The Relationship Between Racial Identity Attitudes and Social Class

A long-standing debate in the personality literature concerns the question of whether socioeconomic characteristics or adaptations to Black culture best explain the personality development of Black Americans. On one side of the debate, according to Steele and Davis,' are the proponents of the social class or culture of poverty theory. They believe that social class status is the most crucial variable for explaining Black personality characteristics. Wilson,2 for instance, argues that reactions to racial discrimination and oppression were important and salient factors affecting Black culture and personality styles during the preindustrial and industrial periods. However, he believes that during the modern or postindustrial period, socioeconomic status rather than racial adaptions became a more salient variable in determining Black development. In his culture of poverty theory, Lewis3 has argued that the personality traits attributed to Blacks (e.g., low self-esteem, poor motivation, and impulsiveness) are actually characteristics of poor people regardless of race.