What it means to be “mixed”: Social identity typology in persons with multiple racial–ethnic group memberships.

OBJECTIVES: Mixed-race individuals can navigate multiple pathways for constructing their racial-ethnic identity: They may self-categorize exclusively into a single monoracial-ethnic group (singular type), into a mixed or biracial group (border type), contextually shift their identity across multiple racial-ethnic groups (protean type), or reject racial-ethnic categorization altogether (transcendent type). We investigate whether these different self-categorizations resulted in varying patterns in the levels of social identification with monoracial-ethnic and mixed identities. METHOD: = 655, median age = 31 years). Participants self-reported levels of identification with monoracial-ethnic and mixed identities, perceived racial-ethnic prototypicality, stigma consciousness, and discrimination experiences (Study 1) as well as self-concept clarity and identity integration (Study 2). RESULTS: While the singular and transcendent identity types showed the expected identification patterns, there were no substantial differences between border and protean types with regard to general levels of identification. However, in Study 2, we found significant differences between these identity types in their levels of self-concept clarity and identity integration, indicating lower levels in both variables for the protean type. We additionally observed significant differences between individuals whose mixed identity was validated versus invalidated by others. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results highlight the critical role of social feedback in shaping and navigating social identities, while emphasizing the heterogeneity within the mixed-race population and underscoring the need for more nuanced theoretical and empirical attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).