Yuichi Shoda

Research

[To prospective Students (2026–2027): I expect that by the end of November 2025 I can be more certain about whether or not I will be able to serve as the primary advisor for a new Ph.D. student.]

Understanding each person as an individual, rather than focusing on a hypothetical “average person”, has long been a core aim of the idiographic approach to psychology (e.g., Allport, 1937). We pursue this aim using quantitative methods, by collecting many data points from the same individual. We call this the Highly Repeated Within-Person (HRWP) design (e.g., Whitsett & Shoda, 2014; Zayas et al., 2019). Using this approach, we aim to identify the features of situations that are most psychologically active for a given person -- those that reliably trigger specific thoughts, feelings, or behaviors -- as well as the features they may be relatively insensitive to. This allows us to better understand what makes a situation stressful for a particular person (Shoda et al., 2013), and has also been used to study how individuals experience racial microaggressions (Wang, Leu, & Shoda, 2011). The broader goal of this quantitative idiographic approach is to develop an evidence-based "user's manual" for each individual’s mind.

More recently, we’ve applied the HRWP approach to examine how people respond to statements reflecting colorblind ideology, such as “I don’t see people’s race; race does not matter.” Many people of color experience such statements as indicative that the speaker ignores the lived experiences of racial minorities and may implicitly condone racial injustice. At the same time, others interpret these statements as expressions of the idea that people of different races are not fundamentally different, and as calls to recognize our shared humanity and work toward eradicating racial discrimination.

Our studies (Chang & Shoda, in preparation) suggest that one key reason for these differing interpretations lies in how people understand the concept of race. If race is understood as a social construct, i.e., categories created by those in power to justify unequal treatment and opportunity, then saying “race does not matter” amounts to denying the social reality of race and the persistence of racial discrimination. If, on the other hand, race is understood as a natural kind, reflecting inherent, non-arbitrary differences between people, then rejecting such an essentialized view amounts to affirming the fundamental equality of all human beings.