Perceptions and experiences of (people with) unconventional identities

ABSTRACT

Psychology has long focused on social identities and their critical role in defining the self. However, the majority of identity-related findings stems from research on traditional identities (monoracial, cisgender, heterosexual). Considering the relative dearth of research from the full range of identities encompassed in society (e.g., multiracial, transgender, bisexual), this special issue (a) highlights the experiences and perceptions of people with nontraditional identities; (b) argues for research to represent modern-day demographics; and (c) discusses publication challenges. By comparing special issue submissions to membership data from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, we highlight which identities are over- and underrepresented, consider groups for which it may have been historically more difficult to publish, and offer some speculation as to why.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• underrepresented groups
• social perceptions
• stigma

“The distinguishing character or personality of an individual.

The relation established by psychological identification.” – Two definitions of “identity” from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The study of identity has held a central place in psychology since the field’s inception. For example, identity has long been argued as the basis for defining group boundaries and membership (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Brewer, 2011; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, 1976; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), plays a key role in developing one’s own self-esteem (e.g., Baumeister, 1999; Ellemers, Kortekaas, & Ouwerkerk, 1999; Schmitt, Silvia, & Branscombe, 2000), and provides an anchor for contextualizing social attitudes (e.g., Greenwald et al., 2002; Jackson, 2002; Terry, Hogg, & Duck, 1999). Yet, despite serving as a hub for so many research areas, identity research to date has primarily focused on dominant or mainstream identities (e.g., monoracial, cisgender, heterosexual; Dunham & Olson, 2016; Gaither, 2018; Kang & Bodenhausen, 2015; Miller, Stern, & Neville, 2019; Richeson & Sommers, 2016). Our special issue aims to address this gap in the literature by creating an opportunity to highlight the voices, experiences, and perceptions of people with nontraditional or unconventional identities (e.g., multiracial, bicultural, transgender, bisexual).

Goals and motivations of the special issue

Our original call asked for research on temporary or permanent experiences and perceptions of nontraditional (e.g., underrepresented, visible or invisible, chosen or not chosen, or transitional) identities. The work needed to be empirical and clearly contribute theoretical knowledge about an understudied identity-related experience. We wanted the special issue to highlight identities not normally seen on commonly used demographic forms.

One motivation was for these papers to serve as a response to the renewed priority across psychological science on large sample sizes, which can pose a challenge to research on underrepresented samples. Specifically, particular groups are underrepresented in published research studies partly because they are difficult to recruit as research participants. Studying underrepresented groups can thus require more time and financial resources than research employing individuals from more mainstream groups. This increased cost runs the risk of pushing some groups and methods out of practice, as the superlative convenience of online research platforms (e.g., MTurk, Prolific Academic, Qualtrics Panels) allows investigators to test questions faster than ever before (e.g., Anderson et al., 2019; Cheung, Burns, Sinclair, & Sliter, 2017; Goodman, Cryder, & Cheema, 2013; Hauser & Schwarz, 2016). Although the reach provided by online platforms can permit researchers access to a more diverse slate of participants than is often available in one local area or departmental participant pool, the lesser cost and greater convenience of online research might also incentivize researchers to focus on topics and methods well suited to short survey formats that sometimes lack the resolution to detect nuances related to individual identities. Targeting underrepresented groups through these online platforms also usually costs more money – another barrier to making psychological science more representative (Anderson et al., 2019; Gaither, 2019; Patrick, Pruchno, & Rose, 1998).

Moreover, editors and reviewers who themselves do not work with underrepresented groups may struggle to fully appreciate the challenges of recruiting minority samples and might thus view research with minority groups as preliminary or highly specialized (e.g., Gaither, 2019; Nagayama Hall & Maramba, 2001). For instance, attaining a sample size that achieves power levels derived from effect sizes based on traditional participants may require sampling nearly the entire population of a given minority group. Another issue is that the benchmark effect sizes commonly assumed in social and personality psychology are likely largely based on research with mainstream groups (e.g., Richard, Bond, & Stokes-Zoota, 2003). We therefore emphasized statistical power in the special issue partly as a means to help revise those norms so that they include effects based on underrepresented groups whose contributions might otherwise remain in researchers’ file drawers (thereby perpetuating potential skew in the size of effects in psychological research).

Nontraditional identities in SPSP and submissions

Thus, acknowledging that research on underrepresented groups must overcome some special barriers, we are excited to feature a series of papers that push existing identity theories to be more inclusive, more generalizable, and more reflective of society’s diversity. We expected to get submissions focusing on underrepresented aspects of being a racial or ethnic minority (e.g., within ethnic group variation, aspects of intersectionality), unique occupations, or social roles (e.g., garbage collectors, Olympic athletes), the role of socioeconomic status as an identity-defining component of the self (e.g., rural vs. urban low-income outcomes), and experiences of disability (e.g., people who use wheelchairs, blind individuals). However, the submissions we actually received were instead more focused on aspects of gender and sexuality.

