Calling the Kettle White: How Material Stakes Impact External Racial Classification

Do people define ethnic/racial categories more narrowly or weigh ascriptive criteria more strongly when material stakes incentivize others to identify in certain ways? Realistic group conflict theory predicts as much. We join this theory with recent research that treats ethnic/racial classification as an outcome. We report the results of conjoint survey experiments with two samples, one of undergraduates from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds, the other of U.S. resident adults. By randomly varying whether respondents racially classify hypothetical profiles completing a scholarship application or an anonymous survey, we examine under what conditions people are more or less likely to classify others as White, Black, Latino, Asian, MENA or POC. We also test whether classification relies more on ascriptive factors (skin tone or descent) when presumed benefits are involved. Our experiments uncover evidence that respondents rely more on ancestry when deciding whether scholarship candidates are White. However, for other classifications, the substantive differences between the scholarship and survey conditions are small, and respondents from different backgrounds behave similarly. These results are consistent with the basic thesis that stakes matter; they also highlight widely shared concerns about fairness and claiming disadvantage inappropriately.