair straightened for a high school dance. Nevertheless, none reported that the change altered others’ racial perceptions of them. Moreover, changing hairstyle did not result in changing racial perception for black/white women who had naturally straight hair or for mixed-race women with no African heritage. Thus, the findings regarding hair suggest that it is only when one’s hair texture suggests possible African roots that changing it alters racial perception.

Although hairstyling was common among female interviewees, wearing makeup was not. Only 26 percent reported wearing it daily. The rest wore makeup occasionally or for special occasions, but otherwise said they “can’t be bothered.” Nevertheless, the women reported that when they did wear makeup, it did influence how others racially perceived them. One way was by highlighting racialized physical features. Sally (age 19, U.S., Asian/white), for example, said that makeup makes her look more Filipino because “[eyeliner] makes my eyes look kind of more almond shaped.” Makeup also alters racial perception because of certain styles’ cultural association. When Emma (age 22, U.K., Asian/white) gets dressed up to go out for a night on the town, for example, she applies “loads of” black and gold eyeliner and makes a little up-ticked line at the ends of her eyes. Reminiscent of the eye makeup style seen in images of ancient Egyptian women, on those nights, she is mistaken for, or asked if she is, Egyptian. In the United States, Annette (age 31, U.S., black/white) and Jennifer (age 34, U.S., black/white) are assumed to be Latina more often when they wear makeup because, as Annette explained, “a lot of black women do not wear makeup and a lot of Hispanic women do.” Wearing makeup, therefore, leads to others’ perceiving them as Latina because of cultural, not stereotypically physical, differences.⁵

The two mechanisms by which makeup influences racial perception can work in tandem as well as separately. For example, Heather’s (age 25, U.S., Asian/black) Asian heritage is highlighted when she wears makeup for both of the reasons mentioned above. Regarding her eyes, she noted that “with some eyeliner on, some mascara, okay, I’m going to look a little bit more Asian,” but wearing blush, at least in her hometown, also makes her appear more Asian. She explained, “At home, they say only Asian girls wear blush. So putting pink on my cheeks. If I’m in Seattle, that’s like an Asian thing. Black girls will do, like, bronzer.” Heather’s darker skin would usually preclude others from automatically categorizing her as Asian or part Asian; however, with makeup, both because it highlights her stereotypically Asian physical features and (at least at home) because of the association of her makeup style with Asian fashion, others question their initial skin tone–based categorization of her as black and instead ask, “What are you?”

This happens only in her hometown, however, making it context specific. Another body work change whose effect on racial perception is context specific is tanning. Almost two thirds of the sample stated that they preferred how they looked with a tan to their “natural” skin color. However, only interviewees in the United Kingdom reported that a tan influenced how others perceived them racially. Mary (age 41, U.K., Asian/white) said that she looks more Asian when she gets “quite dark” in the summer and that this leads to more questions about her racial background. She hypothesized that when she is “sort of pale” in the winter, she does not get asked about her race as much because “maybe people just think I’m [white] English.” Anna (age 25, U.S., Asian/white), in contrast, grew up in California and recalled frequently tanning at the beach, but unlike Mary, she does not think that, and offers no stories that would suggest that, having a tan alters her appearance “to the point where people would begin thinking something else.”

Black/white interviewees in the United Kingdom felt like being tanner makes others perceive them as “proper black.” Dean offered the observation that in the United Kingdom he gets asked about his race less frequently when he has a tan as evidence that darker skin leads others to perceive him as black. In the United States, however, this was not the case. Dean has family in Maryland and said that having a tan versus not makes no difference in the frequency of people’s asking about his race in the United States. Joy (age 27, U.S., black/white), who proclaimed “I will tan my life away,” added that with or without a tan, “I always have people questioning me.”

Dean, and critical mixed-race scholars (cf. Alibhai-Brown 2001), explained that the long history of racial mixing (albeit coercive) in the United States means that a nonwhite person in the United States who has light skin color may be “monoracial” but have received the genes for that phenotype from a white ancestor as far back as the slave master. In the United Kingdom, in contrast, because nonwhites did not immigrate en masse until after World War II, a light-skinned nonwhite person is more likely to be mixed-race (i.e., to have a white parent or grandparent). Thus, because of differential immigration histories, light brown skin is more indicative of mixed-race status in the United Kingdom than the United States. Accordingly, darkening the skin via tanning leads to a change in others’ racial perceptions of an individual in the United Kingdom but not necessarily in the United States.

