The goal of this research is to investigate how the amygdala, implicated in fear and disgust processing, responds upon seeing faces of Blacks and Whites. Currently, Whites tend to exhibit a heightened amygdala response when seeing an unknown Black person as compared to seeing an unknown White person (Cunningham et al., 2004). However, automatic biases against Blacks can be diminished by having participants think about positive Blacks (e.g. Martin Luther King Jr.) and negative Whites (e.g. Timothy McVeigh) (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001; Newson, Cheryan, & Murray, 2010). We combine the two streams of research by measuring the activity in the amygdala before and after participants take a knowledge task about positive Blacks (positive Whites in the control condition). We hypothesize that showing positive Blacks will result in a reduction in amygdala activation to subsequent unknown Black faces. This study will enable researchers to learn more about how to reduce implicit biases against Blacks.

This two-quarter long study will explore the reasons and perceptions that deaf people have about using contemporary instant communicative technology (e.g., SMS, Facebook, online messaging) and the reported influences of this technology upon their identities. It examines how or to what extent this technology is changing and affecting the boundaries between the hearing and deaf communities and how these communicative changes are seen by deaf people. It hopes to discover whether deaf people are using instant communicative technology as a means of outreach to the hearing world or to stay within the deaf community and for what reasons. The main question is whether deaf people are using the technology to assimilate into the hearing world and modify their deaf identities. It will add to recent studies and discussion within deaf studies on the development and understanding of how and why deaf people are using contemporary communicative technology between themselves and other hearing people.

International adoption has become increasingly popular for American families in recent years. This increase has been complimented by a greater willingness of parents to adopt children racially and culturally different than themselves. These changes in the nature of adoption present a new challenge in understanding how these children are responding to adoption and integration into different cultural settings. How do they balance these multiple identities, and how does that change as they grow up and transition to new environments? For this study I conducted fieldwork in Seattle, Washington working with college-aged students who were adopted into American families as well as agencies and communities who assist families in the adoption and enculturation process. I collected data using participant observation and informal interviews. This study focuses on the adopted persons’ integration into the United States and the methods by which they become “American.” Factors such as age at adoption and quality and availability of programs open to parents and children through all stages of their education were closely studied for their effects. The information gathered in this study will help international adoption agencies improve both their programs designed to minimize assimilation difficulties and the methods by which they match children with families.

Bukharian Jews currently constitute an important Jewish and immigrant presence in the United States. Because the majority of Bukharian Jews have come to the U.S. within the past two decades, we are able to investigate their immigrant experiences as they are occurring. This research project investigates the ways that the mass emigration of Bukharian Jews from Central Asia to the U.S. has impacted their sense of ethnic, religious, and cultural identity—their conception of what it means to be “Jewish” and, specifically, “Bukharian Jewish.” Within this main inquiry, the following sub-questions are also addressed: Have the differences between the socio-political environments of Central Asia and the U.S. influenced the way that Bukharian Jews view and act upon their Jewish identity—both personally and communally? How do Bukharian Jews relate to their own communities and each other, as well as to other Jewish American communities? In what ways is the story of Bukharian Jewish immigration different from that of other Jewish migration waves that have occurred in the U.S.? All of these questions—centering on the issue of communal and individual forms of identity, and how migration affects self-identification—are queries that have not been adequately presented, much less investigated, in academia. This research project focuses specifically on the young-adult population of Bukharian Jews, who are a particularly important sub-group to investigate because of their high degree of interaction with, and operation within, a large and diverse amount of networks in American society. Using qualitative and quantitative sociological methods, my research ultimately attempts to explain how Bukharian Jews—particularly those who are between the ages of 18 and 35 and constitute first-, 1.5-, and second-generation Americans—negotiate and make meaning of their Jewish identities.

Our study investigates how immigrant Asian young adults negotiate moral reasoning at home and school compared with non-immigrant European American young adults. Previous research has shown that East Asian cultures are more interdependent in their traits of self-construals, personal values, and cognitive practices while Western cultures are more independent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2002). For example, Hindu Indians were more likely to choose to fulfill a social obligation at the risk of violating individual justice than were European Americans (Miller & Bersoff, 1992). Study 1 replicated former cross-national cultural differences in moral reasoning by demonstrating group differences among 117 foreign-born immigrant Asians, 202 US-born Asian Americans and 379 US-born European Americans in the predicted directions. Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that moral reasoning varied across home and school contexts among 121 immigrant Asians and 111 Asian Americans, but not among 269 European Americans. Future directions will seek to demonstrate an association between greater variability in moral reasoning across home and school contexts with increases in stress and depression symptoms, and increases in reported family conflict.

Personal identity is a complex social phenomenon defined by an interplay of singularity and collectiveness. It is intrinsically individualistic yet defined within a dialectical space formed by society. The dialectical nature of identity means that ones social background strongly affects the way in which an individual views identity. It would be natural to assume therefore, that one’s society affects not only personal identity but one’s view of identity itself. This study attempts to address this question by focusing on a direct comparison of Chinese and American college students. It specifically focuses on the students’ view of individual identity and the role that collective identity categories play in defining personal identity. While the results show a clearly individualistic sense of identity in both groups of students, the results point to a fundamentally differing belief regarding the nature and solidity of identity categories such as gender, ethnicity or nationality. While American students viewed these categories as subjective and socially malleable, their Chinese counterparts often viewed them as solid and inflexible. These differing views have significant social and political significance for their respective societies, particularly for minority individuals or social outliers.