Identity safety cues are aspects of an environment or setting that signal to members of stigmatized groups that the threat of discrimination is limited within that environment and / or that their social identities are welcomed and valued.Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie; Steele, Claude M.; Davies, Paul G.; Ditlmann, Ruth; Crosby, Jennifer Randall (2008). "Social identity contingencies: How diversity cues signal threat or safety for African Americans in mainstream institutions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 94 (4): 615–630. . . Identity safety cues have been shown to reduce the negative impacts of social identity threats, which are when people experience situations where they feel devalued on the basis of a social identity (see stereotype threat).Steele, C. M., Spencer, S. J., & Aronson, J. (2002). "Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat". In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 379-440). Academic Press. Such threats have been shown to undermine performance in academic and work-related contexts and make members of stigmatized groups feel as though they do not belong.Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). "Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797. Identity safety cues have been proposed as a way of alleviating the negative impact of stereotype threat or other social identity threats, reducing disparities in academic performance for members of stigmatized groups (see achievement gaps in the United States), and reducing health disparities caused by identity related stressors.
Research has shown that identity safety cues targeted towards one specific group can lead individuals with other stigmatized identities to believe their identities will be respected and valued in that environment.Chaney, K. E., & Sanchez, D. T. (2018). "Gender-inclusive bathrooms signal fairness across identity dimensions". Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(2), 245-253. Further, the implementation of identity safety cues in existing research did not cause members of non-stigmatized groups feeling threatened or uncomfortable. In fact, some work has suggested that the benefits of identity safety cues extend to members of non-stigmatized groups.Gurin, P., Dey, E., Hurtado, S., & Gurin, G. (2002). "Diversity and higher education: Theory and impact on educational outcomes". Harvard Educational Review, 72(3), 330-367. For example, implementation of identity safety cues within a university context has been shown to increase student engagement, efficacy, and reduce the average number of student absences for all students, but especially those from stigmatized groups.Van Laar, C., Derks, B., & Ellemers, N. (2013). Motivation for education and work in young Muslim women: The importance of value for ingroup domains. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 35(1), 64-74.Woodford, M. R., & Kulick, A. (2015). "Academic and social integration on campus among sexual minority students: The impacts of psychological and experiential campus climate". American Journal of Community Psychology, 55(1-2), 13-24.Maimon, M. R., Howansky, K., & Sanchez, D. T. (2021). "Fostering Inclusivity: Exploring the Impact of Identity Safety Cues and Instructor Gender on Students' Impressions and Belonging". Teaching of Psychology, 00986283211043779. Several types of identity safety cues have been identified.Matsick, J. L., & Kruk, M. (2021). A Taxonomy of Identity Safety Cues Based on Gender and Race: From a Promising Past to an Intersectional and Translational Future.
Types of cues
Diversity philosophies and programing There is evidence suggesting that when individuals or organizations communicate that they value diversity highly, concerns about identity threats are reduced.Hall, W., Schmader, T., Aday, A., Inness, M., & Croft, E. (2018). Climate control: The relationship between social identity threat and cues to an identity-safe culture. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(3), 446. For example, Hall and colleagues tested the impact of communicating gender inclusive policies on self-reported belonging of women working at engineering firms. Across two studies, Hall and colleagues found that when women working at engineering firms were presented with information communicating gender inclusive policies, they reported increased belonging, fewer concerns about experiencing gender stereotyping in the workplace, and expected to have more pleasant conversations with male coworkers.
