In workplaces, classrooms, and social settings, people from historically marginalized groups have long had to navigate everyday threats to their identity. That could mean downplaying an accent, sidestepping a cultural reference, or avoiding common signifiers. To take just one present-day example, 42 percent of U.S. Jews say they’ve avoided publicly wearing, carrying or displaying anything that might help people identify them as Jewish in the past year, according to a recent Washington Post poll.
New research from Columbia Business School Assistant Professor Derek Brown and Michael Slepian, the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics, along with Drew S. Jacoby-Senghor of the University of California, Berkeley and Allyson P. Mackey of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests this kind of identity maneuvering is far more widespread than we tend to think. Drawing on tens of thousands of real-world experiences, their work shows that people across a wide range of identities—whether defined by race, class, religion, politics, or even hobbies and background—regularly encounter moments that make them feel out of place, and respond in strikingly similar ways.
“Broadly speaking, there weren’t consistent differences in the way people across all sorts of groups experienced identity threats,” Brown says. “It really speaks to the commonality of this particular psychological experience.”
That’s not to say that the systemic discrimination faced by historically marginalized groups isn’t uniquely pervasive and harmful, say the researchers. On an individual level, however, their work reveals that people from all sorts of backgrounds react in similar ways to perceived threats.
Casting a Wide Net
To understand how people respond when they feel their identity is under threat, the researchers conducted several studies, collecting more than 22,000 reported experiences from over 1,600 people. While previous research on identity threats had largely focused on a one or two identities at a time, these studies cast a wider net.
“If we’re trying to understand how these situations occur in everyday life, we need to study the diversity of people who exist in the world and the whole universe of ways in which they may feel marginalized,” Slepian says.
Study participants completed a questionnaire in which they were asked to reflect on the previous week and identify situations where they felt they didn’t belong because of some aspect of their identity. They reviewed 30 common scenarios, ranging from unspoken assumptions in casual conversations to overt discrimination. For each moment, participants reported not only how they responded, but also how they felt afterward.
Across all the surveys, two patterns stood out: people either downplayed the threatened identity—by hiding it or trying not to act in ways associated with it—or they emphasized similarity, highlighting common ground with the people around them.
Both strategies can help smooth over awkward or uncomfortable interactions in the moment, but they come with a cost. Namely, distancing yourself from your identity can leave you feeling less authentic and less connected to who you are.
The research also highlights the cumulative effect of everyday identity threats. Even if a single incident may seem minor, repeated exposure can erode well-being, performance, and sense of belonging over time. It can also increase stress and negatively impact health. This accumulation helps explain broader patterns, such as why certain groups may disengage from particular fields or environments even in the absence of overt discrimination.
The Importance of Affirming Your Identity
While downplaying your identity and emphasizing your similarity are the two most common coping strategies, there is another option: you can instead affirm your identity, reminding yourself why you’re unique and how your identity brings value and meaning. Doing so, the researchers found, can protect against feelings of inauthenticity and disidentification.
In one study they ran, participants were randomly assigned to either downplay their identity, emphasize similarity with others, or affirm their identity when threatening situations arose over the course of a week. Those assigned to the first two strategies consistently reported feeling less authentic and more disconnected from their identity than those in the affirming group.
That said, every person—and every situation—is different and must figure out what works for them based on who is present, what’s at stake, how explicit the threat is, and what resources are available. “I don’t want to convey that people shouldn’t downplay or shouldn’t emphasize similarity,” Brown says. “There is a huge adaptive component to that strategy, and it can help people avoid very real harm. But to the extent that you affirm your closeness to your identity and why it brings you value, you’re less likely to detach from it.”
Meanwhile, the lesson for organizations, say the researchers, is that it’s important to foster a climate where people can feel comfortable and safe expressing their authentic selves.
“Managers have a huge role to play by making clear they know who their employees are as people, not just their roles in the workplace,” Slepian says. “When people feel that they belong, the negative effects that we document in our research can be dramatically reduced.”
