How Workplace Discrimination Can Undermine Our Sense of Self

By Karoline Strauss, Professor of Management at ESSEC Business School, and Julia Smith, Editor-in-Chief of ESSEC Knowledge

Diversity and inclusion are global priorities, and there’s evidence that authenticity at work can impact well-being. This points to the importance of a workplace where employees feel welcome and comfortable being themselves. To make this happen, we need to have a better grasp of what happens when “who we are” is called into question. Researchers call this experience “identity threat”. Identity threat can result from discrimination at work or within other types of organizational culture, and it can lead to burnout and turnover. Using their newly-developed scale in an article published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Karoline Strauss, Professor of Management at ESSEC, Maïlys George (former Ph.D. candidate at ESSEC, and now Assistant Professor at EDHEC Business School), Julija Mell (Rotterdam School of Management) and Heather C. Vough (George Mason University) studied how people react to identity threat and pinpoint the triggers and outcomes of these threats¹.

When someone asks who you are, what comes to mind? The answer forms your identities, and you can hold multiple identities at the same time. Those identities encompass how we perceive ourselves, and can be related to our demographic characteristics, our relationships, or our societal roles. For example, you might identify as a woman, as a leader, as a lawyer, or as a friend. When you experience an “identity threat”, it means that “who you are” is in question, which can be a destabilizing experience. This can have consequences beyond the affected person, and even affect the organization and society at large.

Strauss and her colleagues developed a scale to measure identity threat, and then studied identity threat in samples of pregnant female leaders and professionals who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. By better understanding how identity threat plays out, organizations can recognize when it’s occurring in their midst and react quickly.

Leading while pregnant

Pregnancy can be a challenging time for professional women, and not just for medical reasons: Pregnant women often experience discrimination and a lack of support in the workplace. Pregnant leaders may face additional issues, since people often associate leadership with “stereotypically masculine” traits.² Many pregnant women may be concerned that others will treat them differently because of their pregnancy.³ This can mean that women may experience a threat to their leader identity while pregnant. After studying almost 200 pregnant women in leadership roles at two time points, and analyzing how their experience changed since becoming pregnant, the researchers found that when pregnant women experienced unsupportive workplaces, they tended to feel higher levels of identity threat. Feeling that their leader identity was valued less by others and that they might no longer be able to express their leader identity was linked to emotional exhaustion for them. Women who felt that the meaning of their leader identity was under threat were also more likely to want to give up their leadership role altogether.

The LGBTQ+ community

Members of the LGBTQ+ community still face both covert and overt discrimination in the workplace, ranging from micro-aggressions to more blatant discrimination. It can also be complicated to navigate the workplace: Research from ESSEC professor Junko Takagi found that it’s something new graduates take under consideration during their job search. Using their novel identity threat scale, Strauss and her colleagues found that individuals who experienced discrimination often also felt that their LGBTQ+ identity was under threat, which in turn left them feeling emotionally drained and considering leaving their job.

These findings suggest that the consequences of identity threat stemming from workplace discrimination can be severe, and include emotional exhaustion, burnout, and intentions to quit one’s job or profession. This could mean that talented people leave a company or even their profession, decisions that could lead to a brain drain if companies do not cultivate a supportive environment.

As more organizations implement diversity-and-inclusion policies and training, the new measure of identity threat the researchers developed could help these initiatives be more effective by assessing changes in identity threat levels before and after such initiatives, therefore also making companies more accountable. This can even be done at a lower level, by individual managers who want to support team members and evaluate the impact of a given change initiative.

When employees experience identity threat, it can have implications for both the individual and the organization. This means it’s key for researchers and employers to understand identity threats to better support employees and make it possible for them to safely bring their whole self to work.

Click here for more research-based insights on the workplace.