Race science in mainstream psychology, 1960–2010

Abstract Anthropologists and human geneticists have long rejected efforts to purportedly scientifically justify racial inequality and colonialism. But race science has persisted, at least on the margins of the mainstream scientific community. In this study, scientometric and text mining methods were used to trace the appearance of race science discourse in both mainstream behavioral science journals and the parascholarly journal Mankind Quarterly from 1960 to 2010. Our analysis found two distinguishable lines of race science discourse. One is strongly associated with Mankind Quarterly, while the other—emphasizing race and intelligence—is more prevalent in mainstream psychology journals, especially Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences. We compare psychology’s response to race science to those of other fields, and discuss the social responsibility of scientists with respect to race science.