Close but not quite: Exploring the role of shared discrimination in racial outgroup identity-safety cues for Black women

Abstract

Successful ingroup members can act as identity-safety cues (i.e., cues suggesting one's identities are valued in an organization); however, Black women often lack opportunities to learn about employees matching their gender and race. Group level theories on stigma solidarity suggest Black women would expect a Latina employee to face similar discrimination and thus, would identify with her and believe she holds positive stereotypes about Black women, which are both important precursors to identity-safety. Testing this possibility across two studies and an internal meta-analysis, we explored whether Latina employees functioned as identity-safety cues for Black women. Given the intragroup variability among Latinas, we also examined the importance of Latina employees' racial phenotype. We found that Black female participants were equally likely to believe that a White-Latina, Afro-Latina, and Black female employee had faced bias generally (Studies 1 and 2) and encountered more bias relative to a White female employee (Study 1). However, participants only believed the Afro-Latina experienced similar levels of such bias (i.e., quantitively similar bias; Studies 1 and 2) and promoted belonging and interest at the company at a similar rate to the Black woman. In Study 2, we manipulated shared discrimination by having the employees disclose (or not disclose) past encounters with racism and found that this manipulation enhanced identification with the White-Latina and expectations she held positive stereotypes about Black women. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the importance of recognizing intragroup variability when examining identity-safety cues and shared discrimination as critical mechanisms underlying positive outgroup member perceptions.