What Do DNA Ancestry Tests Reveal about Americans Identity?

Examining Public Opinion on Race and Genomics

Jennifer L. Hochschild and Maya Sen Government Department Harvard University August 31, 2010 Paper prepared for the annual convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington DC, September 2-5, 2010

DRAFT: Please do not quote or cite without permission from the authors. We welcome comments and suggestions; please send them to hochschild@gov.harvard.edu or msen@fas.harvard.edu. Many thanks to Natalie Padilla, Andrew Benitez, Anna Remus, and Claire Wheeler for exceptional research assistance. Our thanks also to Patrick Moynihan for substantial advice on implementing the survey, and the terrific staff at Knowledge Networks for their attentive professionalism. This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation through TESS (Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences) and by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1658058

ABSTRACT Genomics research will soon have a deep impact on many aspects of our lives, but its political implications and associations remain undeveloped. Our broad goal in this research project is to analyze what Americans are learning about genomic science, and how they are responding to this new and potentially fraught technology. We pursue that goal here by focusing on one arena of the genomics revolution -- its relationship to racial and ethnic identity. Genomic ancestry testing may either blur racial boundaries by showing them to be indistinct or mixed, or reify racial boundaries by revealing ancestral homogeneity or pointing toward a particular geographic area or group as likely forebears. Some tests, or some contexts, may permit both outcomes. In parallel fashion, genomic information about race can emphasize its malleability and social constructedness or its possible biological bases. We posit that what information individuals choose to obtain, and how they respond to genomic information about racial ancestry will depend in part on their own racial or ethnic identity. We evaluate these hypotheses in three ways. The first is a public opinion survey including vignettes about hypothetical individuals who received contrasting DNA test results. Second is an automated content analysis of about 5,500 newspaper articles that focused on race-related genomics research. Finally, we perform a finer-grained, handcoded, content analysis of about 700 articles profiling people who took DNA ancestry tests. Three major findings parallel the three empirical analyses. First, most respondents find the results of DNA ancestry tests persuasive, but blacks and whites have very different emotional responses and effects on their racial identity. Asians and Hispanics range between those two poles, while multiracials show a distinct pattern of reaction. Second, newspaper articles do more to teach the American reading public that race has a genetic component than that race is a purely social construction. Third, African Americans are disproportionately likely to react with displeasure to tests that imply a blurring of racial classifications. The paper concludes with a discussion, outline of next steps, and observations about the significance of genomics for political science and politics.

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There is in biology at the moment a sense of barely contained expectations reminiscent of the physical sciences at the beginning of the 20th century. It is a feeling of advancing into the unknown and [a recognition] that where this advance will lead is both exciting and mysterious. The analogy between 20th-century physics and 21st-century biology will continue, for both good and ill. - The Economist (2007) We got to have a re-vote. This aint right. - Snoop Dogg, on discovering through DNA ancestry testing that he has more European ancestry than Charles Barkley1

The genomics revolution is underway. Its effects appear widely -- in genetic food modification, breakthroughs in medical research, concerns about insurance companies or employers use of personal genetic information, courts use both to convict and to free those wrongfully convicted, identification of victims of the Srebenica massacre, and DNA testing to discover ones genetic heritage (or that of ones pet). More frivolously, genomics is used to determine the quality of fish in ones sushi, to discover whose dog is soiling the sidewalk, to find a compatible dating partner, and to determine whether the supposed King Louis XVII really was Queen Marie Antoinettes son. Even sober and cautious researchers report a great deal of excitement, because everyone realizes the field is changing so fast (Science 2007): 821). The genetics revolution touches our lives in ways never imagined a decade ago, and there are no discernible limits on its scope or impact. Despite this breadth and the speed of discovery (or perhaps because of them), the public, policy-makers, and scholars have limited information about and few analytic frameworks for understanding genomic sciences political and social import. Most Barkleys response: Ill just call you whitey from now on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exz0yNdvksg
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broadly, our project aims to analyze what Americans are learning about genomic science, and how they are responding to this new and potentially fraught technology. We anticipate that as elites, and the public, learn more about it and see its impact on their lives, genomics will develop a partisan and ideological caste analogous to research on placental stem cells or global warming. One step toward politicization is attaining more knowledge, either through direct experience or through the media. This paper examines that acquisition of knowledge by ordinary citizens. We focus in particular on one facet of genomic science: the impact of DNA technology on public understandings of race and racial or ethnic identity. For decades social scientists have portrayed race as solely a social construct. The American Anthropological Association, for example, declared the concept of race to be merely a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior -- and based its claim partly on evidence from genomic science (American Anthropological Association 1998). Geneticists concurred, noting that at least 99.5 percent of the human genome is identical across all socially defined groups. J. Craig Venter spoke for most scientists when he announced during the White House celebration of the completed Human Genome Project that what weve shown is the concept of race has no scientific basis (Buerkle 2000).2 Geneticists and medical researchers, however, are now finding that people of different conventionally-defined races show some patterned differences in genomic profiles. These profiles may be associated with variations in susceptibility to certain diseases or perhaps with variations in certain traits or behaviors. As the pharmacogenetics researcher Esteban Burchard reflected, How distinct are these categories? I dont think theyre distinct at all, and thats part of the reason why we measure ancestry. Race is a complex construct. It includes social factors, it includes
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The canonical early compendium of worldwide DNA samples concluded a section headed, Scientific Failure of the Concept of Human Races, with the statement that classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise. The level at which we stop our classification is completely arbitrary. We can identify clusters of populations [but] at no level can clusters be identified with races, since every level of clustering would determine a different partition and there is no biological reason to prefer a particular one. Minor changes in the genes or methods used shift some populations from one cluster to the other (Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi et al. 1994): 19). 4

self-identity factors, it includes third party factors of how do you view me? But it also includes biological factors (Bliss 2009?): p. 3, ch [3?]). On a parallel track, genomic science is informing studies of human migration and descent. Individuals can now use DNA tests to trace (part of) their lineage to particular groups or areas of the world, or they can use DNA tests to learn what proportions of their ancestors came from regions or continents around the world. These developments raise many questions about race and racial identity; here we focus only on their impact on public opinion. How will Americans respond to evidence that seems to suggest a biological component to race? Conversely, how will Americans respond to evidence showing almost total similarity in all peoples genetic make-up, or to evidence of their own complicated and mixed heritages? Answers to these questions may themselves depend on the persons conventionally-defined racial or ethnic identity. But most generally, over the next few generations, DNA ancestry testing may be associated with changes in understanding of what it means to be white, black, Hispanic, or Asian, or with changes in how people define themselves. In the absence of both a well-developed literature on this topic and any systematic data, we examine several simple and straightforward hypotheses about how genomic ancestry testing might change understandings of race. It might blur racial boundaries or make them less distinct, as people learning about or taking DNA tests come to understand ancestry as more mixed or less categorical than they had previously thought. Conversely, genomic ancestry testing might reify or strengthen racial boundaries, as people learning about or taking DNA tests discover ancestral homogeneity or come to feel a stronger bond with one part of their racial identity. In principle, both outcomes can occur, across the population or even for a given person, depending on context, change over time, or as a result of which type of ancestry tests is at issue. Given American racial politics, we also hypothesize that whether ones racial identity becomes blurred or reified through genomic ancestry testing will be associated with the persons own pre-test group identification. We anticipate that African Americans will be more likely to react negatively to a blurring test result, and more likely to react positively to a reifying test result, than will white Americans and Hispanics. In the fact of a DNA ancestry test, blacks will be relatively more likely to reaffirm their 5