“No Hablo Español:” Racial Perception Variation in Global Context

The difference between U.S. and U.K. interviewees’ experiences with tanning reminds us that racial perception is very context specific. Moreover, Dean’s accounts of visiting family in the United States point to the increasingly globalized nature of contemporary life for some segments of the population. In fact, all of the U.K. and half of the U.S. interviewees discussed international study, travel, or living, and 80 percent of these reported that how they were racially perceived depended on in what country or region of the world they were. When in the United States, two thirds of interviewees were frequently perceived to be Latino, and the main indicator was that Spanish was automatically spoken to them. Lisa (age 40, U.K., black/white), for example, remembered that while she was shopping in Florida a store employee “came out and he started speaking in Spanish to me. Just normally. And I said ‘no, no hablo español sorry.’ And the look he gave me was like ‘really?’” Although Lisa had this experience only a few times while on vacation in the United States, mixed-race people who live in the United States contend with it often. Tia (age 37, black/Native American/white) recalled that at her son’s first well-baby checkup,

the doctor came out and right away started talking to me in Spanish. . . . I said “Okay, I only speak English.” And as we kind of went into the conversation and then he looked at my last name, which is the furthest thing from any kind of Hispanic, um then we kind of talked about it. He said, “I’m sorry, I just assumed when I came out and saw you.”

Men have this experience in the United States too. A memorable part of Larell’s (age 22, U.S., black/white) trip to New York City was not getting asked what race he was, simply because “they just automatically thought I was Puerto Rican places I went. And I found that out because they were talking to me in Spanish.”

Another way interviewees find out that they are being perceived as Latino is though Latinos’ inclusive actions and language. While on vacation in California, Smith (age 25, U.K., Asian/white) visited a friend at her college; and he realized that he was being perceived as Latino when he “got handed a bunch of [fliers] while I’m walking with her and I’m like ‘Oh look what we got here: Latino Persons Association, Hispanic Society.’” Smith was chuckling recalling his being perceived as Latino, but Annette (age 31, U.S., black/white) noted that, sometimes, indications of Latina perception are unpleasant. Because Latinos assume that she too is a member of their group, she has heard “nasty things” about “how Hispanics felt about blacks, how Hispanics felt about whites.” As a women who identifies as black and white, she said that being perceived as Latina can be “very hurtful at times” because of others’ disparaging comments about her races in her presence.

Interviewees who traveled to Central American and South American countries and Caribbean countries were similarly mistaken for being Spanish-speaking citizens of whatever countries they were visiting. Aaliyah (age 25, U.S., black/white) recalled that “in Puerto Rico people assumed I was Puerto Rican and would either speak in Spanish to me or say ‘Are you Puerto Rican?’” Claire (age 40, U.K., Asian/white) reported, “I’ve traveled through Mexico and Guatemala and Peru. And various spots in South America, Central and South America. And everyone thinks I’m from there. Or can speak Spanish anyway.”

In Europe and North Africa, mixed-race people are perceived as “Mediterranean-y.” Half of the U.K. interviewees (only one U.S. interviewee reported travel to this region) discussed being mistaken for hailing from countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco and being addressed in the local languages when visiting. Fleur (age 34, U.K., black/white) reported that “if I go to Turkey or I go to Greece or to Morocco or to anywhere kind of Mediterranean, other people will talk to me in their language.” Claire (age 40, U.K., Asian/white) recalled a time in Turkey when “I actually got told off by some guy in a market for denying my Turkish roots.” Residents of Mediterranean countries also display inclusive actions as well. Sara (age 38, U.K., black/white) revealed that she can “get in a lot of places on the local rate not the tourist rate.” This perception of being a local only occurs for light-skinned mixed-race interviewees, however. Vincent (age 36, U.K., black/white), who is one of just three darker brown skinned interviewees, has traveled to many of the same places others mentioned; however, the racial perception of him in these locations was not as local but as black. Although he identifies as a mixed-race black man, he admitted that because of London’s cosmopolitanism, he usually does not “feel” his “blackness.” When on holiday in the rest of Europe, though, he feels that he is perceived in explicitly racial terms and gets “really conscious of my blackness. I feel as though people are staring at me.”

