On the occasion of its 130th Annual Meeting, the American Psychological Association recognizes William E. Cross, Jr., PhD, for his outstanding lifetime contributions to psychology based on his ongoing commitment to theorizing about and measuring identity constructs in Black Americans and other cultural groups.
For the last five decades, Cross has been a leading scholar in the study of Black identity. His original nigrescence model, published in 1971, was a transformative event, not only in the fields of Black identity and African American psychology, but also in the fields of cultural identity and cultural psychology.
The initial nigrescence model had a major impact on psychology in several ways. First, Cross’ (1971) articulation of nigrescence—the process of becoming Black—captured in a developmental psychological formulation the social and political attitudes of African Americans in the Civil Rights era. Second, the model allowed for testable hypotheses about the role of Black racial identity and set the stage for much of the scientific scrutiny of racial identity that has taken place since its publication. Third, Cross’ Q-sort measurement of his proposed racial identity stages provided the foundation for the development of the Racial Identity Attitude Scale (RIAS; Parham & Helms, 1981), which upon its publication in 1981, became the preeminent instrument for assessing Black racial identity attitudes in the last two decades of the 20th century.
Cross’ seminal text, Shades of Black: Diversity in African American Identity, published in 1991, introduced his revised nigrescence model, and this book is foundational reading for anyone studying African American identity and cultural identities, generally. In this book, Dr. Cross incorporated concepts from social identity theory and articulated the distinction between personal identity and group identity (or reference group orientation) in the dynamics of African American identity. This delineation galvanized scholarly work in psychology, education, political science, social work, and African American Studies. Based on an exhaustive analysis of the empirical literature, Cross began to move from a developmental conceptualization of racial identity to a multidimensional framework, and he decoupled Black identity and mental health. Every major formulation of racial identity since the publication of Shades of Black conceptualizes Black racial identity as multidimensional.
In 2001, Cross introduced the expanded nigrescence model (Cross & Vandiver, 2001)—the third iteration of his model—as well as the Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS; Vandiver et al., 2000) to measure the model. The CRIS has been heralded as an exemplar instrument by several scholars in the field, including in a special issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology (2007, Vol. 54 [3]). Moreover, the CRIS was the first multidimensional Black racial identity scale that was shown to have robust scores in adolescent populations. The CRIS has also been adapted for use with adolescents and adults from all ethnic-racial groups in the United States and with individuals in Jamaica and New Zealand, expanding the reach of his model.
That same year, Cross also co-authored work (with Dr. Peony Fhagen) that traces the emergence of Black identity from infancy across the life span, and empirical work provides support for his contention that Black racial identity attitudes are present from adolescence through adulthood. In 2006, Dr. Cross and his colleagues showed that there are profiles of racial identity attitudes that are generalizable across African American samples; these profiles predict attitudes and behavior and contribute to how Blacks interpret the world, findings that have been replicated in several studies. Recent work with the CRIS has also indicated that (a) Black racial identity attitudes are distinct from the Big Five personality traits and (b) self-hatred attitudes exist and have a negative relationship with self-esteem and a positive relationship with psychopathology.
In 2021, Cross published another seminal text titled, Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair: Nigrescence and Eudaimonia. In this text, he reiterates his foundational view that Black identity in America exemplifies eudaimonia or human flourishing, even in the context of the profound maltreatment, a view that continues to revolutionize the study of identity in Black and other minoritized populations in the United States. As he states,
“Discovering the humanity of the enslaved is not romanticism, it is the comprehension of how humanity expresses itself, even under the most restrictive, punishing, and heinous conditions. . . . It is to comprehend the origins of Martin Luther King Jr.’s words form the Birmingham Jail; it is how Nelson Mandela walked out of prison with his humanity intact. We are the birds that sing while caged.” (Cross, 2021, p. 156)
Cross’ contributions to this area have been recognized in several ways, including the 2001 Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Association of Black Psychologists; a 2003 Master Lecture at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention for the Board of Scientific Affairs, co-sponsored by Division 3 (Experimental Psychology) and Division 45 (the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race); a 2009 Social Justice Education Award by the Teachers College Winter Roundtable on Psychology and Education, and a lecture series in his name starting in 2009 at Georgia Southern University. He was named an Elder at the 2013 National Multicultural Convention and Summit and received the American Psychological Foundation’s Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Application of Psychology in 2020. He is a past president of Division 45, and William E. Cross, Jr. is an entry in Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Counseling. Volume 3: Cross-cultural Counseling, published in 2003.
Cross is a consummate scholar. Despite the acclaim of the original nigrescence model and measure, he has continued to study Black identity for five decades and has demonstrated that theories are dynamic and contextual, evolving with time. His nigrescence model has influenced scholarship on numerous other cultural identity models, including ones on Asian American identity, ethnic identity, feminist identity, Jewish Identity, Latina/o identity, gay and lesbian identity, White identity, and deaf identity. His voice is a singular one in cultural psychology.
For his exceptional career as a scientist, scholar, advocate, teacher and leader, it is my honor and pleasure to present Cross with the 2022 APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology and to thank him for his service to APA, psychology, and the world.