original identity, and whites or Hispanics to change theirs. The irony here, of course, is that until about half a century ago, many white Americans and many state laws insisted on their own races purity against all the evidence, while most blacks recognized (and some celebrated) a smaller or larger amount of white blood in their heritage. As this is the first attempt, to our knowledge, to tackle these questions, we took three approaches. The first was a public opinion survey providing vignettes about hypothetical individuals who received various sets of DNA test results. The questions probed reactions to the reify/blur distinction across different types of respondents and different combinations of test results. Second, in order to understand what kind of information the public as a whole is exposed to, we conducted an automated content analysis of 5,560 newspaper articles -- the complete set of stories through 2008 that focused on race-related genomics research. Third, to examine the experiences of people who had actually taken genomics ancestry tests, we performed a finer-grained content analysis on 717 articles profiling test-takers. That too was the complete set of stories that fit our parameters. Together, these approaches enable us to analyze how people think about racial identity and genomics testing in the abstract, how the new technology is being conveyed, and how a persons own racial identity is affected by a DNA ancestry test. We proceed as follows: We first provide a brief note explaining, as much as needed for this paper, DNA ancestry tests. We then develop more fully our analytic framework for understanding relationships among public opinion, DNA technology, and racial identity. Methodology and results for the survey are presented in the third section, while the fourth and fifth sections present the methodologies and results for the two content analyses. We conclude with discussion of our findings, an outline of future research, and a suggestion of the broader implications of genomics for politics and political science. DNA Ancestry Tests: A Very Brief Tutorial There are several types of commercial DNA-based ancestry tests, all of which start from a collection of cells (usually from a swab of the inner cheek) that the client returns to the

company from whom he or she bought the test kit.3 Roughly speaking, the test analyzes particular locations on mitochondrial DNA (for women), Y DNA (for men), or autosomal (non-sex-linked) chromosomes for both sexes. The selected nucleotides from the clients DNA sample is matched with the companys database of samples collected from people with (presumedly) known ancestry or biogeographical origins; the more locations tested on the clients DNA sample, and the closer the matches, the more detailed the information is and the more confidence one can (presumably) have in its accuracy. One set of tests tracks specific ancestral lines, in order to supplement standard record-based geneological searches. It is useful if one wants to identify named ancestors (or at least named ancestral groups) and to test for familial relationships with others in the same surname project. That form of DNA ancestry testing does not concern us here any further. However, two other forms do. One type of test seeks to determine the proportions of the clients ancestry from different continents or regions of the world. Figure 1 shows the information from one (now defunct) company to website viewers: Figure 1: Example of information provided to consumers about admixture tests for learning proportions of ancestry from different continents

Most of the companies are for-profit firms, and will not release much information on their clients, procedures, or databases. e for-profit firms, and will not release much information on their clients, procedures, or databases. 7

AncestrybyDNA tests are performed to determine an

individual's bio-geographic ancestry. Whether you're interested in researching your family history, or just simply want to learn more about yourself, this test can provide you with a better understanding of your genetic ancestry and provide a window into further research about your possible ancestors. This test gives an estimated percentage of ancestry from four population groups: Indigenous American. This group is composed of people who migrated to inhabit North, South and Central America. European. This people group includes Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians. East Asian. This people group includes the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and Pacific Islanders. African. This group includes people with roots in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa. Please note that this test does not predict or establish a person's race*; it only gives an estimate of genetic ancestry or heritage, for example:
Source: http://www.ancestrybydna.com/ancestry-by-dna.php Another type of test offered by this and other companies focuses on determining particular geographic regions of ancestry, often identified as tribes or indigenous populations. One company distinguishes among 24 European groups, another provides 34 world regions, and another looks for matches among 30 sub-Saharan countries and over 200 ethnic groups within them. Still others focus on American Indian tribal or geographic clusters, descent from the Jewish Cohanim, or Hindu gotras. Figure 2 parallels figure 1, focusing in this case on DNA tests aimed at sharpening ones racial (or ethnic, or tribal) self-understanding: Figure 2: Example of information provided to consumers about admixture tests for learning ancestry from specific geographic areas, ethnic groups, or tribes

______________________________________________________________________

Our Exclusive African Lineage Database|

Our exclusive African Lineage Database is the largest and most comprehensive resource of African lineages available today. It includes lineages from 30 countries and over 200 ethnic groups. Paternal lineages: 11,747 samples Maternal lineages: 13,690 samples The data is a compilation of published sources, research collaborations and primary research. The populations sampled are based on direction from historians, anthropologists, linguists and other geneticists. ___________________________________________________________________ Source: http://africanancestry.com/database.html The broad admixture and focused descent group genetic tests are different, but not empirically or analytically incompatible. One could take both tests, and learn something different from each about ones ancestry. Note also that the two types of tests are not precisely symmetrical. Tests showing proportions of ancestry from different continents might blur or reify ones racial self-definition, depending on the proportions of the four major population groups that it reveals. Tests aimed at determining ancestry from a specific geographic region or ethnic group will not, by definition, show population group mixtures; they are designed to provide information about one particular set of forebears. Analytic Framework and Hypotheses Genomics technology, in short, can help people find ancestral groups, discover their mixed or unknown continent-wide heritages, and find previously unrecognized family members. Some see these new capacities as prying open Americans artificial and debilitating racial categories, deconstructing the harmful concept of race and pushing us to recognize connections that we had never envisioned. The red-haired, freckled, apparently Scottish Jack Hitt reports that I carry the DNA marker found in great abundance among the Fulbe tribe of contemporary Nigeria, and he now pays much more attention to information about Africa than he used to (Hitt 2005): XX). Others fear 9

that the use of markers for individual identification risks the subtle, sometimes inadvertent, reinscription of race at the molecular level [(Duster 2006); see also (Palmie 2007); (El-Haj 2007)]. Not only race in the abstract, but extant racial categories might be further reified (Fullwiley 2007). Still others fear the deconstruction that Hitt celebrates, worrying that if members of a racial or ethnic minority lose their sharp-edged shared identity, they will be overwhelmed by a still hostile majority population. Given that humans are over 99 percent identical genomically, still others anticipate that ancestry testing will show vastly more commonality than disparity, thereby reinforcing the old saw that there is only one race, the human race. In short, ancestry testing might rebiologize race, reify racial categories, harmfully dissolve group solidarity, beneficially soften group boundaries, encourage emotional ties to ones ancestral roots, provide a distorted sense of a historical linkage, or find long-lost relatives. The end result of all of this is that the public is on the receiving end of a complicated and novel mixture of messages and information about racial identity and identification. To make this set of messages analytically tractable we have, as noted above, simplified it into two main categories: genetic ancestry testing can blur or reify racial boundaries.4 Thus: 1: DNA ancestry testing may show individuals that their ancestry is blurred or mixed across conventionally defined racial groups; it may also imply ancestry shared with many or most other individuals. Alternatively, 2: DNA ancestry testing may reify or strengthen a persons pre-test racial or ethnic self-definition. Test results may point to a particular tribe or geographic

In later iterations of this paper, we will also develop a model with three levels of analysis: genetic characteristics 1) shared by all humans, 2) more likely to be shared by people from a particular ancestry or region of the world, and 3) inherited from a specific set of parents or resulting from a specific mutation. Genomic ancestry testing shows the first two, and medical genetic testing can show all three. The three levels interact in ways that we have not yet organized into something that is tractable in public opinion surveys or newspaper article content analyses.