In other regions of the world, it is light skin, not dark skin, that draws uncomfortable attention. Interviewees who have traveled to non-Mediterranean African countries or to other countries with high black populations, for example, did not report “blending in.” Joy (age 27, U.S., black/white) studied abroad in Barbados and remembered that “people didn’t think I was black at all.” Other part-black interviewees were similarly not seen as black in black/African countries. Lisa (age 40, U.K., black/white) was perceived as mixed-race when she visited her father’s native Kenya, and Aaliyah (age 25, U.S., black/white) was perceived as coloured when studying abroad in South Africa. Sydney (age 39, U.S., black/white), and Suzie (age 33, U.S., black/white), who visited Uganda and Tanzania, respectively, were both perceived as mzunga, which Suzie explained is “sort of like this classification of white people.” Mixed-race people are varyingly perceived in Asian countries as well. In countries such as India and Sri Lanka, Sara (age 38, U.K., black/white) and Claire (age 40, U.K., Asian/white) are seen as regional residents but because of their light skin color are sometimes asked if they are from more northern Asian countries such as Kashmir and Pakistan, where, Claire explained, “people do tend to be lighter because it’s near the Himalayas and, you know, it’s higher up and it’s colder.”

Finally, what nationality a mixed-race person is perceived as is dependent not just on the country but also on the present political climate of that country. Emma (age 22, U.K., Asian/white) recalled that in the early 1990s, when many Eastern Europeans were relocating to England because of tension in the region, she and her family were refused service at a supermarket when the clerk thought they were “bloody Slovakians.” In the United States, Annette (age 31, U.S., black/white) was in college when the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. A light-brown-skinned woman with long dark hair, she had been occasionally mistaken for Middle Eastern before; but that perception intensified after 9/11, especially on rainy days, when she sometimes wrapped her hair in a scarf. While being mistaken for Latina annoys her, being mistaken for Middle Eastern during that time period was frightening. She recalled,

There were incidences on campus because of what had happened in New York and the threat of you know going to war and everything. That made me scared. It really, really made me scared. Um and that was the first time where it was like, somebody mistaking me could mean I could get myself killed.

The Role of Consistent Inconsistent Perception in Mixed-Race Identity Development

In total, whether positive (receiving a lower entry fee rate), negative (being refused service), neutral (being spoken to in a language one does not know), or explicit (being asked “What are you?”), most mixed-race adults in this sample were consistently inconsistently perceived by others with whom they interacted. Three interviewees, however, reported markedly fewer experiences being inconsistently perceived. Bo (age 36, U.S., black/white), for example, reported that he was almost never asked his race and added that others also did not interact with him on the assumption that he was a member of various different races or ethnicities. Most important, these few interviewees were aware that theirs was a unique experience for mixed-race people. Regarding being asked “What are you?” Bo knows that he “might be one of the few that I don’t get it that much.” John (age 25, U.S., black/white), who remembered being asked about his race on a few occasions in his childhood, said that as an adult he has “heard a lot of experiences of other [mixed-race] people who have been asked directly and I’m really surprised that that doesn’t happen to me.” In other words, as reflected in the literature (e.g., Song and Aspinall 2012), mixed-race people expect that others will be unable to racially classify them on sight alone and that, by extension, some may ask for that information or make assumptions.

Because being consistently asked one’s race and/or varyingly perceived racially is apparently understood to be a quintessentially mixed-race experience, I postulate that consistent inconsistent racial perception is a validation of mixed-race status; and because Noel et al. (2010) reminded us that “reflected appraisals serve to validate one’s identity” (p. 751), I further postulate that it functions as a reflected appraisal of mixed-race identity. Two variables, gender and social class, appear to influence whether one has the experiences associated with consistent inconsistent perception, however, and two other variables, national context and ancestry, appear to influence their efficacy when they do occur. In the remainder of this section, I discuss these mediating factors.

Gender

A larger percentage of women versus men both experienced inconsistent perception (Table 2) and identified as mixed-race (Table 1). Fleur (age 34, U.K., black/white), for example, was perceived as black by her foster-care family but as not black at school. As a child, she at first saw herself as black but said that the inconsistency of perception from others made her “question whether I saw myself that way.” Bo (age 36, U.S., black/white), in contrast, was never made to “question” his black racial identity. Although he has brown, not blue, eyes, otherwise his phenotype is similar to Fleur’s: light skin and African features. Nevertheless, whereas these physical features cause others to question Fleur or interact with her as if she is one race or another, Bo does not have similar experiences.

