Intersectionality is not a footnote: Commentary on Roberts and Rizzo (2021).

In this brief commentary on Roberts and Rizzo (2021), the authors contend that intersectionality is essential to understanding and combatting American racism. Epistemic exclusion of intersectionality, which is rampant in psychology, limits the discipline's capacity to scientifically capture the complexity of racism and to promote inclusive antiracist efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

An argument for bad psychology: Disciplinary disruption, public engagement, and social transformation.

How might core values of psychology impede efforts to promote public psychology? We identify some of the ways the discipline's aspirations for publicly engaged science are undermined by its norms, particularly when engaging with communities affected by historically entrenched, structural inequalities. We interrogate what makes for "good" psychology, including methodological and ethical norms that are used to maintain scientific integrity and police the boundaries of the discipline. We suggest that some of the discipline's classical tenets and contemporary movements may produce structural, epistemic barriers to the production of science and practice that enhance the public good.

The Strong, Silent (Gender) Type: The Strong Black Woman Ideal, Self-Silencing, and Sexual Assertiveness in Black College Women.

Women are socialized to endorse femininity scripts mandating that they prioritize others' needs and engage in self-silencing behaviors. Further, Black women may also endorse the strong Black woman (SBW) ideal, by which they are expected to selflessly meet the needs of their family and community and, as such, may embrace self-silencing in their interpersonal relationships. In a sample of 597 Black undergraduate and graduate college women, we tested whether: (1) self-silencing and SBW ideal endorsement would be independently, inversely associated with three dimensions of sexual assertiveness-communication assertiveness, refusal assertiveness, and pleasure-focused assertiveness; and (2) the association between self-silencing and sexual assertiveness would be stronger among Black women who endorse the SBW ideal.

"Pretty hurts": Acceptance of hegemonic feminine beauty ideals and reduced sexual well-being among Black women.

Although women are expected to idealize and achieve hegemonic feminine beauty standards such as being slender and lighter skinned, few studies have examined how women's investment in achieving these restrictive feminine appearance ideals may influence their sexual attitudes and behaviors. Even less is known about Black women. We surveyed 640 Black college women to test hypotheses that endorsement of hegemonic beauty ideals would be positively associated with four dimensions of negative sexual affect (sexual guilt, shame, emotional distancing, and self-consciousness) and negatively associated with two dimensions of sexual agency (sexual assertiveness and satisfaction).

Following Their Lead? Connecting Mainstream Media Use to Black Women's Gender Beliefs and Sexual Agency.

Although media exposure has emerged as a significant predictor of consumers' sexual decision making, less is known about the mechanisms involved and about the dynamics of these relations for adults, in general, and for African American adults, in particular. To address these gaps, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test whether heterosexual Black women's endorsement of traditional gender and sexual roles mediates connections between their consumption of four mainstream media (music videos, reality TV programming, movies, and women's magazines) and three dimensions of their sexual well-being (sexual assertiveness, sexual inhibition, and sexual deception). We surveyed 594 heterosexual Black women aged 17 to 55 who were undergraduate and graduate students at two universities (one historically Black university and one predominantly White institution).

Controlling images: How awareness of group stereotypes affects Black women's well-being.

This paper presents research exploring how stereotypes that are simultaneously racialized and gendered affect Black women. We investigated the mental and physical health consequences of Black women's awareness that others hold these stereotypes and tested whether this association was moderated by the centrality of racial identity. A structural equation model tested among 609 young Black women revealed that metastereotype awareness (i.

Complexity of culture: the role of identity and context in bicultural individuals' body ideals.

Culture plays an important role in shaping body image, and people from different cultures have different beliefs about what constitutes the "ideal" body type. This study examines the relationship between culture and body ideals in Asian-American and Black-American women. Results from two studies show that subjective cultural identity and situational cultural cues had different relationships with body ideals.

Understanding what students bring to the classroom: moderators of the effects of diversity courses on student attitudes.

We investigated the impact of required diversity courses on students' understanding of racial inequality and their social development with regard to racial outgroups, with a specific focus on the effects of student race and empathy as moderators of diversity course effectiveness. First-semester students (N = 173), enrolled in either diversity courses or introduction to psychology, completed surveys at the beginning and end of the semester. Diversity courses increased understanding of White privilege, acknowledgment of blatant racism, and intersectional consciousness overall, but had a greater impact on intersectional consciousness for White students compared with students of color.

Intersectionality and research in psychology.

Feminist and critical race theories offer the concept of intersectionality to describe analytic approaches that simultaneously consider the meaning and consequences of multiple categories of identity, difference, and disadvantage. To understand how these categories depend on one another for meaning and are jointly associated with outcomes, reconceptualization of the meaning and significance of the categories is necessary. To accomplish this, the author presents 3 questions for psychologists to ask: Who is included within this category? What role does inequality play? Where are there similarities? The 1st question involves attending to diversity within social categories.

Using outgroup comfort to predict Black students' college experiences.

This study investigated whether Black students' social comfort with Whites, termed outgroup comfort (OC), predicted outcomes related to academics and mental health. Surveys administered to Black college students near the beginning and end of their first year showed OC measured in the fall predicted outcomes assessed in the spring, including contact with other races, academic concerns among men, and psychological well-being among women. A subsample selected on the basis of high or low OC scores participated in two weeks of experience sampling, revealing students high in OC reported less state anxiety than those low in OC when in academic settings; in nonacademic settings, anxiety did not differ by OC.

Black and White women's perspectives on femininity.

The authors explore how Black and White women view three aspects of normative femininity, and whether self-rated femininity is related to feminism. Through telephone surveys, a nationally representative sample of women (N=1130) rated themselves on feminism and items derived from Collins' (2004) benchmarks of femininity: feminine appearance, traits, and traditional gender role ideology. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed both groups conceptualized femininity as including the same dimensions, although Black women rated themselves higher on items related to feminine appearance.