Project Descriptions

Wearing Blue: On Navigating a Stigmatized Professional Identity
Given the national discourse on policing, a five study, multi-method agenda was crafted to explore how policing is viewed as a profession, and how police officers navigate their professional identity. We ground our paper in the dirty works literature and stigma communication theory. Our findings show that members of the public view policing as a stigmatized profession, and that policing is presented in media as a tainted profession where moral taints are now more prominent that in the years past. Preliminary data from our interviews with police officers across the country show that police officers are aware of this stigmatization, perceive it as a key stressor, and report being negatively impacted by it both psychologically and physically. We also investigate the identity management strategies most commonly used by police officers, and the impact of those strategies on their job attitudes and psychosomatic health. The final study investigates the efficacy of the identity management strategies used by police officers.
Lead: Dia Chatterjee

Organizational Identity Safety Cues
This project takes a positive scholarship approach to combining stereotype threat and identity work by focusing on uncovering cues in the recruitment and selection contexts that may foster identity safety for individuals of minority ethnic status. Specifically, we examine the role of diversity resources and organizational implicit mindset as potential predictors of identity safety and choice to apply and/or accept a job offer at an organization. Findings may have important implications for diversity-related recruitment and retention decisions.
Lead: Danielle D. King

Conceptualizing Safe Spaces: The Role of Safe Spaces in Identity Safety
Safe spaces have been defined in a variety of ways and are perceived both positively and negatively by laypeople. Researchers consider safe spaces to be a means of reducing identity threat for individuals from marginalized groups. Because identity threat decreases one’s sense of belonging and fit, heightened threat is in direct conflict with diversity and inclusion initiatives set forth by organizations. While some lay conceptualizations of safe spaces align with the view taken by researchers, others assert that safe spaces are places in which all members share the same viewpoint or places where people gather to discuss differing viewpoints without judgment. The purpose of this research is to discover the individual differences that are related to endorsing one conceptualization of safe spaces over others and to determine which elements contribute to an effective safe space more broadly.
Lead Contact: Lauren Collier

Gender Bias in Communication
We are exploring what gender bias in communication at work looks like by gathering data on critical incidents from female workers’ lives, including instances of mansplaining, interruption, and voice non-recognition (being ignored).  After an exploratory survey study, we hope to use the information we have learned to design an experimental study looking at how gender and other relevant variables affect these instances of communication.
Lead Contact: Caitlin Briggs

Intersectionality Project
Research on intersectionality and identity suggests that individuals may be viewed through their membership in an intersected group (e.g., African American women) rather than with regard to stereotypes specific to one group or another (e.g., women or African Americans). Our studies in the past have suggested that when women manage their identity by displaying counter-stereotypic traits when being evaluated for a leadership position (i.e., agentic), they are rated more positively. Some research suggests that agentic traits are more often ascribed to African American women. This study extends preexisting paradigms by also assessing evaluative outcomes for ethnic minorities within each gender category.
Lead: Danielle D. King

Gender and Feedback Styles
Over a series of studies, we examine whether or not differences exist (1) in the way in which men and women provide feedback and (2) in the way in which feedback is interpreted based on provider gender. A third study is planned in an attempt to extend these gendered feedback patterns from a student sample to a working sample.
Lead Contact: Danni Gardner