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Research has shown that different countries/regions at different times have different definitions of race (e.g. Zuckerman, 1990; Fish, 1995). Physical appearance, skin pigment and so on are always the first things coming to people’s mind to

differentiate race. However, according to Roberts (1994), a person might be defined as White in one place but Black at another place. People were defined as Blacks if their skins were dark no matter the degree of darkness in the United Kingdom, however

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people were defined as Black if they had 1/32 Black heritage in South Carolina, United States (Zuckerman, 1990). According to Phoenix and Owen (1996), there were times in both the United Kingdom and the United States that people were defined as Black if they had a black parent even if the other parent was White, which were influenced by the Black-White polarization. However, people were defined as White if they had “Caucasian appearance” to whatever degree in Brazil according to Zuckerman (1990, p. 1298). Race were defined in Latin America and the West Indies according to the social status and physical appearance, so “a wealthy lawyer or doctor with some Negroid features might be classed as white, while an unskilled and unlettered slum-dweller might be classed as black despite the presence of some Caucasoid physical

characteristics” according to Roberts (1994, p. 19). Race could be mainly related to social classes and other non-physical characteristics, such as cultural traits, in some countries; whereas race could be only related to physical characteristics in some other countries, such as Brazil (Roberts, 1994). As a consequence, different children of the same couple in Brazil could be categorised into different races (Fish, 1995). Since the ways to categorise race are different in different cultures (Fish, 1995), different countries/regions could have different numbers of categories of race, for example, it could have 40 divisions of race in certain parts of Brazil but only a few of racial categories in the United States (Roberts, 1994).

There were some definitions of race by biologists and anthropologists, but some definitions were problematic, and biological and phenotype based classification were not sufficient to define race. For example, Zukerman (1990) described the biological aspect of race – a group of people who isolated geographically reproduce offsprings within the group. However, the geographical isolation hardly exists nowadays, whereas according to Zukerman (1990), the isolation due to culture, religion and politics are more likely. It is difficult to categorise people into pure races in biology, as Fish (1995) suggested that races did not have “biological entities” (p. 45). Anthropologists

categorised human beings into three groups – Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid (Montagu, 1972). However a Caucasoid could have a darker skin than a Negroid (Zuckerman, 1990), and the categorisation of human groups will be different in the future just as it was always changing in the past (Montagu, 1972).

Some psychologists pointed out the importance of the social and psychological aspects of race. Lόpez (1994) defined race from a social perspective as “a vast group of people loosely bound together by historically contingent, socially significant elements

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of their morphology and/or ancestry” (p. 7). Helms and Talleyrand (1997) also suggested looking at race from sociological and psychological perspectives. Phinney (1996) emphasised the psychological side of race, which was obtained from others’ response to one’s racial appearance, and this response could shape one’s life and

identity. Betancourt and López (1993) emphasised the importance of social and cultural factors as well as biological factors in understanding different races. However, Yee, Fairchild, Weizmann, and Wyatt (1993) stated that there was no established scientific definition of race in the field of psychology.

There were some negative opinions on the definition of race. Zuckerman (1990) highlighted the much more differences inside racial groups rather than between racial groups, according to the studies on temperament, personality traits, genetics and crime, and antisocial personality. According to Smedley (2007) racial difference was not a prominent problem before the decision of choosing Africans as slaves around 18th century in North America. According to Smedley (1999, p. 694) race was classified based on people’s subjective opinions according to the obvious physical differences (e.g, skin colour, hair texture), and Africans were treated as “lesser forms of human beings” in order for the slave owners to justify their using of Africans as slaves. Treating