This lack of interaction does not mean that others are able to place Bo racially, however. He noted that white people “give me that look like ‘what race are you?’” and that Latinos “give me that look like, ‘oh, are you one of us?’” but could only recall one time when someone (his future mother-in-law) asked about his race directly. He also reported that Latinos never “just approach me and go ‘hey, are you Hispanic?’” or speak to him in Spanish. As discussed above, these exact scenarios occur frequently for women. Anderson (2011) offered a potential explanation:

Many Americans feel apprehensive about encountering anonymous black people in public places. A strange black man [italics added] can be viewed as criminal or crime-prone until he can prove he is not, which is difficult to do in the split-second interaction that typically occurs in public spaces. (p. 255)

As such, others’ sense of safety vis-à-vis unknown nonwhite men may override their curiosity at their exact racial background, with the result that men such as Bo, despite appearing racially ambiguous, receive mixed-race reflected appraisals less frequently than women. This dynamic could be another explanation for the consistent finding that more women identify as mixed-race than men (cf. Davenport 2016; Lopez 2003; Pew Research Center 2015; Song and Aspinall 2012).

Class

Another variable that appears to facilitate or thwart social interactions related to consistent inconsistent perception is social class. The international vacations and college study abroad that interviewees mentioned as key times when others racially perceived them in various ways are disproportionately available to the middle and upper classes. In line with this, although one third came from families of origin of moderate or low financial means, as adults all but three interviewees were middle- or upper-class by self-identification or standard indicators (e.g., income, occupation). The ability to be perceived as white in Africa, Latino in the Americas, and mixed-race in Asia—and by extension the ability for that consistent inconsistent perception to be internalized as a mixed-race reflected appraisal—is therefore related to one’s ability to travel widely, which is related to class.

Nationality

Despite people of both nationalities experiencing similar rates of consistent inconsistent perception (see Table 2), Table 1 shows that a larger percentage of British interviewees identified as mixed-race compared with American interviewees. The weaker norms of hypodescent in the United Kingdom may offer an explanation. Mary (age 41, U.K., Asian/white) and Sally (age 19, U.S., Asian/white), for example, both experience consistent inconsistent perception. In discussing their identities, however, each revealed the influence of the cultural understanding of race in their respective countries. Sally identifies as Filipino, and when asked whether other Asians accepted her racial identification, she said,

Yeah. ’Cause a lot of them, they were mixed with something else too. . . . Like some of my, they’re not really my cousins but I consider them my cousins. They’re half Filipino and half Nigerian. And I don’t know, it’s pretty cool like seeing Filipinos mixed with everything now.

Sally’s statement that it is cool to see Filipinos mixed with everything reveals the characteristic U.S. understanding of mixed-race people as members of “mono” racial groups. Conversely, the mixed-race reflected appraisals that Mary receives from consistent inconsistent perception were likely more influential to her identity development than Sally’s given the United Kingdom’s lesser reliance on rules of hypodescent.

In addition to a weaker one-drop rule, the United Kingdom’s greater construction of mixed-race people as a discrete racial group apart from the composite “parent” races could also be an influencing factor. For example, whereas the U.S. census instructs citizens to “mark all that apply,” essentially constructing mixed-race people as members of multiple monoracial groups, the U.K. census includes a stand-alone “mixed-race” category that citizens can tick, essentially constructing mixed-race people as members of their own race. This slightly different social construction of mixed-race between the two nations may also explain why more Britons than Americans identified as mixed-race. National context, therefore, appears to facilitate or thwart the efficacy of mixed-race reflected appraisals.

Ancestry

Although Table 2 shows that similar percentages of part-black and nonblack interviewees experienced inconsistent perception, Table 1 reveals that twice the percentage of nonblack interviewees identified as mixed-race compared with interviewees who had black ancestry. This is likely because in both the United States and United Kingdom, norms of racial ascription are more rigid for people of African descent than for others (cf. Song and Aspinall 2012). Judy (age 30, U.S., black/white) is asked about her race “all the time” and is perceived to Latina, mixed-race, black and other races, ethnicities, and nationalities. However, despite this mixed-race reflected appraisal, she said that she identifies as black because, as a result of the one-drop rule in United States, she “grew up with an understanding that I was black.” In the United Kingdom, where no legal hypodescent definitions existed as in the United States, part-black interviewees nonetheless still had fewer ethnic options than other mixed-race people, though they were not as constrained as those in the United States. Unlike Judy, Dave (age 30, U.K., black/white) received mixed messages about whether he was black or not. The inconsistent perception and its effect on his identity came through most clearly when he was talking about his hair: “I’ll often have black people tell me actually that I’ve got good hair even though white people see it as afro. So I’ve kinda settled now on calling it a kinda ‘hafro’ or a ‘mulafro.’” Dave’s racial identity as a mixed-race black man parallels his characterization of his hair as mixed and black. Both his identity and his description of his hair developed in part as a result of consistent inconsistent perception in the context of a weak, but still present, one-drop rule.

