A MULTIFACETED APPROACH TO THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTIFICATION

Interest in racial identification is based upon its relevance to an individual’s way of perceiving and responding to the environment. Racial identification is hypothesized to affect an individual’s defi-nitional system, which is believed to predetermine how people experience reality (Baldwin, 1980). The physical fact of racial differences, primarily skin color, heightens the awareness of race for African Americans and the larger society. A history of institu-tional inequities, denigration of African Americans, and lower economic status seem to result in greater social stressors. These factors are hypothesized to generate socialization experiences and identity conflicts specific to African Americans. Despite the interest in racial identification, Spencer (1985) sug-gests that little or no substantive progress in how African American identity originates and evolves has occurred. The conceptualization of racial identification has gone through several transformations