The article describes three periods of the Brazilian psychological thinking about ethnic/racial relationships: the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, characterized by the consolidation of the Escola Nina Rodrigues, which investigated the psychological characteristics of slaves and former slaves, providing elements for setting the black as psychological subjects; from 1930 to 1950 the studies are characterized by the debate on the differences of social and cultural construction and deconstruction of biological determinism of race, and from 1990 onwards, characterized by the studies on “whitening” and “whiteness”. Using the historical approach, it was possible to draw a timeline identifying these moments of rupture and configuration of new knowledge in psychology: biological-causal, cultural and relational. The construction of this timeline sets an attempt to bring to the field of psychology a different perspective of discussion about the ethnic/racial thematic, thinking over the role of psychological theories and models.
History of psychology-Brazil; Ethnic-racial relations; Social psychology; Racial ethinic attitudes