Speaker: Wendy Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Title: “Genetic Options and Constraints: How Genetic Ancestry Tests Change Ethnic Identities”

An estimated 15% of all U.S. adults have taken genetic ancestry tests (GATs). Recent studies have found that many test-takers change their ethnic and racial identities based on the test results, viewing them through social lenses rather than always deferring to genetic information. Yet these studies have several limitations; most fail to consider the counterfactual or account for the ancestry percentages reported in admixture tests. They also focus on early test consumers, whose high motivations for testing may distinguish them from the broader population of test-takers in ways related to identity change. Using the first randomized controlled trial of GATs, we analyze their causal impact on identity change. Analyzing 802 native-born White Americans, we address how much identity change can be attributed to GATs and evaluate the independent and interactional effects of people’s identity aspirations and their reported ancestry percentages. We find very low rates of racial identity change, and significant but relatively small amounts of ethnic identity change beyond that experienced by non-test-takers. We find support for identity aspirations as a change mechanism but its impact is bounded to lower or moderate ranges of reported ancestry percentages. We also find that test-takers are significantly more likely to drop a previously-claimed Native American identity when their GATs do not support those claims.

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