A contextual theory of social identity threat: Cues, contingencies, and belonging in academic settings

Five studies examined the hypothesis that when the potential for identity threat exists, people become vigilant to situational cues in order to assess the meaning and value of their social identity. It was hypothesized that people use situational cues to anticipate the possible contingencies associated with their social identity in settings. It was further hypothesized that perceiving threatening identity contingencies from situational cues would cause a decreased sense of belonging in a setting resulting in a type of social identity threat termed belongingness threat. Study 1 tested the cues hypothesis and measured whether people were affected by cues in their social environment when the possibility of identity threat was present. It was found that a manipulation of numerical representation affected women's level of vigilance, physiology, and sense of belonging in a Math, Science, and Engineering domain. Studies 2--5 tested the links between situational cues, perceptions of threatening identity contingencies, and sense of belonging. Study 2 demonstrated that different contexts alone served as situational cues that prompted perceptions of threatening identity contingencies. Study 3 manipulated another situational cue---a Math tutor's gender---and found that the cue affected perceptions of threatening identity contingencies and sense of belonging among men and women. Mediational analysis showed that perceiving threatening identity contingencies was the mechanism by which the situational cue affected people's sense of belonging. Study 4 examined whether the contingency and belongingness effects would hold among men and women who were not highly-identified with the Math domain. Results show that domain identification seems to be crucial for people's perceptions of identity contingencies and sense of belonging. In the final study, we reduced perceptions of threatening identity contingencies and increased belonging among women by adding an additional cue---"good word of mouth"---to the Math tutorial setting. Taken together, these studies emphasize the importance of situational cues for people's perceptions of threatening identity contingencies and sense of belonging. Implications for identity threat theory, for structuring settings to make them more identity-safe, and for improving inter-group relations are discussed.