After considering the final set of papers for this special issue, we realized in some ways these papers reflect the sentiments and reactions from a recent Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Climate survey (N = 1090, 15% of total membership; SPSP, 2019). SPSP is the largest network of social and personality psychologists and all of the papers we received came from members or affiliates of this group. The climate survey highlighted a lack of representation of many nontraditional identities, which overlapped directly with some of the identities featured in this special issue. For example, survey respondents reported devaluation of sexual minorities, first-generation students and those with low-income backgrounds, and people with disabilities. The survey responses also highlighted the need for transgender and bisexually identified individuals to be more visible within the society – the two identities for which we received the most submissions. Additionally, our submissions primarily utilized Western samples and were predominantly from North American authors, reflecting some of the other biases noted by participants in the report. Interestingly, our submissions also reflected the overrepresentation of gender and sexual minority individuals in the organization (18.9% of responding SPSP members identify as something other than heterosexual compared to the currently estimated national average of 4.3%; SPSP, 2019; Trotta, 2019) and the underrepresentation of racial minorities (30.2% nonwhite compared to 39.6% for the national average; U.S. Census, 2018), about whom we received relatively few submissions.

Some of the differences between our expected submissions and what we actually received led us to reflect more about the aspects of the field that could have contributed to these differences. We believe that the small number of submissions related to racial/ethnic minority experiences may reflect our field’s prioritization of topics related to race and ethnicity in other journals. Issues of race and ethnicity have played an important role in the development of theories on intergroup relations and attitudes (e.g., Allport, 1954; Brewer, 2007; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004; Plaut, 2010; Richeson & Sommers, 2016), also reflecting their central importance in social movements that have influenced the development of the field (e.g., Civil Rights in the twentieth century and Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century). Moreover, the critical need for theoretical and applied research on race and ethnicity likely contributed to creating journals devoted to empirical work (e.g., Journal of Black Psychology since 1974, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology since 1995, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations since 1998) that reduces the need for a special issue as a publication outlet.

The final collection of papers

In contrast, we noted that fewer publication outlets might exist for empirical research on underrepresented gender and sexual identities. In fact, there is not yet a psychology journal specializing on transgender and gender nonconforming identities and The Journal of Bisexuality serves a more interdisciplinary purpose that includes the publication of essays rather than focusing on empirical articles. We believe these differences may have contributed to why five of the papers (more than half of this special issue) focus on aspects related to gender and sexual minorities’ experiences. Two of these papers document identity denial experiences for bisexual individuals related to feelings of belonging and overall well-being (Garr-Schultz & Gardner, 2019; Maimon, Sanchez, Albuja, & Howansky, 2019), which significantly extends existing work that has primarily focused on bicultural and biracial identity denial experiences (e.g., Albuja, Sanchez, & Gaither, 2019; Cheryan & Monin, 2005). Two additional papers document both stereotype applications on transgender populations and the impacts stemming from the internalization of these stereotypes (Howansky, Wilton, Young, Abrams, & Clapham, 2019; Totton & Rios, 2019), providing unique insights about the development and documentation of how transgender people may be perceived through a psychological lens. Thus, half of this special issue creates a needed dialogue for groups of individuals whose identities do not fit into more typically discussed gender and sexual binary categories (e.g., male vs. female, heterosexual vs. homosexual; Dunham & Olson, 2016).

Relatedly, multiracial and multicultural populations face similar identity questioning experiences and, accordingly, often fall prey to confusion about how individuals believe they should socially categorize members of these groups (Chen & Hamilton, 2012; Chen, Pauker, Gaither, Hamilton, & Sherman, 2018; Norman & Chen, 2019). Two papers in this special issue address these experiences by discussing both the fluidity and rigidity associated with how society perceives multiracial individuals whose particular identities directly conflict with more essentialized or fixed views of race (Garay, Meyers, Remedios, & Pauker, 2019; Small & Major, 2019). Moreover, a third paper extends this consideration of dual racial identities to dual cultural identities as they relate to intergroup contact by examining some of the unique experiences of cultural minorities who identify with both a minority and a dominant national identity simultaneously – Palestinian Citizens of Israel (Feasel, Risen, & White, 2019).

The specific topics constituting this special issue notwithstanding, we believe that the present collection of nine papers pushes the need for psychology to go beyond its typical focus on singular identity frameworks by considering not only nontraditional identities but also multiple identities and their intersection. This need for intersectional work is highlighted by the fifth paper in this issue on gender and sexual minorities, which tests the intersections between perceived sexual orientation as it relates to transgender identification (Spielman & Stern, 2019) – suggesting the need for minority identity research to consider other identities that may intersect with and shape one’s experiences and outcomes. Another example in this special issue highlights the use of a large dataset to examine how people across race, sexuality, and disability may vary in their explicit and implicit attitudes. Specifically, this paper supplies important implications for methodology and analytic interpretation by measuring variation within minority groups, dispelling the notion that intersectional identities simply represent an interaction term (Jiang, Vitiello, Axt, Campbell, & Ratliff, 2019). Moreover, the paper highlights a pathway for furthering the representation of underrepresented samples in the field by utilizing large preexisting datasets. Thus, two papers within this issue begin to investigate questions of intersectional identities; but this is a minority of the articles and we thus encourage more work in this direction.

Conclusions

In sum, we hope that this collection of scientific papers motivates other scientists interested in expanding discussions about identity to include a broader set of groups and experiences. We strived to publish a set of findings that others could use as further referential support not only to stimulate new work but also to utilize in discussions with editors and reviewers on the importance of considering the logistics of research on populations that are difficult to access and the consequent accuracy of assumptions about sampling that underlie psychological research. Underrepresented groups and identities will continue to remain undocumented and unknown until scholars create a more inclusive space for their narratives and we hope that this special issue helps to lead the field along this path.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank everyone in the field for their considerations of underrepresented identities in the work that they review, conduct, and publish. Additionally, we would like to thank Dr. Shira Gabriel for the opportunity to guest edit this special issue, and all of the authors who submitted manuscripts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.