Racial Ideology Cluster Profiles Differ by Race-Related Stress, Not Sense of Belonging

Racial ideologies reflect philosophies about how Black individuals should interact and behave in society. Individuals who endorse ideologies prioritizing Black people and culture are commonly assumed to feel more sense of belonging to the racial group than those whose ideologies are not racially focused. Yet, such assumptions are untested and inconsistent with social identity frameworks highlighting ideology and sense of belonging as unique dimensions of social identity. This study addresses this gap by investigating associations between racial ideologies and sense of belonging using self-report measures from 229 Black adults. Using ensemble cluster analysis, we identified three ideology profiles and compared them across race-related stress and sense of belonging. Members of the nationalist and mainstream minority profiles were more likely than members of the humanist profile to report high levels of cultural race-related stress and institutional race-related stress. Only members of the nationalist profile reported high levels of individual race-related stress. Cluster profiles did not differ in a sense of belonging to the racial group suggesting that individuals’ philosophies and expectations are varied, but this diversity does not undermine a sense of belonging to the racial in-group. Consistent with social identity frameworks, these results demonstrated that recognizing and investigating discrete identity dimensions is necessary for greater understanding of racial identity and its functions.