ABSTRACT Environmental identity safety cues (ISCs), such as safe space posters, are used to signal support for marginalized groups. While environmental ISCs increase belonging and reduce identity threat, less is known about how they function alongside higher‐cost ISCs such as prejudice confrontations. Across two experimental studies with Black Americans ( n = 272), and Asian Americans ( n = 279), we examined how environmental ISCs and confrontations jointly shape perceptions of Identity Threat and Ally Sincerity using a 2 (ISC: Present, Absent) × 2 (Confrontation: Present, Absent) between‐subjects design. Results revealed that while ISCs can reduce Identity Threat and increase Ally Sincerity, prejudice confrontations are more consistent and effective. Additionally, there is no evidence for a backlash effect whereby having an ISC without a confrontation is worse than doing nothing. Results suggest US racial minorities value confrontations and environmental ISCs, highlighting the importance of using both high‐ and low‐cost prejudice reduction strategies.
Via an online experiment, we tested the effects of three diversity cues embedded in course syllabi among undergraduates of color in STEM (n = 168). Color-evasive cues minimized the importance of group differences, multicultural cues highlighted their importance, and critical multicultural cues revealed how systemic forces shaped these differences. Compared to color-evasive cues, multicultural and critical multicultural cues increased identity safety by reducing bias expectations, and increased participants' desire to learn about STEM inequity by increasing perceptions of instructor allyship. These links were especially true for those higher in stigma consciousness. Open-ended responses illuminated key nuances: critical multicultural cues elicited identity safety and perceptions of allyship, but also concerns about its relevance to a STEM course; multicultural cues elicited mixed reactions, including concerns about sincerity; and color-evasive cues surfaced the most threat and superficial appreciation. Together, the current study clarifies for whom and under what conditions diversity cues are most effective.
ABSTRACT Biases toward one's gender/sex can lead to caution when choosing a workplace. Cues indicating identity safety or threat during the application process may influence employment decisions. We examined whether gender‐inclusive, compared to gender‐exclusive, language serves as such a cue. In Study 1, trans and/or nonbinary individuals evaluated job and organizational aspects based on differently gendered job advertisements. In Study 2, participants of all genders/sexes rated their willingness to apply based on differently gendered organizational self‐descriptions. Gender‐inclusive language led to more positive organizational evaluations (Study 1). It interacted with gender/sex in affecting willingness to apply (Study 2), mediated by perceived gender essentialism, anticipated stigmatization, and procedural fairness. Endosex cis individuals were unaffected by the language form, whereas trans, intersex, nonbinary, and agender individuals perceived gender‐inclusive language as an identity safety cue. Gender‐inclusive language offers organizations a way to signal that all genders/sexes are welcome.
ABSTRACT Rural youths’ critical action (i.e., participation in social and political activities to create structural change) may be uniquely shaped by rural sociopolitical contexts, with cascading effects on wellbeing (i.e., physical, mental, and socioemotional health). We take a mixed‐methods approach to examine critical action and wellbeing among 23 rural adolescents from 10 primarily Northeast and Midwest USA states during the 2024 election season (M age = 15.95; 65.2% cis‐female‐identifying, 26.1% cis‐male‐identifying, 8.7% gender diverse; 56.6% LGBQ+; 91.3% White; 4.3% Latine; 4.3% biracial; median town population 1570). Using qualitative interviews followed by nightly surveys and salivary cortisol collected during election week, we found that: (1) rural sociopolitical community dynamics shaped experiences of exclusion but also opportunities for critical action, particularly via interpersonal dialogue; (2) critical action facilitated coping with election‐related stress but not symptoms of anxiety. We encourage increasing critical action opportunities for rural youth in ways that promote wellbeing.
The 2024 US election was stressful. Taking critical actions (i.e., behaviors that address social or economic inequality) may reduce or exacerbate election stress and negative emotions. This daily diary study, spanning 20 consecutive days throughout the 2024 election, takes an exploratory and descriptive approach to understand adolescents' daily critical action and its association with political stress and emotions. Participants (N = 32, M age = 15.53, SD = 1.19), most of whom were White (59.4%), female (62.5%) and Democrat (71.9%), reported taking critical action frequently, especially before and a few days following the election. Participants were more likely to take critical action on days when they reported political stress and negative emotions. Lagged (spill-over) effects were not significant when controlling for same-day constructs. Critical action may increase or decrease stress and negative emotions. If adolescents use critical action as a coping mechanism, they may do so in an immediate fashion.
