Subjective Identity Concealability and the Consequences of Fearing Identity-Based Judgment

In intergroup contexts, people may fear being judged negatively because of an identity they hold. For some, the prospect of concealment offers an opportunity to attenuate this fear. Therefore, believing an identity is concealable may minimize people’s fears of identity-based judgment. Here, we explo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2022-03, Vol.48 (3), p.445-462
Main Authors: Le Forestier, Joel M., Page-Gould, Elizabeth, Lai, Calvin K., Chasteen, Alison L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Court decisions
Fear
Fear & phobias
Humans
Identity
Individual differences
Judgment
Meta-analysis
Social Stigma
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Summary:In intergroup contexts, people may fear being judged negatively because of an identity they hold. For some, the prospect of concealment offers an opportunity to attenuate this fear. Therefore, believing an identity is concealable may minimize people’s fears of identity-based judgment. Here, we explore the construct of subjective identity concealability: the belief that an identity one holds is concealable from others. Across four pre-registered studies and a set of internal meta-analyses, we develop and validate a scale to measure individual differences in subjective identity concealability and provide evidence that it is associated with lower levels of the psychological costs of fearing judgment in intergroup contexts. Open materials, data, and code for all studies, pre-registrations for Studies 1–4, and online supplementary materials can be found at the following link: https://osf.io/pzcf9/.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/01461672211010038