The Popularity of Acting White

Via Marginal Revolution:

Among whites, higher grades yield higher popularity. For Blacks, higher achievement is associated with modestly higher popularity until a grade point average of 3.5, when the slope turns negative. A black student with a 4.0 has, on average, 1.5 fewer same-race friends than a white student with a 4.0. Among Hispanics, there is little change in popularity from a grade point average of 1 through 2.5. After 2.5, the gradient turns sharply negative. A Hispanic student with a 4.0 grade point average is the least popular of all Hispanic students, and has 3 fewer friends than a typical white student with a 4.0 grade point average. Put differently, evaluated at the sample mean, a one standard deviation increase in grades is associated with roughly a .103 standard deviation decrease in social status for Blacks and a .171 standard deviation decrease for Hispanics. For students with a 3.5 grade point average or better, the effect triples.


...signals that beget labor market success are signals that induce peer rejection...these differences will be exacerbated in arenas that foster more interracial contact or increased mobility... ‘Acting white’ is more salient in public schools and schools in which the percentage of black students is less than twenty, but non-existent among blacks in predominantly black schools or those who attend private schools. Schools with more interracial contact have an ‘acting white’ coefficient twice as large as more segregated schools (seven times as large for Black males). Other models we consider, such as self-sabotage among black youth or the presence of an oppositional culture identity, all contradict the data in important ways.

The complete paper from whence these findings came.