Healthcare

Rationing of healthcare resources is a challenging decision that policy makers and providers may be forced to make during a pandemic, natural disaster, or mass casualty event. Well-defined guidelines to triage scarce life-saving resources must be designed to promote transparency, trust and consistency. To facilitate buy-in and use during high stress situations, these guidelines need to be interpretable and operational.

Identity threats occur across diverse identities and situations, yet little is known about how responses to these threats relate to subsequent psychological costs across diverse identities, people, and situations. Across six studies capturing 22,000+ instances of identity threat experienced by 1,648 participants, we identify two prevalent identity distancing strategies: downplaying a threatened identity and emphasizing similarity to others.