ABSTRACT In the current study, we examined White students’ responses to open‐ended questions about why they chose to confront or not confront online racism after they were randomly assigned to receive the intervention condition (i.e., a video‐based interactive intervention about confronting online racism) or the control condition (i.e., an attention control condition designed to be similar to the format of the intervention condition but focused on raising awareness of and mitigating one's own implicit bias). We coded responses from 720 White students attending one of four predominantly White institutions and compared the distribution of codes between the intervention and control conditions. Among participants who confronted, those in the intervention group were more likely than those in the control group to report feeling confident in how to confront. Among participants who did not confront, participants in the control condition were more likely to report that they believed confrontations are ineffective. The findings underscore the importance of attitudes (believing that confrontations can be effective) and self‐efficacy (knowing what to say) in facilitating confrontations.
In an educational climate marked by increasing censorship and the marginalization of historically oppressed communities, fostering critical consciousness (CC) among adolescents is both urgent and necessary. Schools can function as transformative spaces where students critically examine social inequities and work to address them. This systematic review examines how inquiry-based learning approaches (IBL), specifically Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) facilitated adolescents' engagement in critical action. Grounded in a sociopolitical development framework, the review analyzes how these pedagogies cultivate social analysis, and political agency. Twenty-five studies (23 YPAR; 2 PBL) were included. Findings indicate that PBL and YPAR foster opportunities for adolescents to interrogate power structures, develop collective strategies, and engage in critical action beyond the classroom. Overall, this review posits IBL as a powerful approach for advancing educational equity and youth empowerment, composed of seven key mechanisms that foster students' critical action. Through this review, we map specific inquiry-based strategies that facilitate adolescents' critical consciousness development from reflection to action within a classroom setting. We emphasize key recommendations for research, practice, and policy.
ABSTRACT Grounded in a sociopolitical development framework, this paper describes youth critical action via three practices: play, performance and protagonismo . Play is an activity associated with normative developmental behavior that is often characterized as a form of entertainment, recreation, and exploration. Performance, on the other hand, is acting with intention to convey or express a meaningful message. Protagonismo , while similar to play and performance in that it involves agency, is a public expression by a political actor engaged in collective action. Through an autoethnographic approach, featuring my reflections from three case studies— Muñecas Negras , Children Making a Change (CMAC), and Sophie Cruz—I examine how these practices support youth critical action. I conclude with insights for how these practices can be leveraged to facilitate, support and sustain critical action in relation to youth sociopolitical development.
Young people are increasingly forming and expressing civic identities in digital spaces. Yet, digital media literacy interventions have had limited success translating these competencies into sociopolitical action and, in some cases, may even constrain youth online civic engagement. This sequential mixed-methods study examines factors shaping youth online critical action using panel survey data (n = 704), followed by qualitative re-analysis of interviews (n = 23) with youth aged 15-24 to further unpack patterns identified in the survey findings. Guided by critical consciousness and neo-ecological frameworks, quantitative findings indicate that exposure to digital media education, particularly instruction focused on researching and vetting online information, does not necessarily translate into online sociopolitical engagement. Qualitative findings further illuminate how youth weigh more emotional, relational, and cultural considerations when deciding whether to engage in online critical action, including internet norms, interpersonal relationships, and social movement dynamics. Together, these findings highlight limitations of digital media literacy approaches and underscore the need for interventions that account for the social and emotional contexts shaping youth civic participation online.
ABSTRACT Although both inter‐ and intraracial conversations about race are necessary for combating racism, discrepancies in people's racial ideologies may hinder these discussions. We conducted three experiments ( N = 1529) to test how White American adults on Prolific (Studies 1 and 2) and White American college students (Study 3) anticipate a conversation about race with a White or Black person who expresses a race‐conscious or colorblind racial ideology. Across studies, participants interpreted a Black interaction partner's expression of colorblindness (vs. race‐consciousness) as a stronger identity safety cue. In contrast, participants interpreted a White interaction partner's expression of race‐consciousness (vs. colorblindness) as a stronger identity safety cue. However, participants’ internal motivation to respond without prejudice predicted more positive responses to the race‐conscious ideology expression regardless of partner race. These findings highlight when White Americans are most likely to engage in race‐relevant conversations necessary for anti‐racist allyship.
