Identity-threatening and identity-safe environments: Causes, mechanisms, consequences

Some of our earliest research explored diversity policies and underrepresentation of one’s ethnic group as cues that convey outsiderness for Black professionals. In a recent study published in 2022, we show that in traditional business school negotiation courses, gendered social network patterns are cues that convey outsider information for female but not male MBA students. These cues can cause members of social groups to worry about whether their opportunities will be constrained because of how they are perceived by others (i.e., social identity threat).

What leads to perceptions of identity-threatening or identity-safe environments?

When people become concerned about the value of one or more of their social identities, the setting becomes appraised as threatening. Another goal of our research is to investigate how people’s appraisals of cues cause them to determine that a setting is threatening or safe.

What are the consequences of identity-threat?

The appraisal of cues as threatening creates an aversive psychological state and activates acute physiological stress responses. These stress responses can disrupt memory and cognitive processes, contributing to underperformance. Ongoing experiences of threat can cascade into counterproductive coping strategies that affect one’s sense of belonging, level of engagement, trust, motivation, and persistence. A final goal of this research is to investigate these short and long-term indicators of identity-threat.

Collaborators

Geoffrey L. Cohen, David Yeager, Julio Garcia (posthumous), David Sherman, Jonathan E. Cook, Kevin Binning