One of us? How leaders can use subtle identity performances to build trust among ingroups and outgroups

Leaders often face the dilemma of earning trust among different subgroups. How can leaders "reach across the aisle" to build trust among outgroup members without alienating their own ingroup in the process? We suggest one solution is for leaders to couple their efforts to appeal to the outgroup with subtle identity performances, behavioral cues that ingroup members understand as prototypical, but that are effectively invisible to outgroup members who are not familiar with ingroup symbols and norms. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the leader's group membership (ingroup or outgroup) and favoritism (ingroup favoritism, outgroup favoritism, or outgroup favoritism with a subtle identity performance). Results show that leaders can maximize their perceived prototypicality, fairness, and trust among the ingroup and outgroup if outgroup favoritism is coupled with a subtle identity performance for the ingroup.