Online confrontations to prejudice can meaningfully shape experiences of racism online for minoritized individuals. We investigate whether confrontation can also operate as an identity safety cue (ISC) within online spaces. In Study 1, we examined the effects of confronter group membership and their confrontation style on Asian Americans' (n = 136) sense of safety, hurt, and offensiveness when viewing confrontations of explicitly racist statements made towards Asian Americans online. In Study 2, we examined the effects of confronter group membership, confrontation style, and their motivation on Asian Americans' (n = 218) perceptions of the confronter. While racist posts accompanied by assertive confrontations led participants to report greater offensiveness and hurt around the transgression, Asian American participants reported greater comfort with assertive confronters and perceived them as being more aware of social justice, as well as more willing to confront on behalf of other marginalized groups.
This study examines how children (9-12 years old) construct liberatory counternarratives regarding adultism within a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program and how these narratives inform social and critical action in adulthood. Analyzing archival ethnographic data and interviews with former participants both as children (n = 30, or all children in the program) and emerging adults (n = 5) via thematic analysis and the Listening Guide (LG), the study reveals children utilized critical dialogue to challenge dominant narratives about youth capabilities. Results indicate dialogue enabled children to name power disparities and articulate counternarratives, voiced in poems created through the LG process. Furthermore, emerging adults continued to leverage these childhood counternarratives, prioritizing collaboration, advocacy, and the elevation of marginalized voices in their social justice efforts. Implications suggest that to support long-term critical action, adults must prioritize critical dialogue, making space for youth to interrogate dominant narratives and mobilize their liberatory truths.
ABSTRACT The current study explores the voices and lived experiences of Jharkhand's (India) Adivasi (indigenous) adults to examine how critical consciousness was expressed through community engagement. Drawing on Freirean perspectives and contemporary scholarship, critical consciousness was opted to understand as comprising interconnected processes of critical reflection, agency, and action. While existing research had largely focused on youth in Western and urban contexts, less was known about how these processes unfold in Indigenous and non‐Western settings. Adivasi adults navigate complex socio‐political landscapes, challenging traditional boundaries and fostering a movement towards critical action. In the face of rapid urbanization, economic marginalization, and cultural disintegration, Adivasi adults emerged as vocal agents of change, confronting issues that threaten their identity, heritage, and rights. Using an ethnographic approach, this study includes participant observation, focus group discussions, and semi‐structured interviews with Adivasi adults aged 18–35. Findings highlight three interrelated processes through which participants engage with social change: recognition of structural marginalization, collective agency for social transformation, and sustainability through the integration of cultural knowledge and practices. These processes illustrated how awareness of injustice was translated into culturally grounded and community‐oriented forms of action. The study contributed to the literature by demonstrating that critical action in Adivasi contexts was deeply embedded in collective identities, cultural traditions, and ecological relationships. Rather than proposing a new theoretical model, the findings extend existing understandings of critical consciousness by illustrating how its core dimensions were expressed in Indigenous sociocultural settings and incorporated culturally grounded perspectives into research on social change.
ABSTRACT Although many organizations, including university psychology departments, have expanded diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, these initiatives often center a limited set of marginalized identities, leaving others underrepresented and potentially undermining identity safety. We analyzed diversity statements from 100 U.S. psychology departments (Study 1) and found that race/ethnicity, gender/sex, and sexual orientation were most frequently represented. Across two follow‐up experimental studies ( N = 639), omissions of commonly represented identities (race/ethnicity) were more noticeable and reduced anticipated departmental equity, whereas omissions of less‐represented identities (body size) were less noticed and had no such effect (Study 2). Participants evaluated diversity statements less positively and attributed greater external motivation when body size was included, suggesting backlash against size inclusion. However, fat participants reported greater departmental interest and anticipated less fat stigma when body size was explicitly included (Study 3); diversity in faculty body size did not influence participants’ evaluations of departments or equity perceptions.