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area, or show that a person is completely or mostly from one conventionally understood ancestry group. Note again that these are not, strictly speaking, analytically or empirically exclusive, since a person can take different tests and thereby obtain both results. We focus, however, on the two clean alternatives. Newspaper articles convey the flavor of each alternative. Consider first hypothesis 1: Danny Villarreal is a Hispanic Texan who believed himself to be of pure Spanish blood. Out of curiosity, he took a DNA test, which showed him to be closely related to Jewish populations in Hungary, Belarus, and Poland; Danny Villarreal is (genetically, at least) an Ashkenazi Jew (Lomax 2005). Similarly and famously, Henry Louis Gates discovered that my mitochondrial DNA, my mothers mothers mothers lineage [was not] Yoruba, as I fervently hoped. A number of exact matches turned up, leading straight back to that African Kingdom called Northern Europe, to the genes of (among others) a female Ashkenazi Jew (Gates Jr. 2006). Even more dramatically, Wayne Joseph grew up a black American with a strong racial identity. He expected his DNA test to come back about 70 percent African and 30 percent something else. Upon receiving the results, however, I was floored. He was found to be 57 percent IndoEuropean, 39 percent Native American, and 4 percent East Asian no African ancestry at all. For almost a year, Joseph searched his soul. Before the test, I was unequivocally black. Now Im a metaphor for America (Kalb 2006): 55). Given that many if not most African Americans have some white ancestry, that Hispanics are mestizo more or less by definition, that intermarriage rates among American Indians have been very high for a century, and that Asian Americans increasingly marry whites, one can expect that most Americans typically defined as nonwhite will discover a great deal of mixture in their genetic heritage. So will most whites certainly if one takes ethnic, national, or regional differences seriously and probably even if one focuses only on race as conventionally defined. Next, consider hypothesis 2: Mika Stump is an African-American woman living in the United States. She grew up in foster homes, knowing nothing of her roots except that she is black. Eager to learn more about herself, Stump took a DNA test, which revealed strong similarities between Stumps genetic code and the Mende and Temne 11

people of Sierrra Leone. Now, I have a place where I can go back and say, This is who I am; this is my home. Thats something I never, ever expected to say (Willing 2006): xx). In another example, Reverend Al Simpson of Chicago went to Sierra Leone in 2005, and gave tribal elders of the village of Lunsar the paperwork from African Ancestry attesting to his Temne lineage. He remembers saying, Five hundred years ago my DNA was removed from here by slave traders and taken to America, so Im coming back for my seat. My seats been vacant. He also asked for a Temne name in order to reclaim what was taken away from me (Gibson 2007). By definition, everyone has some set of genetic roots as part of their heritage. The commercial possibilities of this fact are beginning to be realized. The enterprising director of the Centre for Forensic Investigation at Glasgow Caledonian University, for instance, has announced his intention to have DNA swabbing kits in all the tourist information offices and hotel lobbies across the UK, so people can go and pick up a kit for a few pounds then post it off to us and we will do the DNA tests for them. The researchers goal is to contribute to a DNA database of Scottish and Irish clan groups. For the Scottish tourist industry, DNA testing will be a draw for ancestral tourists who might want to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors (Lei 2007). Cruise ships now offer luxurious trips to ones ancestral home, and a few countries offer dual citizenship to people who want a more official connection to their roots. Assuming for the moment, for the sake of analytic simplicity, that people focus on either test results that reify their racial identity or those that blur its boundaries, we expect different reactions from people of different conventionally-defined groups. Thus hypothesis 3: 3: A persons cognitive and emotional response to DNA ancestry testing will be associated with his or her pre-test racial or ethnic identity. In particular, African Americans will be more skeptical of or disappointed by DNA test results suggesting a blurred identity than will whites and Hispanics. We are agnostic with regard to Asians. Whether racial boundary-blurring (or reification) is desirable or harmful remains a matter of intense debate -- within an individual, within a group, and across society. Henry Louis Gates epitomizes the normative and political complexity of this issue by both posing with 12

his blond, blue-eyed Irish cousins on his television show and also writing (in response to the finding that he is more than half European), I have the blues. Can I still have the blues? Perhaps blurring is the solution to racial animosity: a sociology professor at Pennsylvania State University muses on his blog that when people [in his classes] discover that what they thought about themselves is not true I thought I was black, but I'm also Asian and white -- it leads them to have a different kind of conversation about race. It leads them to be less bigoted, to ask the deeper questions, to be more open to differences (Daly 2005). Or perhaps blurring is an attack on group solidarity: Lisa Lee, formerly active in the Black Power movement, discovered that she had no African ancestry on fathers side: What does this mean; who am I then? For me to have a whole half of my identity to come back and say, Sorry, no African here, it doesnt even matter what the other half says. It just negates it all. It doesnt fit, it doesnt feel right (Harmon 2006): 18). Conversely, perhaps reification is the solution to a sense of rootlessness: a woman who knows of some European ancestry nevertheless became strongly attached to the African heritage she found through genealogical genetics: [I] am also from the Temne Tribe of Sierre Leone. I am also in touch with a fellow Tribesman. It is so wonderful to talk to your fellow Tribesman. We clicked real quick. [I] cant explain it. He told me hes been waiting (Nelson 2004).5 Or perhaps reification is a means of sharpening intergroup hostilities: Snoop Dogg is clearly not pleased to find that he is more white than Charles Barkley, and Barkley does not miss the chance to show that white is not his preferred racial identity. The mixture of possible results from DNA ancestry testing, and the mix of possible responses to those results, is occurring in the context of volatile American discussions of racial identity and identification. The stage is set for intense ideological and political debates around a rapidly-changing scientific research frontier. How and how much should DNA tests results matter in our understandings of ourselves, others,
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Alondra Nelson describes this attachment as the process of affiliative self-fashioning, reminding readers that people who take DNA ancestry tests not only are highly selfselected but also that they actively select among and shape possible responses to the actual test results. 13

and the meaning of race or ethnicity? Should government agencies or courts regulate testing companies, or discourage research that purports to find biological bases of race or racially-inflected traits? Should schools teach genomics in a way that fosters multiracial boundary blurring? These and other new questions are likely to enter the political arena soon, and their answers will in part depend on what the public knows, and how it reacts. We now turn to that issue. Public Opinion on Racial Reification or Boundary Blurring We begin by analyzing the publics direct attitudes toward various possible outcomes of a genomics ancestry test. We surveyed 1,095 American adults, divided approximately equally among self-identified non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Asian Americans, Latinos, and multi-racials. The survey was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, as part of the peer-reviewed TESS program (http://tess.experimentcentral.org/), in August 2010. Because we were asking about difficult concepts in an arena in which few people have direct experience, we relied on hypothetical vignettes (Finch 1987). These vignettes featured imaginary individuals who had just taken and received the results of a DNA test designed to determine their racial or ethnic ancestry. Each respondent received eight questions, half of which signaled racial blurring and half of which signaled racial reification. Within each half, two vignettes involved individuals with the same race or ethnicity as the respondent, and two involved individuals with a different (randomly chosen) race or ethnicity. One of the two vignettes in each pair asked the respondent how the named individual would feel, and one asked how the respondent him or herself would feel if he or she were the named individual. Each of the eight questions had three sets of response categories. The material was randomized in four ways, so question or response order effects are not a concern. Table 1 presents the logic of the survey experiment as just described, and Table 2 provides examples of the vignettes. Table 1: The logic of the survey experiment

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Same race as R Blur

How would he/she feel? How would you feel if you were him/her? How would he/she feel?