Within a classroom context, exposure to information stating that instructors or schools hold multicultural philosophies has been shown to increase student agency, self-confidence, and classroom engagement for students from stigmatized groups.Gurin, P., Nagda, B. R. A., & Zúñiga, X. (2013). Dialogue across difference: Practice, theory, and research on intergroup dialogue. Russell Sage Foundation.Laird, T. F. N., Engberg, M. E., & Hurtado, S. (2005). Modeling accentuation effects: Enrolling in a diversity course and the importance of social action engagement. The Journal of Higher Education, 76(4), 448-476.Grant, C. A., & Sleeter, C. E. (2012). Doing multicultural education for achievement and equity. Routledge. Exposure to diversity philosophies and programming can have a lasting effect. In a recent study, Birnbaum and colleagues had first-year college students read a diversity statement that represented the schools’ diversity philosophy as either being in favor of multiculturalism or colorblindness.Birnbaum, H. J., Stephens, N. M., Townsend, S. S., & Hamedani, M. G. (2021). A diversity ideology intervention: Multiculturalism reduces the racial achievement gap. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(5), 751-759. The students’ academic progress was tracked over the course of the next two years. Students from stigmatized groups who read the multicultural diversity statement had increased academic performance over the course of the two years compared to students who read the colorblind diversity statement. Similarly, a 2021 study found that when university students were presented with information about equity and non-discrimination policies in the classroom, students from stigmatized groups reported greater belonging within the classroom and reported fewer absences than students who were not presented with the same equity and non-discrimination policies. Further, students in this study also reported perceiving the instructor as behaving in a more inclusive manner and reported greater concerns about addressing social inequities when they were presented with information about equity and non-discrimination policies.
However, the evidence for the effectiveness of diversity philosophies and programming alone is mixed. For example, Valarie Purdie-Jones and colleagues ran a study comparing the effects of Black representation within the workplace and organizational claims of valuing diversity on Black professionals’ sense of organizational trust and belonging. Black professionals who were presented with information showing that an organization a higher number of Black employees reported feeling greater organizational trust and belonging. Similarly, organizational claims of valuing diversity led to an increased sense of organizational trust and belonging. However, the type of diversity philosophy communicated influenced how effective the philosophy was at increasing organizational trust and belong. Black professionals who received information stating that the organization held a color-blind philosophy of diversity (i.e., the idea that differences are insignificant and should not be attended to; See Color Blindness) felt lower organizational trust and belonging than Black professionals who received information stating that the organization held a multicultural perspective (i.e., the idea that differences between social groups are meaningful as diverse perspectives offer unique insight and strengths; See Multiculturalism). Similarly, a 2015 study from Wilton and colleagues exposed participants to either a colorblind or multicultural diversity statement and then measured their expectations about anticipated bias and racial and gender diversity. Participants who were exposed to a colorblind diversity statement expected to experience increased levels of bias and expected less racial and gender diversity than participants who were exposed to a multicultural diversity statement.Wilton, L. S., Good, J. J., Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Sanchez, D. T. (2015). Communicating more than diversity: The effect of institutional diversity statements on expectations and performance as a function of race and gender. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 21(3), 315.
Minority representation cues One form of identity safety cues that has shown promise is invoking the real or imagined presence of other members of stigmatized groups as a way of suggesting that ones’ social identity will not be devalued and are safe. The majority of this work has been done amongst racial minorities and women in contexts where they represent a numerical minority (e.g., STEM contexts, in male dominated workplaces). For example, a 2007 study explored the impacts of signaling balanced versus unbalanced gender ratios in STEM on belonging for female and male STEM majors.Murphy, M. C., Steele, C. M., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Signaling threat: How situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings. Psychological science, 18(10), 879-885. In this study, women who watch a video that showed a much larger number of men at a STEM conference exhibited greater levels of cognitive and physiological vigilance, reported a lower sense of belonging, and less desire to participate in the conference. However, women who watched a video showing a roughly equal number of men and women at the same STEM conference exhibited less vigilance, reported a heightened sense of belonging, and a greater desire to participate in the conference. Men's vigilance, sense of belonging, and desire to participate in the conference were unaffected by watching either video.
Having a role model with a shared stigmatized identity (e.g., female students having a female professor role model) has also been shown to have similar positive effects.Vecci, J., & Želinský, T. (2019). Behavioural challenges of minorities: Social identity and role models. PLOS ONE, 14(7), e0220010.Pietri, E. S., Hennes, E. P., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Bailey, A. H., Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Handelsman, J. (2019). Addressing unintended consequences of gender diversity interventions on women's sense of belonging in STEM. Sex Roles, 80(9), 527-547. For example, a 2019 study explored the effects of having a Roma or non-Roma role model on Roma children in Slovakia. Presenting Roma children with a known role model from their ethnic group was shown to increase academic achievement and reduce stereotype threat, as opposed to presenting children of role models from different ethnic groups. Similarly, research has found that being exposed to a female role model can help to reduce the identity threat women experience after being exposed to information about the biases women face in STEM.