ABSTRACT Institutional diversity efforts are one way that colleges and institutions can support historically underrepresented students. What do different types of organizational diversity cues actually signal to students, and how do they influence broader diversity goals such as students’ feelings of identity safety? Using both qualitative and quantitative measures, we assessed how women of color, men of color, White women, and White men US undergraduate students perceived their institution's real, on‐the‐ground efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We assessed the specific diversity initiatives undergraduates recalled and how effective they perceived those efforts to be. We also linked these perceptions to students’ feelings of identity safety (i.e., belonging, authenticity, and fit) and their beliefs about their institution's genuine commitment to diversity. Our data suggest that institutional diversity efforts can be effective and make a positive difference in the lives of all students (not only those who are targeted).
ABSTRACT A growing body of literature has characterized critical consciousness as a developmental asset, especially among minoritized adolescents, given its association with positive developmental outcomes. However, much is unknown about how critical action (a key component of critical consciousness) develops among Black immigrant youth who uniquely experience both anti‐Black racism and xenophobia in the United States. This qualitative study examines the contextual and developmental factors that shape Black immigrant adolescents’ retrospective interpretations and engagement in critical action during a period of heightened sociopolitical mobilization, the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. In‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 15 adolescents ages 13–17 ( M age = 15.7; 66.6% girls and 33.3% boys; 73.3% born in the U.S.). Through deductive analysis, we identified dimensions of ethnic‐racial socialization , identity position in racial justice movements , and levels of (dis)engagement in activism as primary interrelated themes that highlight the complexity of Black immigrant adolescents’ meaning‐making of sociopolitical movements. Within and across these themes, we identified subthemes that further captured the nuance of Black immigrant adolescents’ positioning in the context of critical action. Overall, our findings contribute to a new understanding of critical action, particularly among adolescents navigating unique and complicated experiences related to racism and xenophobia, to identify ways to support the development and sustenance of critical action, particularly during adolescence.
ABSTRACT Once a signal of resistance, the Pride flag is now a global marker of LGBTQ+ acceptance—one that governments, businesses, and individuals routinely use to express support of sexual diversity. The flag is thus regarded as an identity safety cue, conveying that LGBTQ+ people can expect to be safe where it is present. However, with its widespread use, LGBTQ+ people might question whether its use represents authentic inclusion or serves external motives of allyship. To explore these tensions, we conducted a qualitative study with LGBTQ+ participants ( N = 76; M age = 42; 65% White; U.S.‐based). We identified contextual considerations, such as distinguishing between flag users’ personal choice versus commercial interests and recognizing behavioral (in)consistencies with the flag's values. We also identified desirable contexts for flag displays (e.g., public spaces, historically exclusive domains) and its complementary identity threat cues (e.g., Trump and Christianity symbols). We situate findings in the flag's historical and political roots.
ABSTRACT Black women feel connected to leaders whom they view as having shared adversity. Examining this phenomenon in the U.S. during the COVID‐19 pandemic, Study 1 found that when a Black (but not White) female leader expressed her personal struggles, Black women participants identified with her, viewed her as having a shared reality about the pandemic, and anticipated more identity‐safety in her company. Participants with relatively higher awareness of the pandemic's harmful impact on Black Americans indicated higher identity‐safety in the Black female leader, but not the White female leader, condition. However, in Study 2, when a White female leader acknowledged pandemic racial health disparities, Black women participants with more awareness of the pandemic's impact believed this White female leader had a stronger shared reality about the pandemic and indicated higher identity‐safety at her company. Overall, this research has implications for leader messaging that foster identity‐safety during stressful societal events.
In a world of educational inequality, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives aim to boost the participation and success of marginalized students and act as identity safety cues on campus. A recent torrent of anti-DEI legislative initiatives threatens this safety. Across three experimental studies, the current work examines the consequences of threat introduced via anti-DEI policies in higher education and potential university responses. In Study 1 (N = 639), participants anticipate compromised identity safety, worse performance, and report decreased interest in attending a university with an anti-DEI (vs. control, pro-DEI) policy. Study 2 (N = 229) replicates results and demonstrates that both fewer expected resources and weaker multiculturalism mediate the policy's impact on outcomes; qualitative data corroborates findings. Study 3's (N = 302) university messaging strategy shows public disapproval of anti-DEI policies reinstates some identity safety. Findings highlight psychological and institutional costs of anti-DEI laws, while advancing safety cue theory by illuminating impacts of cue removal.
