Examining college students’ multiple social identities of gender, race, and socioeconomic status: Implications for intergroup and social justice attitudes.

The negotiation of multiple social identities (e.g., race, gender. and socioeconomic status) is relevant to emerging adults in their first year of college, with important implications for their social attitudes and subsequent intergroup interactions and behaviors (Arnett, 2000; Jones & Abes, 2013). Social identity scholarship acknowledges that individuals hold multiple social identities simultaneously, but relatively little research examines individuals' identification with multiple social identities or implications for their social attitudes. The current study used latent class cluster analysis to examine variation in patterns of identity centrality across gender, racial, and social class identities among a diverse college student sample (N = 887) attending a predominantly White university. Five cluster groups were distinguished (all average, all low, all high, high-race/low-SES, and high-gender/low-SES importance). Cluster membership related to participants' self-identified gender, racial, and social class categories. Ouster groups also varied in social-identity-related attitudes, with the all-high-importance cluster (high centrality across social identities) showing higher sexism, racism, and classism consciousness scores and more positive intergroup and social justice action attitudes than all-low-importance or all-average-importance clusters. and showing similarities and differences in attitudes compared with those for whom a single identity was most central. Implications of findings for identity theory and supporting identity development in higher education are discussed.