Different race from How would you R feel if you were him/her?

Same race as R Reify

How would he/she feel? How would you feel if you were him/her?

How would he/she Different feel? race from How would you R feel if you were him/her?

Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable - unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale) Pleased displeased (7 pt. scale) Believable-unbelievable (7 pt. scale) Matter to your identity-not matter (2 pt. scale)

Table 2: Examples of vignettes Race of vignette subject and respondent African American

Hypothesis

Vignette

Reify

Isabella is a woman who identifies as African American. She has taken a DNA test that indicates that her female lineage can be traced primarily to Africa. Emily is a woman who identifies as African American. She has taken a DNA test that indicates that her female lineage is spread across Europe or the Middle East, Africa, North America, Latin America or Spain, and Asia. Ashley is a woman who identifies as White. She has taken a DNA test that indicates that her female lineage can be traced primarily to Europe or the Middle East. 15

African American

Blur

Non-Hispanic white

Reify

Non-Hispanic white

Blur

Sophia is a woman who identifies as White. She has taken a DNA test that indicates that her female lineage is spread across Europe or the Middle East, Africa, North America, Latin America or Spain, and Asia.

Note: Questions for Hispanics and Asian Americans parallel those for blacks and whites. We chose names for the people in the vignettes from the list of baby names in New York City in the mid-2000s that were most common among all four racial or ethnic groups The gender of the person in the vignette matched that of the respondent.

The three response categories for each question addressed emotional reactions (pleased/displeased), cognitive or analytic responses (believable/unbelievable), and impact (matter a lot/not matter at all to your identity). Table 3 presents the initial unweighted survey results for the pleased/displeased scale across the two vignettes (one suggesting a blurred identity and one suggesting a reified identity), where the respondent's race matched the race of the vignettes subject and where the respondent is asked to imagine how you would feel if you were him/her. This is the set-up in which we expect the respondent to most honestly answer the question as if he or she had actually taken this test. The table collapses the seven-point response scale into all pleased responses, neither pleased nor displeased, and all displeased responses. (Write-in responses and nonreponses are dropped.) African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans are more likely to be pleased when presented with genetic information suggesting a strong link to, respectively, Africa, Latin America or Spain, and Asia than when presented with evidence of continent-wide mixtures. For example, while 39 percent of African Americans would feel pleased if presented with a genetic test suggesting a mixed identity, the percentage increases to 63 percent when the test result points to a directly link to Africa an increase of approximately 20 percent. Whites also are more likely to be pleased when a test result suggests a link to Europe than when it points to an array of continents, but their response is weaker 30 versus 38 percent. Self-defined multiracials are the exception: they are exactly divided between those pleased with a blurred or mixed test result and those pleased with a result that reifies or strengthens one racial ancestry. 16

Table 3: Emotional reaction when respondent's race matched the race of the hypothetical individual in the vignette (collapsed across response categories)

Black Blur Pleased 77 39% Neither 92 47% Displeased 27 14% Total 196 Reify 123 63% 63 32% 10 5% 196

White Blur 68 30% 125 55% 34 15% 227 Reify 88 38% 125 54% 19 8% 232

Hispanic Blur 75 39% 93 48% 24 13% 192 Reify 115 59% 66 34% 14 7% 195

Asian Am Blur 65 30% 118 54% 37 17% 220 Reify 121 52% 96 42% 14 6% 231

Mixed Blur 87 43% 95 47% 20 10% 202 Reify 86 43% 97 48% 19 9% 202

These results, though still preliminary, support our third hypothesis: people of different races have different emotional responses to the results of DNA ancestry testing. Multiracial respondents are the most likely to be pleased by the blurring of racial lines, followed in order by whites, then Asians, Hispanics, and finally blacks. The null hypothesis that a respondent's race and his or her answer to the question are unrelated is rejected by a simple Chi Square test under the reification prompt (Chi square statistic = 38.85, p-value = 0.00). [Under the blur prompt we narrowly fail to reject the null (Chisquared statistic = 15.44, p-value = 0.0512).] Setting aside the special case of self-defined multiracials, that ordering concurs with many others in American society, which one can summarize roughly as a hierarchy of status or disadvantage. The position of multiracials at the head of this ordering hints at the ways in which genomic science interacts with racial identity; if more Americans come to identify as multiracial (Hochschild and Weaver forthcoming 2010), DNA ancestry testing may come to play a notable role in Americans racial classification system and understanding of what a race is.

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To see whether genomic ancestry testing has yet gained any traction on racial identity, we turn to the question of whether the hypothetical DNA tests would be met with skepticism or trust. Table 4 shows that no matter what the test results, individuals are more trusting of DNA test results than distrusting; across all groups and across both prompts (blur/reify), more respondents find DNA test results believable than not believable.

Table 4: Analytic reaction when respondent's race matched the race of the hypothetical individual in the vignette (collapsed across response categories) Black Blur Believable 99 51% Neither 45 23% Not Believable Total 51 26% 195 Reify 139 71% 45 23% 13 7% 197 White Blur 130 55% 56 24% 49 21% 235 Reify 156 66% 60 25% 20 9% 236 Hispanic Blur 102 52% 51 26% 42 22% 195 Reify 144 74% 35 18% 17 9% 196 Asian Am Blur 113 50% 56 25% 56 25% 225 Reify 179 77% 39 17% 14 6% 232 Mixed Blur 128 64% 45 22% 28 14% 201 Reify 142 70% 39 19% 23 11% 204

In many cases, the differences are huge; compare the believable and not believable responses for reification in all five groups. That comparison shows that respondents in all groups found test results showing a reified or single ancestry more believable than those that show a blended or mixed ancestry. Nevertheless, groups differ somewhat. Blacks, Hispanics, and especially Asian Americans are even more likely than whites or multiracials to find results believable when the test shows a strong link to one continent of origin than when the test reveals a mixed ancestry. For Asian Americans, for example, 50 percent would find a result implying a mixed race identity believable, while 77 percent (a 27 percentage point increase) would find results pointing to a direct link to Asia believable. As before, mixed-race respondents are outliers; their respective skepticism about DNA test results changes little between prompts. Still, the dominant 18

finding is similarity across groups; we cannot reject the null hypothesis that race and response are independent under both the blur prompt (Chi-squared statistic = 13.87, pvalue = 0.085 ) and the reification prompt (Chi-squared statistic= 12.34, p-value = 0.14). If respondents find the test results believable, do they affect respondents pre-test group identity? Table 5 shows that, like emotional reactions but unlike the issue of believability, the importance of DNA testing to ones self definition varies according to respondents race more than to the prompt. Here, Hispanics and (especially) African Americans show one pattern, while multiracials and (especially) whites show another. No matter what the result, DNA ancestry tests matter more to blacks identity than to the identity of all the other groups. And for both blacks and Hispanics, the reifying test result would have more impact on their self-definition than would the blurring test result. Conversely, whites and multiracials would be less affected than the other groups by test results, and their indifference does not depend on whether the result shows blurring or reification. Simple Chi-square tests show that we can reject the null hypothesis of no relationship between respondent race and his or her response under both the blur prompt (Chi-squared = 23.16, p-value = 0.00) and the reification prompt (Chi-squared = 43.80, pvalue = 0.00). In short, the impact of DNA ancestry testing is likely to vary across groups.