Mark (age 49, U.S., Native American/white) and Smith (age 25, U.K., Asian/white), however, both experience a very different landscape of racial ideology. Although both men reported consistent inconsistent perception just like Judy and Dave, the lack of a one-drop rule for nonblacks means that they have more identity options. They were both freer therefore to take Mark’s father’s advice: “Don’t get hung up on other people’s definitions of who you are. Just be you.” Because of the history of Africans in the West, part-black interviewees are less able to follow Mark’s dad’s advice, and thus the interactions from being consistently inconsistently perceived appear less influential to their identity development.

Conclusions

Although Noels et al. (2010) reminded us that “reflected appraisals do not perfectly predict self-appraisal” (p. 747), Burke and Sets (2009) pointed out that they nonetheless “constitute one of the main ways we come to understand who we are in identity theory” (p. 25). Thus, although I am not claiming that reflected appraisals are the only factor in identity development, this work nonetheless adds to the literature on mixed-race identity development by both providing a more detailed explanation of the social experiences of mixed-race people with ambiguous appearance and by extending the theory of reflected appraisals to explain how an ambiguous appearance influences identity.

On the basis of the results of this study, I argue that for mixed-race individuals who are varyingly perceived, racial identity forms via reflected appraisals in that interactions from being consistently inconsistently perceived function as a singular reflected appraisal of mixed-race identity. These interactions appear to cause people to question their own perceptions of themselves and, under conditions that allow ethnic options, appear to encourage mixed-race identification. The theory of reflected appraisals can thus be expanded to include that identity can form from inconsistent perception when interactions due to consistent inconsistent perception are understood as validation of membership in a particular group.

The theoretical extension postulated herein, however, can only illuminate the influence of consistent inconsistent perception on the development of nonwhite identity. This is because one limitation of this study is that the sample contains no white-identified individuals. None responded to the Internet advertisements, and those who were contacted via snowball sampling declined participation. Although white identity is a small minority among some mixed-race groups (e.g., black/white), it is the majority identification for others (e.g., Native American/white in the United States, East Asian/white in the United Kingdom) (Harris and Sim 2002; Song and Hashem 2010). Although it can be hypothesized that white identity develops via consistent perception as white, future research could examine whether the processes are the same as they are for mixed-race people who develop nonwhite identities.

Relatedly, the findings of this study are also limited mainly to the specific phenotypic ambiguity of light skin color coupled with facial features and/or hair texture that are associated with nonwhites. Future research on mixed-race racial ambiguity should oversample “double minorities” to begin to move the literature beyond a discourse that situates European features such as lighter skin as the main phenotypical characteristic that leads others to have difficulty categorizing nonwhites.

It should also be noted that despite the empirical focus on mixed-race people, some members of “mono” racial groups also experience inconsistent perception as well (e.g., very light-skinned African Americans, very dark skinned Native Americans and Indian Americans). However, as Noel et al. (2010) pointed out, reflected appraisals “may be particularly important in situations where there is uncertainty or ambiguity regarding one’s status or role” (p. 747). Because mixed-race people have more uncertainly regarding their racial status (even in places such as the United States that have strong norms of racial ascription), monoracial nonwhite people have been hypothesized to have few to no racial identity options other than society’s ascription (cf. Waters 1990). Comparing phenotypically similar mixed-race and “mono” racial individuals and juxtaposing their respective identity development vis-à-vis consistent inconsistent perception and cultural ascription norms could illuminate the internal cognitive processes that give both their efficacy.

Finally, although developed on the basis of race, ultimately the theoretical extension to the theory of reflected appraisals offered here might have analytical utility to explain the development of other identities as well. For example, research on queer identities might benefit from considering whether consistent inconsistent gender perception and/or being frequently asked “What (gender) are you?” functions as a queer reflected appraisal that is associated with that identification under certain circumstances. Ultimately, although categorical identities are indeed socially constructed, scientists must nonetheless remember to consider the changeability and differently perceivable nature of our physical bodies when theorizing about their relationship to identity development.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank John DeLamater and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and critiques.

Notes

Author Biography

Jennifer Patrice Sims (PhD, University of Wisconsin–Madison) is an adjunct visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls whose research and teaching interests include race and ethnicity, social psychology, and gender and sexuality. Her previous work on the relationship between physical attractiveness and racial identity has been published in the journal Identities.

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