We explore the paradox of why high-achieving black Americans, as measured by education, still exhibit large racial health disparities. Educational attainment matters within race group, but we find that blacks are not protected by socioeconomic status in the same way that whites are: for instance, the black/white disparity in health risk increases for those with a bachelor’s degree compared to those with fewer years of education. We explore how the potential physical and psychological costs of stigma and, ironically, of exerting individual agency in the context of a racist or stigmatizing environment, may explain the limited role of education and income as protective health factors for blacks relative to whites.

Dynamic, often polarizing views of race and racial inequality have been a defining feature of the United States (US) in the 21st century. On the one hand, the US has largely touted itself as a colorblind society. Results from a recent Pew Center poll, however, indicate that a majority of Americans believe the US needs to make more changes to achieve racial equality between blacks and whites. These patterns are further complicated by the documented increase in and heightened media attention to far-right hate groups. In the context of evidence suggesting the racial hierarchy is taking more of a pigmentocratic character, such diverging images of US society raise questions about understandings of race and their consequences for life chances, including health. For example, what dimensions of race are particularly consequential for health and well-being? Do our self-identifications matter more than how others perceive us? To what extent do our social environments shape the meanings and consequences of race? The present study helps address these issues by examining whether and how two dimensions of race (self-identified race and socially-assigned skin color) combine with racial contexts to structure the nature of health inequality between African Americans and whites. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), results help elucidate how multi-level environments shape linkages among race, skin color, and health.

Extensive research in psychology has shown that providing people with objective choices in a task can increase their motivation on the task. I propose that even in the same objective circumstances, people can perceive themselves and others as either merely engaging in a series of actions (a neutral action mindset) or making a series of choices (a choice mindset). Going beyond the benefits of actual choices for task-specific motivation, my research shows that activating the choice mindset can have a broad range of downstream consequences in diverse unrelated domains. When judging others, people in a choice mindset put responsibility on the individual rather than on contextual factors, thus becoming more susceptible to the fundamental attribution error and being more likely to blame the victim. People in a choice mindset put responsibility for societal problems, such as wealth inequality, primarily on individuals (e.g., “rich people make good choices, poor people made bad choices”) rather than on the context (e.g., such as regressive tax systems). People in a choice mindset think more analytically rather than holistically, focusing on the parts of a phenomenon rather than the whole. The choice mindset helps people cope with distressing events, helping them positively reappraise the situation through the lens of choice and thus experience lower negative emotions. A field experiment found that a chronic choice mindset can improve people’s everyday decision making: students’ time allocation decisions suffered as they approached the end of the semester, but a five week choice mindset intervention arrested this decline, helping students allocate their time in a more optimal manner.