Africans as less than humans is not sound at all – the obvious physical difference is only a small and superficial part of differences between humans (e.g. Bonham, Warshauer- Baker & Collins, 2005), and since Africans are humans, how can they be less than humans? According to Smedley and Smedley (2005), race was invented to describe the differences between people by our cultures (in other words, physical characteristic itself could not cause prejudice but what we believed invented by our culture caused racial prejudice) and “The idea of race distorts, exaggerates, and maximizes human

differences” (p. 22). They treated race as “the most extreme form of difference that humans can assert about another human being or group” when people believe that racial difference was fixed that cannot be changed (p. 22). Thus, it seems race was defined by the society with limited knowledge and subjective thinking. Based on this biased thinking of race, no wonder race was treated in historical and sociological research as: human could be divided into clear-cut groups and physical appearances were “markers of race status”; inequality existed between races; biological characteristics associated with behaviours, and they were both “innate and inherited”; “profound and unalterable” differences existed between races; and racial categories were included in the law (ibid. p. 20).

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There was a heated debate on race in the 1990s by some psychologists. Some supported using the term race, some did not. For example, Rushton (1995a; 1995b) and Eisenman (1995) supported the idea of using race, but Yee et al. (1993), Fairchild, Yee, Wyatt and Weizmann (1995), and Dole (1995) objected to it.

Eisenman (1995) argued that the knowledge of the important racial differences could help design special ways to help disadvantaged racial groups, so he thought it was very necessary to study race. However it was the result of research on racial difference made certain racial groups being oppressed by so called “superior groups”, but the so called “superior groups” have disadvantage characteristics as well.

Rushton (1995a) advocated the idea of race, and described race from a zoological aspect, in which species were divided by apparent different combinations of

morphological, behavioural and physiological characteristics that were passed from previous generations and would be passed on to following generations. He stated that the three divisions (Mongoloid, Caucasoid and Negroid) were very obvious according to the morphology of skeleton, appearance, and genes based on the evolutionary history.

Rushton (1995b) supported the idea that traits and behaviour were inheritable through reviewing the studies of twins, and he acknowledged the equal importance of genetic and environmental factors in contribution to the race differences; he then looked at the differences between the three racial divisions on brain size, maturation speed, personality, reproductive behaviour, intelligence, marital stability, crime and so on, and concluded the trend that Negroids were most different from Mongoloids with

Caucasoids in the middle. For instance, Mongoloids’ brain sizes are larger than

Caucasoids’ and in turn larger than Negroids’; Mongoloids’ intelligence is higher than Caucasoids’ and in turn higher than Negroids’; Mongoloids’ speed of maturity is lower than Caucasoids’ and in turn lower than Negroids’; Mongoloids’ marital stability is higher than Caucasoids’ and in turn higher than Negroids’; Mongoloids’ secondary sexual characteristics are less obvious than Caucasoids’ and in turn less obvious than Negroids’ (Rushton, 1995b). Rushton (1995b) then used “r-K” scale based on life- history theory to explain racial differences, and the linear “r-K” scale was presented with “r” at one end representing “high reproductive rates” and “K” at the other end representing “high levels of parental investment” (p. xiii). Although all the human beings are located towards the end of “K” (p. 6), Rushton hypothesised that Mongoloids had the most “K” characteristics, Caucasoids in the middle, and Negroids had the least “K” characteristics (ibid).

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Although Rushton’s research can help us to understand some of the trends of the differences between people from different parts of the world, it may be flawed. Firstly, Rushton’s theory based on gene evolution, but according to Bonham et al. (2005), the gene differences between any two human beings are only 0.1%. So Rushton was comparing the little difference but ignoring the massive gene similarities between people. For the same reason, different from Rushton’s (1995b) opinion that

environmental and genetic factors were equally contributed to the difference between people, environmental factors may contribute much greater to the difference between people than genetic factors. The differences on brain size, intelligence, speed of maturity, marital stability, physical appearance, and so on may be mainly caused by environmental and cultural factors rather than genetic factors (e.g. these characteristics, such as speed of maturity, may be the best ways to adapt to the environment and in turn environment and culture shape these characteristics). Yee et al. (1993) also argued that Rushton failed to prove that gene differences affected intelligence and other trait differences. Unlike Rushton ascribed marital stability differences to biological

differences, Smedley and Smedley (2005) noted that anthropologists did not ascribe the social behavioural differences to biological differences but to cultural differences.

