We are in this together: How the presence of similarly stereotyped allies buffer against identity threat

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated that ingroup experts buffer against the negative effects of identity threat on working memory as they are believed to be less likely to hold negative stereotypes about ingroup members. The present research examined, for the first time, whether the presence of a stigmatized outgroup expert whose stereotype content is similar to women's, but not a stigmatized outgroup experts whose stereotype content is dissimilar to women's, mitigates the cognitive interference stemming from identity threat for White women, and identifies a novel individual difference variable, stigma solidarity, which facilitates identification of such allies. Across six studies we demonstrated that White women perceived a Black male expert as less likely than White men to hold negative stereotypes about women's intelligence (Study 1, 2), especially if women were high in stigma solidarity (Study 3, 6), mitigating cognitive interference (Study 2, 4). Further, an outgroup expert who was not similarly stereotyped (i.e., Asian male) did not mitigate these identity threat effects (Study 5, 6). Thus, we contend that White women, especially those high in stigma solidarity, perceive similarly stereotyped outgroup experts as less likely to hold negative stereotypes about their intelligence, buffering against identity threats in such settings. This adds to a growing literature identifying the conditions under which intraminority relations can serve to expand contextual cues that signal identity safety.