How Do Multiracial and Monoracial People Categorize Multiracial Faces?

Due to their awareness of multiraciality and their perceptions of race categories as fluid, multiracial individuals may be unique in how they racially categorize multiracial faces. Yet race categorization research has largely overlooked how multiracial individuals categorize other mixed-race people. We therefore asked Asian, White, and multiracial individuals to categorize Asian-White faces using an open-ended response format, which more closely mirrors real-world race categorizations than forced-choice response formats. Our results showed that perceivers from all three racial groups tended to categorize Asian-White faces as monoracial Asian, White, or Hispanic. However, multiracial perceivers categorized the Asian-White faces as multiracial more often than monoracial perceivers did. Our findings suggest that multiracial individuals may approach racial categorization differently from either monoracial majority or minority group members. Furthermore, our results illustrate possible difficulties multiracial people may face when trying to identify other multiracial in-group members.