Secondly, the r-K scale is not necessary to be linear, because people who have “K” characteristics may also have “r” characteristics. Thirdly, Plomin and Daniels’ (1987) research found that within the same racial group, even siblings, had great differences in gene and behaviour. So it is possible that two people from different racial groups may not necessarily have more gene differences than two people from the same racial group. People who married across racial groups could have more similarities, including

appearance, smell, behaviours and so on, which were described by Rushton (1995b) as the cues of selecting similar genes to maximise the survival of one’s own genes.

Fourthly, Rushton (1995b, p. 2) talked about that even the children in the same family could be different greatly from each other although they shared the same parents and upbringing according to Plomin and Daniels (1987), then he extended this to the idea that there would be greater difference between people who lived far away from each other. However, how could he be so positive that differences between races were more than the differences between siblings? Why did he call it racial differences between people far away from each other but did not call it racial differences between siblings? Did he use race to solve the problem of describing people who were different from each other, and use race as the excuse of not wanting to know or to love those

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people who were very different from him? This may reflect what Allport (1954) noted, human beings were lacking the skills of dealing with relationships and had hatred towards people from other groups.

Fifthly, the comparison of intelligence, crime tendencies, and other

characteristics on different races would enlarge the difference between people and make certain group superior humans and others inferior humans. Sixthly, if racial difference is based on gene evolution, does it mean certain races more evolved than others? Certainly not! An example by Allport (1954), the facial characteristics of Negoids might seem like apes, but Caucasoids’ thin lips, massive body hair and skin colour were much more like apes.

Finally, Rushton (1995b) mentioned that it was unsolved how the modern human originated but the racial differences could help to know more about the origin of human. However, if how the modern human originated was not clear, it is pointless to use the hypothesised racial difference to understand how human originated. Given the 99.9% shared gene among human beings (Bonham et al., 2005), modern humans seem to be the same when they were originated.

Besides, Yee et al. (1993) also rejected Rushton et al.’s opinion on race. Fairchild et al. (1995) commented the way Rushton categorised races were “superficial and simplistic examination of phenotypic characteristics” and there were much variations within each racial category (p. 46). Dole (1995) pointed out the disagreement of race among psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists and biologists, and the possibility that group differences would produce racism, so he suggested to stop using race but to start using a group of variables such as gender, generation of immigration and country of origin instead.

The UNESCO’s (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization) statements on race seem to have dealt with the term race in a better way. The 1950 UNESCO statement on race supported that mankind was one species – “Homo sapiens”, which was agreed by most scientists (UNESCO, 1950, p. 7). It was also agreed in this 1950 UNESCO statement that there were great more similarities than differences among human beings from the biological point of view; people cannot be classified to races by the differences in nationality, religion, geography, language and culture (e.g. British people, Protestants, people who speak English or belong to a certain culture were not a race); race was rather a “social myth” than a “biological phenomenon” (p. 10); and that the suggestion of using “ethnic groups” instead of race (p. 9). In the

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1951 UNESCO statement on race, it was agreed on using race for “anthropological classification” and classifying people by “definite combinations of physical (including physiological) traits in characteristic proportions” (p. 141); and that “’pure’ races” did not exist (p. 145) (UNESCO, 1951). The 1964 UNESCO statement on race stated that there were no clear classifications of human beings even in biology (UNESCO, 1964).

In summary, race, a complicated construct, has been the most controversial construct, and is difficult to be classified into clear groups. Race is a very sensitive term in the United States, and research on racial differences was always the targets of attacks when race associated with advantage/disadvantage characteristics (Scarr, 1988; Rushton, 1995b). Human genes are very similar and the differences were mainly caused by the long history of environmental changes and the cultural factors. The presumed gene differences would stir up hatred between people, for example the racial genocide led by Nazi Germany in the 1940s. Since UNESCO statements suggested that all human beings are the same race biologically, the term “interracial relationship” seems not sufficient and appropriate to describe the relationship consisted of two people from different cultures.