Valuing Social Identity: Consequences for Motivation and Performance in Low-Status Groups

Presented is our perspective on the role of social identity in the motivation and performance of members of stigmatized groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, women in traditionally male-dominated fields). We discuss how stigmatized group members pursuing upward mobility face significant threats in out-group environments through the numerical dominance of the higher status out-group, the negative views held by the out-group of the low-status group, and the emphasis in out-group settings on domains on which the stigmatized group is outperformed. In these settings, emphasis on positive in-group domains protects social identity, and enhances motivation and performance on status-relevant domains. Moreover, upwardly mobile low-status group members show important benefits of social identity through in-group support for their upward mobility. As such, social identities can be viewed not as problematic factors needing to be minimalized, but can be drawn on to increase positive societal outcomes and improve low-status group status.