Considerations of Intersectionality in Psychological research

Authors

  • Abigail Nicoll

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2218/plurality.10078

Keywords:

Intersectionality in Psychology, Psychological research methods

Abstract

At the forefront of the increasingly popular intersectionality agenda in psychology is the wellbeing of individuals. The British Psychological Society states that a key principle of psychological research is to “consider societal benefits” and “contribute to the common good” (BPS, 2021). There is an abundance of evidence on the harmful outcomes of negative intergroup relations and systemic oppression on marginalised individuals. For example, marginalised groups often experience educational and economic disadvantages (Porter, 2011) alongside both physical and mental health disparities (English et al., 2022; Mitchell et al., 2021; Stevens-Watkins et al., 2014). Consequently, psychology as a discipline should prioritise advocating for a more equitable society. 

References

Al-Faham, H., Davis, A. M., & Ernst, R. (2019). Intersectionality: From theory to practice. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 15(1), 247–265. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101518-042942

Alexander-Floyd, N. G. (2012). Disappearing acts: Reclaiming intersectionality in the social sciences in a post-black feminist era. Feminist Formations, 24(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2012.0003

Azmitia, M., Garcia, P. D., & Casanova, S. (2023). Social identities and intersectionality: A conversation about the what and the how of development. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 5(1), 169–191. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-120321-022756

Benet-Martínez, V., & Hong, Y.-Y. (2014). The Oxford handbook of multicultural identity. Oxford University Press.

Bilge, S. (2013). Intersectionality undone: Saving intersectionality from feminist intersectionality studies. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 10(2), 405–424. https://doi:10.1017/S1742058X13000283

Blaker, N. M., Rompa, I., Dessing, I. H., Vriend, A. F., Herschberg, C., & van Vugt, M. (2013). The height leadership advantage in men and women: Testing evolutionary psychology predictions about the perceptions of tall leaders. Group Processes &

Intergroup Relations, 16(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430212437211

Bowleg, L. (2012). The problem with the phrase women and minorities: Intersectionality—an important theoretical framework for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 102(7), 1267–1273. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2012.300750

Bowleg, L. (2017). Intersectionality: An underutilized but essential theoretical framework for social psychology. The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology, 507–529. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137public-51018-1_25

The British Psychological Society. (2021). The Principles. BPS Code of Human Research Ethics. https://doi.org/10.53841/bpsrep.2021.inf180.2

Buchanan, N. T., & Wiklund, L. O. (2021). Intersectionality research in psychological science: Resisting the tendency to disconnect, dilute, and depoliticize. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 49(1), 25–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00748-y

Burman, E. (2005). Engendering culture in psychology. Theory & Psychology, 15(4), 527–548. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354305054750

Cho, S., Crenshaw, K. W., & McCall, L. (2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38(4), 785–810. https://doi.org/10.1086/669608

Cole, E. R. (2009). Intersectionality and research in psychology. American Psychologist, 64(3), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014564

Collins, P. (2017). Intersectionality and epistemic injustice. The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, 115–124. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315212043-11

Collins, P., & Bilge, S. (2020). Intersectionality. Polity Press.

Combahee River Collective. (1977/ 2018). 59. A Black Feminist Statement. Feminist Manifestos, 269–277. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479805419.003.0063

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8

Dashtipour, P. (2012). Social identity in question construction, subjectivity, and critique. New York Routledge.

Dhamoon, R. K. (2010). Considerations on mainstreaming intersectionality. Political Research Quarterly, 64(1), 230–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912910379227

Diamond, L. M., & Butterworth, M. (2008). Questioning gender and sexual identity: Dynamic links over time. Sex Roles, 59(5-6), 365–376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9425-3

English, D., Boone, C. A., Carter, J. A., Talan, A. J., Busby, D. R., Moody, R. L., Cunningham, D. J., Bowleg, L., & Rendina, H. J. (2022). Intersecting structural oppression and suicidality among Black sexual minority male adolescents and emerging adults. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 32(1), 226–243. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12726

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. W.W. Norton.

Fine, M. (2018). Just research in contentious times: Widening the methodological imagination. Teachers College Press.