Table 5: Impact on racial/ethnic identity when respondent's race matched the race of the hypothetical individual in the vignette Black Blur Would matter a lot Would not matter at all Total 75 39% 119 61% 194 Reify 87 45% 106 55% 193 White Blur 45 20% 181 80% 226 Reify 42 18% 191 82% 233 Hispanic Blur 59 31% 131 69% 190 Reify 70 37% 122 64% 192 Asian Am Blur 71 32% 150 68% 221 Reify 77 34% 152 66% 229 Mixed Blur 44 23% 150 77% 194 Reify 45 24% 142 76% 187

19

We have not yet analyzed the remaining three sets of vignettes, so conclusions here are preliminary. The central point is that most people find DNA ancestry tests to be trustworthy, but their emotional response and the degree to which they will permit the test to affect their self-definition vary by race. The whole endeavor seems most fraught for blacks and, to a lesser degree, Hispanics; African Americans care the most about the outcome of the test and it would affect their self-understanding the most. Conversely, whites report the least emotional response to the tests outcome, and are least likely to allow it to affect their racial identity. If these results hold up across the rest of the survey responses, and among people who actually do DNA ancestry testing, they suggest that genomic science will reinforce standard American racial politics. However, self-defined multiracials who are equally pleased by blurring and reification -- are the wild card; if their numbers or impact grow, the politics of genomic ancestry testing could shift away from the classic black/white binary.

Automated Content Analysis of Newspaper Articles The survey items address hypothetical rather than real individuals, and they focus solely on the implications of genetic ancestry testing for the person him or herself. Our next step was therefore to find evidence on actual testing, and to broaden the focus to the societal implications of genetic testings relationship to race or ethnicity. To do so, we conducted an automated content analysis of (what we believe to be) all newspaper articles published in the United States on the topic of genetic testing and race. Note that unlike that of most media scholars, our goal was not to explore newspapers influence on peoples level of attention, policy priorities, or political attitudes. Instead, we used the media as a lens through which to perceive the initial stages of public discourse on the relationship between genomics and racial or ethnic identity and identification. That is, we used these articles as an indicator of the kind of information that the public is exposed to with regard to developments surrounding the genetics of race. The universe of articles came from Lexis-Nexis Academics online database of U.S. newspapers, which encompasses everything from the New York Times and Washington Post to small regional newspapers such as the Flint Journal or the Dodge County Independent News. It also includes a smattering of trade publications, business 20

journals, and law-oriented publications. We used the broadest available database on the grounds that it would best serve as a reflection of how the media are reporting advances in DNA technology and how people from all walks of life are learning about them. We searched the database for any text that mentioned a genetics-related search term (DNA, genetic, or genomics)6 within the same sentence as one of a variety of words associated with, or synonymous with, race, ethnicity, or heredity (such as race, racial, ethnicity, genealogy, descendant, ancestor, race, racial, ancestor, or lineage). We added keywords to prevent the search engine from returning articles clearly outside of the scope of our inquiry, such as those discussing rape or murder forensics, genetic food or crop modification, television schedules or community calendars, and death notices. We avoided words that would slant the search in the direction of any particular group (e.g. black, white, African, Celtic, and so on). The final search yielded 5,560 newspaper articles from 1969 through 2008, covering topics such as medical research, business news, and personal profiles of individuals afflicted with genetic illnesses. Figure 3 shows the number of articles per year from 1988 through 2008.7 The number of articles devoted to this topic has increased markedly and almost linearly, peaking with 791 newspaper articles in 2007.8 Figure 3: Number of newspaper articles per year addressing race or ancestry and DNA

In the actual search, we truncated the keywords by using the root of each one, followed by an exclamation mark (!). That enabled us to find articles containing all of the words formed by adding letters to the keywords root (as in genetic, genetics, geneticist using the keyword genetic!).
7

There were too few articles from 1969-1987 (between zero and twenty a year) for the automated content analysis program to estimate proportions in each category.

We have no explanation for the drop-off in 2008. We plan to add articles from 2009 to this analysis, which will give us a better idea of whether 2008 is anomalous or the beginning of a trend. 21

Instead of trying to hand-code almost 6,000 articles, we used an automated content analysis method developed by Hopkins and King (2010). The goal of the associated software package, ReadMe, is to expedite content analysis of a large number of documents, at least for simple categorizations. It works as follows: we first hand coded 650 articles, dividing them into four mutually exclusive categories described below. This is the training set. The articles were randomly chosen from all years and all newspapers, with additional articles later included from underrepresented years in order to ensure that the automated program had enough within-year variation to work with. [Non-random selection of articles into the training set is permissible with this kind of automated content analysis (Hopkins and King 2010)]. Next we ran the content analysis program on the training set, which allowed the program to pick up the vocabulary patterns generated by hand-coding. We then used the trained computer program to analyze the entire database of 5,560 articles. The program estimates [with considerable accuracy, according to tests in Hopkins and King (2010)] the proportion of articles in the database in each of the four substantive categories, although it does not indicate which specific article is in which category. The substantive categories were designed to show the patterns associated with our first two hypotheses, that DNA testing can both blur and reify conceptions of race. The categories, including the instructions to coders, are: 22

1.

Blend. The article implied or stated that recent advances in genetics or DNA technology blend racial or ethnic identity or identification. Articles that imply common ancestry would also fall under this category.

2.

Strengthen. The article suggested that recent advances in genetics or DNA technology could reify, strengthen, or focus racial or ethnic identity or identification.

3.

Both. The article stated or implied both that advances in genetics or DNA technology can both blend and strengthen racial identity or identification. Or it discusses different people, some of whom move in the direction of blending and others in the direction of strengthening racial identity.

4.

Neither. The article did not mention these issues, or expressed or implied no view on whether advancements in genetics blend or reinforce racial identity. Of the 650 articles hand coded in the training set, 117 (18 percent) were assigned

to the blend category, 236 (36 percent) to reify, 66 (10 percent) to both, and 231 (36 percent) to neither. This last number points to the fact that, since our search terms were intentionally over-inclusive, a sizable number of unrelated articles were swept into the database.9 This does not affect our analysis, however, as the proportion of articles categorized as blend or reify operates independently from these irrelevant articles. Table 6 provides the results of the automated content analysis for all articles. We estimate from it that about 30 percent of the articles covering this topic framed it within a reification framework, while 20 percent focused on racial blurring. Around 11 percent used both theories. Overall, since genomics research has come into public view Americans have been more exposed to the idea that advances in DNA research enable people to distinguish races genetically than to the idea that genomic science erodes racial boundaries. This runs contrary to social scientists assertions that race is a social construct, as well as to life scientists assertions that genomics provides no grounds for sharp differentiation among ancestry groups.

