Devaluation by Omission: Limited Identity Options Elicit Anger and Increase Identification.
Sean FathDevon ProudfootPublished in: Psychological science (2024)
In the present research, we explored social-identity threat caused by subtle acts of omission, specifically situations in which social-identity information is requested but one's identity is not among the options provided. We predicted that being unable to identify with one's group-that is, in the demographics section of a survey-may signal social-identity devaluation, eliciting negative affect (e.g., anger) and increasing the importance of the omitted identity to group members' sense of self. Six preregistered experiments ( N = 2,964 adults) sampling members of two minority-identity groups (i.e., gender minorities and members of a minority political party) support these predictions. Our findings document the existence of a subtle but likely pervasive form of social-identity threat.
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