Goff, P. A., & Kahn, K. B. (2013). How psychological science impedes intersectional thinking. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 10(2), 365–384.

https://doi.org/10.1017/s1742058x13000313

Griffith, D. M., Gunter, K., & Allen, J. O. (2011). Male gender role strain as a barrier to African American men’s physical activity. Health Education & Behavior, 38(5), 482–491. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198110383660

Grzanka, P. R., & Miles, J. R. (2016). The problem with the phrase “intersecting identities”: LGBT affirmative therapy, intersectionality, and neoliberalism. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 13(4), 371–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0240-2

Hammack, P. L. (2008). Narrative and the cultural psychology of identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(3), 222–247. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308316892

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x0999152x

Hester, N., & Gray, K. (2018). For Black men, being tall increases threat stereotyping and police stops. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2711–2715. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1714454115

Hurtado, A., & Sinha, M. (2008). More than men: Latino feminist masculinities and intersectionality. Sex Roles, 59(5-6), 337–349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9405-7

Klonoff, E. A., Landrine, H., & Campbell, R. (2000). Sexist discrimination may account for well-known gender differences in psychiatric symptoms. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24(1), 93–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2000.tb01025.x

Knowles, E. D., & Marshburn, C. K. (2010). Understanding White identity politics will be crucial to diversity science. Psychological Inquiry, 21(2), 134–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2010.483245

Kurtis, T., & Adams, G. (2016). Intersectional pedagogy. Routledge.

Lei, R. F., & Rhodes, M. (2021). Why developmental research on social categorization needs intersectionality. Child Development Perspectives, 15(3), 143–147. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12421

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224

May, V. (2015). Pursuing intersectionality, unsettling dominant imaginaries. Routledge.

McCormick-Huhn, K., Warner, L. R., Settles, I. H., & Shields, S. A. (2019). What if psychology took intersectionality seriously?: Changing how psychologists think about participants. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 43(4), 036168431986643. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684319866430

Mitchell, U. A., Nishida, A., Fletcher, F. E., & Molina, Y. (2021). The long arm of oppression: How structural stigma against marginalized communities perpetuates within-group health disparities. Health Education & Behavior, 48(3), 342–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/10901981211011927

Oh, S. S., Galanter, J., Thakur, N., Pino-Yanes, M., Barcelo, N. E., White, M. J., de Bruin, D. M., Greenblatt, R. M., Bibbins-Domingo, K., Wu, A. H. B., Borrell, L. N., Gunter, C., Powe, N. R., & Burchard, E. G. (2015). Diversity in clinical and biomedical research: A promise yet to be fulfilled. PLOS Medicine, 12(12), e1001918. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918

Porter, J. R. (2011). Plantation economics, violence, and social well-being: The lingering effects of racialized group oppression on contemporary human development in the American South. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 12(3), 339–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2011.576659

Purdie-Vaughns, V., & Eibach, R. P. (2008). Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive

advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities. Sex Roles, 59(5-6), 377–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4

Remedios, J. D., & Snyder, S. H. (2018). Intersectional oppression: Multiple stigmatized identities and perceptions of invisibility, discrimination, and stereotyping. Journal of Social Issues, 74(2), 265–281. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12268

Rosenthal, L. (2016). Incorporating intersectionality into psychology: An opportunity to promote social justice and equity. American Psychologist, 71(6), 474–485. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040323

Sabik, N. J. (2016). Digging deeper: Research practices and recommendations for exploring intersectionality and social and cultural influences on personality, identity, and well-being. Feminist Perspectives on Building a Better Psychological Science of Gender, 143–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32141-7_9

Sabik, N. J., & H. Shellae Versey. (2023). A reconsideration of group differences in social psychology: Towards a critical intersectional approach. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12928

Shellae Versey, H., Cogburn, C. C., Wilkins, C. L., & Joseph, N. (2019). Appropriated racial oppression: Implications for mental health in Whites and Blacks. Social Science & Medicine, 230, 295–302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.03.014

Shields, S. A. (2008). Gender: An intersectionality perspective. Sex Roles, 59(5-6), 301–311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9501-8

Stevens-Watkins, D., Perry, B., Pullen, E., Jewell, J., & Oser, C. B. (2014). Examining the associations of racism, sexism, and stressful life events on psychological distress among African-American women. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 20(4), 561–569. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036700

Tajfel, H. (1978). Differentiation between social groups. Academic Press.

Turner, J. C. (1999). Some current issues in research on social identity and self-categorization theories. Social identity: Context, commitment, content, 3(1), 6-34.

Ward, E. C., Wiltshire, J. C., Detry, M. A., & Brown, R. L. (2013). African American men and women’s attitude toward mental illness, perceptions of stigma, and preferred coping behaviors. Nursing Research, 62(3), 185–194. https://doi.org/10.1097/nnr.0b013e31827bf533

Wilson, L. A. (2023). The 8-inclusion needs of all people: A proposed framework to address intersectionality in efforts to prevent discrimination. International Journal of Social Science Research and Review, 6(2), 296–314. https://doi.org/10.47814/ijssrr.v6i2.937

Yoder, J. D., & Kahn, A. S. (2003). Making gender comparisons more meaningful: A call for more attention to social context. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 27(4), 281–290. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00108

Zinn, M. B., & Dill, B. T. (1996). Theorizing difference from multiracial feminism. Feminist Studies, 22(2), 321. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178416

Published

2024-10-24

Issue

Section

Miscellaneous Musings