We would have been concerned by too few unrelated articles, which would have suggested a possible under-inclusive initial search. 23

Table 6: Results from automated content analysis on 5,556 newspaper articles about DNA and race, 1969-2008 Substantive Category (1) Blur (2) Reify (3) Both (4) Neither Estimate (SE) 0.204 0.297 0.112 0.388 (0.0184) (0.0226) (0.0136) (0.0209) 95% Confidence Interval (0.240, 0.170) (0.341, 0.252) (0.139, 0.085) (0.429, 0.347)

Standard errors (in parentheses) are bootstrapped standard errors. Figure 4 provides a more nuanced portrayal of what Americans learn about genomics and race from newspapers. It shows the proportion of articles in each of the three substantive coding categories from 1988 through 2008. (Appendix Table A1 provides this information for each year, along with the number of newspaper articles in each year.) The proportion of articles discussing both blurring and reification (the red line) is consistent but low. More importantly, with the exception of five years in the early 2000s,10 in most years more articles discussing race and genetics focus on reification (green line) than on boundary blurring (blue line). Year by year, as well as overall, the media are teaching Americans that race or ethnicity has a genetic component that sharpens the lines among groups, rather than teaching them that genomics shows human similarities or the impossibility of precisely defining the biology of race. Figure 4: Proportion of articles in automated content analysis focused on blurring, reifying, or both, 1988-2008 separately by year

10

The upsurge in the early 2000s of blurring articles is probably due to publicity about the Human Genome Project, and the many scientists connected with it who insisted that what weve shown is the concept of race has no scientific basis, as Venter put it in 2001. But that message apparently did not stick in the media. 24

Newspapers are not the only public medium through which Americans obtain information; television is arguably more influential. Probably many people learn about genomics and how it intersects with race by watching documentary series like Henry Louis Gates African American Lives and Faces of America, talk shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Oz, entertainment and variety shows like The Colbert Report and The George Lopez Show, or news shows like 60 Minutes or 20/20. All of these shows have aired episodes devoted wholly or partly to the way that DNA technology is changing the way we understand and practice race and ancestry. We have not yet determined how to identify and systematically analyze all of the relevant television stories (suggestions are welcome!). Based on anecdotal evidence, we suspect that the kind of information conveyed by television is similar to that conveyed by newspapers. For example, African American Lives and its successor Faces of America profiled celebrities such as Chris Rock, Meryl Streep. Yo-Yo Ma, Oprah Winfrey, and Henry Louis Gates himself -- and their experiences on the shows in fact comprise a fair number of the articles in the print media. The same echo effect has occurred with other prominent individuals whose experiences with or discussions of DNA testing appeared on television, and then appeared again in newspaper stories discussing the television shows. More generally, the experts profiled by television

25

programs are drawn from the same pool that news reporters draw from, and may in fact be interviewed in one medium because they have already appeared in the other. Breakthroughs in research, the demise of a testing company, challenges to testing from regulators or other public officials -- all are reported by both television and newspapers, and since genomics is such a new topic, journalists and newscasters do not stray far from the same basic story line and the same set of interviewed experts. We note, however, that this argument is based on our immersion in the stories and television shows, not yet on any systematic analysis. Detailed Content Analysis of DNA Test-takers We turn again to our third hypothesis, that individuals of different races or ethnicities are likely to have different cognitive and emotional responses to the results of their DNA ancestry tests but this time in direct experience rather than in hypothetical vignettes. We evaluate it through a more subtle content analysis of newspaper articles about people who have actually taken these tests. This is not the ideal way to address such a delicate issue. But we know of no publicly available database of tested individuals, and the firms that conduct these tests will not release any information (even on the number of clients).11 As before, our purpose was not to explore the medias influence on public opinion, but rather to accomplish two other goals. First, these stories provide a lens through which to understand how individuals are reacting to and being influenced by their own DNA ancestry tests. Newspaper articles, in effect, provide our sample -- not randomly selected, of course, but ranging more broadly than a convenience sample or personal essay can do. Second, the stories are a lens through which to discover what Americans are learning about how people react to the new information available through
11

As one person working on a similar topic puts it, One of the things I've found most frustrating is that there is absolutely no nationally representative data on how many people have taken these tests. ... I tried to get this information by contacting all the different companies, but they are either very reluctant to share this or they don't have this information handy because a lot of their tests are sold to repeat customers. So even though everyone talks about how rapidly this industry is growing, there's no hard data on that (personal communication with authors, July 30, 2010). In the fall of 2010, we will conduct a nationally representative survey that will include questions about DNA ancestry testing and users response to it. 26

DNA ancestry testing. That is the same logic that underlay the automated content analysis, but here our identification and coding strategies enhance depth rather than breadth. The articles about tested individuals again come from Lexis-Nexis Academics database of U.S. newspapers. As before, we chose search terms with the goal of being somewhat but not too overinclusive. We began with the same search terms as in the larger database; that is, we collected any article with a genetics-related term in the same sentence as any one of a variety of words associated with, or synonymous with, race, ethnicity, or heredity. However, we constrained the search to include only articles that also used (in the same sentence) a variety of stems related to particular ethnic and racial groups: Asian, Asian American, white, Pacific Islander, Native American, Alaskan Native, Latino/a, Hispanic, African American, black, and Afro American. We once again included in the query keywords that eliminated articles involving rape or murder forensics, genetic food or crop modification, television schedules or community calendars, and death notices. The resulting search yielded 717 articles. Many profiled specific individuals and detailed their experiences using DNA technology for racial identity or genealogical purposes, but a sizable number also included general overviews of research in the area of DNA and race. Because this database was a manageable size, and because we were using it to probe sensitive or complex issues of emotional valance, we opted for hand coding over the less exact automated coding. Two trained undergraduate research assistants read each article and coded it through several steps. First they noted whether the article profiled any individual(s) who had taken DNA tests. If so, they noted (separately) each individuals pre-test race and how each individuals test result would be classified on the blur versus reify dimension. (We used the same categorization scheme for this task as in the automated content analysis.) They next noted each profiled persons reaction to the test results, as follows: 1. Positive: The individual expresses a positive, happy, satisfied, enthusiastic, optimistic, or trusting sentiment about DNA or genomics testing and his or her test results.

27

2.

Negative: The individual expresses a negative, sad, disappointed, upset, anxious, skeptical, or distrustful sentiment about DNA or genomics testing and his or her test results.

3.

Neutral: The individual is reported to have a neutral emotional reaction or no reaction to DNA testing and the results.

4.

Mixed: The individual expresses both positive and negative emotional valances about DNA or genomics testing and the test results.12

At each point in the process we conducted inter-coder reliability analyses, and we revised the codesheet several times to increase the coders level of agreement. After several iterations, when the coders disagreed on any article we used consensus to decide its appropriate categorization. For the first examination of the results our unit of analysis is profiled individuals, not articles. The articles identified 97 unique individuals who had taken DNA ancestry tests. (As we discuss below, journalists reported on some individuals repeatedly; here we include these individuals in the analysis only once so as not to bias our results.) Of the 97 people, 64 (66 percent) identified as African American, a testament to the interest in genetic ancestry testing in the black community. Twenty-five people (26 percent) identified as white, while five identified as Hispanic and three as racially mixed. No individuals identifying as Asian American or Native American were profiled in the depth needed to make substantive inferences, although a few were mentioned in passing. The experiences of the black and white test-takers were different, as table 7 shows. Of the 64 African Americans, the DNA tests of exactly half (32) revealed a blended or mixed ancestry, usually African and European. The tests for most of the rest (29) reified or strengthened their self-definition, generally by providing a link to a particular tribe or geographic area in Africa. In contrast, test results for 20 of the 25 whites suggested a blended or mixed heritage, and the test results for all five Hispanics profiled in the newspaper articles suggested blending or mixture. Thus blacks were

12

The research assistants also coded whether a persons racial or ethnic identity changed from what it was before the test. We will include that analysis in later versions of the paper, although the number of observations may be too small for statistical analysis. 28

disproportionately likely to be able to use DNA ancestry testing to find their roots rather than to determine how widespread their ancestry was.

