Obviousness: the unexpected benefit of phenotypic dissimilarity

ABSTRACT

Ethnoraciality research consistently purports that phenotypic similarity to a reference majority benefits individual identification with a group; a notion reinforced by social identity theory. I present a counterpoint to this supposition. In-depth interviews with 101 white, black, Asian, Latino/a, and multiracial Jewish converts in three metropolitan areas show that converts who least resemble Jewish phenotypic stereotypes attain a sense of belonging within Jewishness most easily. Converts who are phenotypically similar to a Jewish prototype are tempted to pass as Jewish by birth, and those who engage in passing experience sustained anxiousness about being outsiders. Converts who are phenotypically dissimilar from the prototype do not see passing as an option, and thus bypass equivalently-sustained anxiousness and immediately work toward attaining a sense of belonging. Departing from the literature’s expectations, this case suggests that, when it releases pressure to fit a group prototype, obvious phenotypic dissimilarity can have a beneficial identificational effect.

KEYWORDS:

• Phenotype
• passing
• prototypicality
• Jewishness
• conversion
• social identity theory

Acknowledgements

I thank the anonymous referees and the editor for their insightful comments. I also thank Tomás Jiménez, Matthew Snipp, Cecilia Ridgeway, Michael Rosenfeld, Ari Kelman, Corey Fields, Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Koji Chavez, and Iddo Tavory for their feedback. I presented earlier versions of this research at the 2015 American Sociological Association Annual Meetings and the 2015 Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCiD

Adam L. Horowitz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3224-9383

Notes

1. Here, I match common use of the term “phenotype” in ethnoraciality literature, referring to immediately visible physical features “that are socially understood as relevant to racial classification” (Roth 2016, 1317).

2. While this analysis focuses on phenotype’s identificational value, there are other within-group metrics for which phenotypes reflecting a minority-group prototype are not beneficial. Among African Americans, for example, fair features may be deemed more attractive than prototypical features, while practices like “paper bag tests” reflect instances in which within-group stratification occurs along the lines of skin color (e.g. Hill 2002).

3. I utilize terminology that distinguishes between “Jewishness” as the state of Jewish groupness and “Judaism” as a theology, one of several characteristic elements of Jewishness.

4. To avoid the potential for some respondents to be easily identified, I do not report region of residence when quoting respondents.

5. Religious adherence rates: Georgia, 42 per cent; New York, 26 per cent; California, 22 per cent (ASARB 2010). On a question asking when the Jewish Sabbath begins, 70 per cent of New York respondents answered correctly while majorities of Georgia and California respondents were incorrect (PFRPL 2010).

6. Since Orthodox authorities rarely allow non-Orthodox education of conversion candidates, I utilized snowball sampling more heavily in recruiting Orthodox participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and by Stanford University’s Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Sciences, and Vice Provost for Graduate Education.