Social identity contingencies: How diversity cues signal threat or safety for African Americans in mainstream institutions.

Abstract

This research demonstrates that people at risk of devaluation based on group membership are attuned to cues that signal social identity contingencies--judgments, stereotypes, opportunities, restrictions, and treatments that are tied to one's social identity in a given setting. In 3 experiments, African American professionals were attuned to minority representation and diversity philosophy cues when they were presented as a part of workplace settings. Low minority representation cues coupled with colorblindness (as opposed to valuing diversity) led African American professionals to perceive threatening identity contingencies and to distrust the setting (Experiment 1). The authors then verified that the mechanism mediating the effect of setting cues on trust was identity contingent evaluations (Experiments 2 & 3). The power of social identity contingencies as they relate to underrepresented groups in mainstream institutions is discussed.

Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science.

“…First, these previous studies portrayed targets (e.g., women) as either underrepresented in that domain (Murphy et al, 2007;Purdie-Vaughns et al, 2008) or in a stereotypical manner (Davies et al, 2002). In contrast, our studies manipulate stereotypes of the domain (i.e., computer science) while controlling for target group representation (i.e., proportion of women) in that domain.…”

“…Third, we examined in our study the role of the material objects in environments in communicating characteristics of the group and precluding interest. Thus, we suggest there is another type of identity threat to consider besides the fear of being negatively stereotyped (Davies et al, 2002;Schmader et al, 2008;Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007;Steele & Aronson, 1995) or of being devalued in a domain because of one's identity (Davies, Spencer, & Steele, 2005;Murphy et al, 2007;Purdie-Vaughns et al, 2008), and that is the threat resulting from entering an environment and feeling like one simply does not and would not belong there. Ambient identity cues alone may communicate such messages, and feeling a lack of ambient belonging may preclude women from ever developing an interest in domains associated with those environments.…”

“…A final explanation we controlled for was that women may find the stereotypical objects to be more negative than men find them and, as a result, become less interested in joining that group (Blanton et al, 2001) (see Table 1 for means and correlations between these potential mediators and ambient belonging). Our article is therefore the first, to our knowledge, to examine the relative contributions of belonging (Hannover & Kessels, 2004;Walton & Cohen, 2007), stereotype threat (Davies et al, 2002(Davies et al, , 2005, perceived identity devaluation (Purdie-Vaughns et al, 2008), and perceived negativity in the context of the others.…”

Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university.

“…In their conceptualization of social identity threat, Steele and colleagues posit that cues from the environment, such as numerical underrepresentation, can signal to an individual that one of his or her social identities may be devalued in that environment (Murphy, Steele, & Gross, 2007;Purdie-Vaughns, Steele, Davies, Ditlmann, & Crosby, 2008;Steele & Aronson, 1995;Steele et al, 2002). Perceiving such a cue, Steele and colleagues argue, forms a working hypothesis in the individual's mind-a theory of context-that triggers a search for additional information to confirm or disconfirm the suspected potential for social identity-based devaluation.…”

Power, Safety, and Learning in Racially Diverse Groups

“…If the very act of paying attention to race is risky, then members of racial minorities-who trigger that attentionare tainted by the association. Therefore, colorblind approaches do not ease identity threat, while "value-in-diversity" approaches do (Plaut, 2002;Purdie-Vaughns et al, 2008;Steele et al, 2002). Safety is enhanced by an approach, such as the ILP, that acknowledges differences.…”