Table 7: Test results for individuals taking DNA tests, according to newspaper stories

Blacks 32 3 29 64

Whites 20 0 5 25

Hispanics 5 0 0 5

Mixed 2 0 1 3

Total 59 3 35 97

Blend Both Reify Total

It is essential to remember that the results of this analysis do not indicate the degree of racial mixture in the test-takers, never mind in the population as a whole. They reflect, in fact, four layers of selection: who chose to take a DNA ancestry test, which type of test they took, whether they were profiled by a journalist, and what the journalist reported about their test results and reactions to the results. (Thus it is not contradictory for the DNA ancestry test of a racially mixed person to emphasize reification.) These data are about social practices of a self-selected group as filtered through journalists stories -- they are not about demographics or genealogy. But the combination of this set of articles with the survey results reported earlier provide are the best available evidence of the relationship between genealogical genetic testing and individuals racial classifications and emotions. Our third hypothesis posited that, compared to whites or Hispanics, African Americans would be less pleased with or more skeptical about a genetics ancestry test suggesting a mixed background. (We had no clear hypothesis about Asian Americans, and lack of data makes us unable to test this hypothesis for Hispanics.) The survey results supported that hypothesis with regard to gratification, though not with regard to skepticism. While recognizing the risks in small numbers, these newspaper articles reinforce the survey results. Of the 32 blended African Americans, only twelve were positive, whereas all of the 29 reified African Americans had positive reactions to their test results (see Table 8). Even with the small number of observations, the difference 29

between the two groups was statistically significant, with a Chi-square statistic of 26.97 (p-value of 0.00). African Americans whose DNA ancestry test sharpened their racial classification had a significantly different response to that information than African Americans whose DNA diffused theirs. Table 8: Emotional responses of blacks to DNA ancestry tests that sharpened or blurred their racial classification Emotional Response Positive Negative Mixed Neutral (or Silent) Total Blur 12 5 5 10 32 Reify 29 0 0 0 29 Total 41 5 5 10 61

Note that 3 people had both sets of emotional responses, and are not included in this table. The pattern for whites was different (see Table 9). Eleven of the 20 blurred whites had positive responses, and four had negative reactions. Of the five who came out of the testing process with sharper racial classification, three were positive and one mixed. The difference between these two groups was not statistically significant (Chi Square statistic = 5.06, p-value = 0.17). Table 9: Emotional responses of whites to DNA ancestry tests that sharpened or blurred their racial classification Emotional Response Positive Negative Mixed Neutral (or Silent) Total Blur 11 4 0 5 20 Reify 3 0 1 1 5 Total 14 4 1 6 25

30

There were too few observations to permit inferences across the races. When we look at all individuals whose genetic analysis pointed toward blurring, we find no statistical difference between blacks and whites (Chi Square statistic = 4.287, p-value = 0.23). The same result (no statistical difference between blacks and whites) emerges when we look at all individuals whose DNA test results point toward reification. For our second examination of the 717 articles, we looked not at each individual uniquely, but rather at each mention of any individual; the unit of analysis here is mentions, not persons. Looking at all of the times any person was depicted, even if briefly, provides an indication of the information to which the public is exposed. This number is larger than the number of unique individuals described since, as table 10 shows, some celebrities or people with high profiles in the genomics arena were the subjects of several stories. Note that all of the repeats are African American, another indicator of the interest in ancestral testing within the black community, the interest in black ancestry among journalists and presumably their readers, or both. Table 10: Individuals frequently cited in newspaper articles discussing ancestral DNA testing and race Name Henry Louis Gates (scholar) Pearl Duncan (author) Edward Ball (author) Chris Haley (author and son of Alex Haley) Leonard Pitts (author) Oprah Winfrey (TV personality) Gina Paige (business executive) Melvyn Gillette (genealogy enthusiast) Number of articles 8 6 4 4 4 3 3 3

We identified 144 instances where individuals were depicted in newspaper stories; table 11 presents these instances by racial or ethnic group and also by the result of the 31

individuals genetic ancestry testing. Half of the stories about black test takers, compared with four-fifths of the stories about whites and all of the stories about Hispanic test takers showed ancestry that encompassed more than one continent or region of the world. Table 11: Newspaper depictions of test results among individuals taking DNA tests Blacks Blend Both Reify Total 48 3 46 97 Whites 30 0 6 36 Hispanics 7 0 0 7 Mixed 3 0 1 4 Total 88 3 53 144

With regard to emotional responses, the most prominent message is once again that African American test takers are especially pleased with results suggesting racial strengthening. Table 12 shows the results; almost all of the depictions of blacks who received reifying results show a positive reaction, whereas fewer than half of the mentions of blacks with blending results show gratification. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (Chi Square statistic = 29.04, p-value = 0.00), again reinforcing to the reader the message that black Americans are most pleased when ancestry tests lend credence to a sharp racial classification. Table 12: Newspaper depictions of blacks emotional responses to DNA ancestry tests with varying results Emotional Response Positive Negative Mixed Neutral (or Silent) Total Blur 21 5 7 14 47 Reify 44 1 0 1 46 Total 65 6 7 15 93

The depictions of whites emotional responses was slightly different, as table 13 shows. Half of the thirty mentions of whites with blurring results showed a positive 32

reaction and only six showed a negative one. But among the six depictions of whites with reifying results, four showed pleasure. The difference between these two groups was close to statistically significant (Chi Square statistic = 6.78, p-value = 0.079) despite the tiny sample size, but the reading public probably does not receive any clear message about whites emotional reactions to DNA ancestry testing. Table 13: Newspaper depictions of whites emotional responses to DNA ancestry tests with varying results Emotional Response Positive Negative Mixed Neutral (or Silent) Total Blur 15 6 0 9 30 Reify 4 0 1 1 6 Total 19 6 1 10 36

Unlike in the analysis of unique individuals, some distinctions between depictions of blacks and depictions of whites are statistically significant. When we look only at mentions of blurring test results, the black-white difference is not statistically significant (Chi Square statistic = 5.70, p-value = 0.127). But when we look only at mentions of reifying test results, the black- white difference emerges (Chi Square statistic = 11.179, pvalue = 0.011). Once again, the basic and most important conclusion is that Americans get different kinds of information from newspaper stories depending on the conventionally defined race of the test-taking person. Discussion and Next Steps The revolution in genomic science, at least as reflected through these sets of evidence, is leading Americans to think more in terms of sharp group categories than in terms of boundary blurring or human similarity. The differences in what newspapers are teaching Americans about this new arena are not huge and they appear not to be growing, but they are consistent across many years. Journalists tend to reinforce the focus on sharp group boundaries by featuring African Americans search for bio-geographic or tribal roots,

33

and by showing the test-takers pleasure when they find such roots. Without claiming causation in one direction or the other, we note that the survey results are consistent with the journalists choices; black respondents are most pleased with reifying results, while white respondents, collectively, are relatively indifferent between the two alternative results. Whether these conclusions will persist over the next decade, as Americans develop other means of learning about genetic ancestry testing through school,13 social networks, the media, or direct experience, is completely unclear. It is possible that black exceptionalism will persist, in the sense that African Americans will be especially interested in ancestral DNA testing, and will be especially focused on finding or reinforcing links to particular sub-Saharan communities. It is also possible that DNA ancestry testing will show more and more Americans that their own and others heritage is mixed, and the claim that race is a social construction will come to dominate in the public arena as it does in the academy. In the meantime, we have further analyses to conduct. We plan to add at least one more year to the automated content analysis (partly in order to determine if the downturn in number of articles in 2008 was an anomaly). We plan more sophisticated analyses of the TESS survey data, since we have a variety of demographic and some political information about respondents, and we will examine the other sets of vignettes. We plan more qualitative analysis of the newspaper articles that profile people who have taken ancestry DNA tests in order to identify cognitive or emotional valences beyond our current happy/sad dichotomy.14 We are conducting similar content analyses on newspaper articles focused on the medical uses of genomic science; we cannot yet say whether that project will yield findings that resemble those in this paper.

13

Although controversy has narrowed the program, first year students at the University of California, Berkeley, are being offered the chance to take a genetic test before classes start. The tests will be analyzed for three metabolizing genes, although the students will not receive their individual results (as Berkeley first intended to do). In the fall 2010, the Stanford University School of Medicine will begin offering a course to medical school and graduate students in which they will study their own genotype data. We also have a larger project of which this is a small part; it will involve the full scale national survey referred to earlier, elite interviews, and policy analysis. 34

14

We conclude simply by noting the two core intuitions driving this research agenda -- the perhaps unique importance and complexity of the genomics revolution, and the unusual opportunity for political scientists to study the growth of a political and ideological system around a brand new issue. On the first point: the politics of scientific and technological innovation have been well studied, but we can think of no other arena that combines a requirement for extremely high levels of knowledge and cognitive sophistication to attain a basic understanding, with so many intensely personal implications in areas ranging from medicine through law, social networks, family ties, and personal identity. An understanding of nuclear power requires great knowledge and cognitive sophistication -- but nuclear power does not touch peoples daily lives in intimate ways. Environmental degradation may touch peoples daily lives in intimate ways -- but a basic understanding of pollution or global warming does not require extremely high levels of knowledge and cognitive sophistication. Genomics is both obscure and immediate. Counterexamples are also illuminating on the point about unusual opportunities for political scientists. Consider the innovation of stem cell technology. The moment research became publicly visible, discussion about stem cell research on human embryos became attached to the politics of abortion. Within a week of President George Bushs 2001 speech restricting federal funding for stem cell research, three-quarters of Republicans but only half of Democrats endorsed his decision. In surveys in 2004 and 2005,15 the partisanship of support or opposition remained intact (http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm). In contrast, despite almost two decades of research and increasing public visibility, genomic research and DNA testing have yet to develop a left-wing or right-wing valence. African Americans are split on whether DNA research will offer new hope for previously-ignored diseases to which blacks are especially prone, or whether it will devolve into a new form of racial profiling. Libertarians and civil rights activists are currently united in their concerns about the privacy of individual medical records, but that alliance is likely to dissolve when the

Bush: Ipsos-Reid Poll, Aug. 10-12, 2001. Two surveys: University of Pennsylvania National Annenberg Election Survey. July 30-Aug. 5, 2004; CBS News Poll. July 13-14, 2005. 35

15

topic turns to government regulation of direct-to-consumer genetic medical or ancestry tests. DNA samples can be used forensically to harass family members of people in the FBIs database of arrested individuals, or to free men convicted of rape who are in fact innocent of the crime. Race can be dissolved, reinscribed, or redefined. Investigating ones heritage, identifying murder and massacre victims, finding DNA-compatible marital partners, searching for a cure for diabetes or schizophrenia or breast cancer none of these and the many other uses of genomics has, yet, a partisan caste. But the phenomenon is too important, too multi-faceted, and too tied up with huge financial incentives to remain ideologically and politically innocent for long. Just as real scientists are advancing into the [biological] unknown, so we political scientists have the rare chance to study how a brand new topic gains political and normative valence. Research on public and elite attitudes toward genomics has just begun, largely because attitudes themselves are just beginning to develop. By starting this research now, and despite the frustrations of few theories and inadequate data, we can track Americans developing views on a new medical, racial, partisan, and policy phenomenon. That chance comes seldom.

36

Appendix table A1: Emotional reaction when respondent's race matched the race of the hypothetical individual in the vignette Black Blur Refused Completely pleased Mostly pleased Somewhat pleased Neither pleased nor displeased Somewhat displeased Mostly displeased Completely displeased Gave other response Total 2 25 18 34 92 Reify 4 68 32 23 63 4 18 25 25 125 White Blur Reify 2 24 33 3 125 Hispanic Blur 6 23 19 33 93 Reify 6 47 42 26 66 Asian Am Blur 3 17 19 29 118 Reify 0 53 39 29 96 Mixed Blur 7 44 18 25 95 Reify 5 39 28 26 97

16 5 6 3 201

6 2 2 1

17 14 3 11 242

10 5 4 8

10 8 6 7 205

6 4 4 4

24 9 4 0 233

11 2 1 2

6 6 8 5 214

8 5 6 7

37

Appendix table A2: Analytic Response when respondent's race matched the race of the hypothetical individual in the vignette Black Blur Refused Completely believable Mostly believable Somewhat believable Neither believable nor unbelievable Mostly unbelievable Somewhat unbelievable Completely unbelievable Gave other response Total 5 29 24 46 45 Reify 3 73 41 25 45 1 37 40 53 56 White Blur Reify 1 53 53 50 60 Hispanic Blur 4 30 27 45 51 Reify 6 65 38 41 35 Asian Am Blur 5 34 30 49 56 Reify 0 89 62 28 39 Mixed Blur 5 60 37 31 45 Reify 5 57 47 38 39

24 13 14 1 201

4 5 4 1

29 15 5 6 242

13 3 4 5

21 12 9 6 205

5 7 5 3

36 15 5 3 233

8 1 5 1

14 5 9 8 214

12 3 8 5

38

Appendix table A3: Estimated proportion of U.S. newspaper articles about DNA and race from 1988 to 2008 (n = 5,424) that fall into the four substantive categories Year 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 N 8 16 9 26 41 30 71 54 70 117 145 176 222 342 319 447 331 300 337 791 422 (1) Blend 0.377 0.225 0.324 0.253 0.291 0.243 0.248 0.180 0.191 0.219 0.242 0.193 0.276 0.318 0.239 0.251 0.164 0.242 0.209 0.133 0.199 (2) Reify 0.289 0.387 0.217 0.397 0.298 0.301 0.251 0.394 0.375 0.319 0.341 0.297 0.254 0.178 0.237 0.222 0.269 0.207 0.194 0.369 0.220 (3) Both 0.114 0.174 0.153 0.183 0.153 0.132 0.116 0.100 0.116 0.0979 0.0934 0.297 0.124 0.133 0.115 0.130 0.136 0.135 0.148 0.164 0.135 (4) Neither 0.220 0.214 0.306 0.167 0.259 0.323 0.385 0.325 0.318 0.364 0.323 0.408 0.346 0.371 0.409 0.398 0.431 0.415 0.449 0.334 0.445

Bootstrapped standard errors to come.

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