Nyla R. Branscombe

University of Kansas | KU · Department of Psychology

When do male and female managers stop caring about workplace gender inequality and, instead, engage in actions that maintain the status quo? We examined the differences in male and female managers’ appraisals of workplace inequality and the role of power in their efforts to enact organizational justice. Specifically, we tested whether managers’ inj...

Three studies ( N = 1,349) examined why allyship from men (vs. women) is often more impactful in decreasing women’s concerns of negative treatment within male-dominated spaces in the United States. Women anticipated more respect from their peers after a man (vs. woman), identified as a gender equality ally. Increased respect mediated women’s lower...

Successful retirement adjustment requires careful planning in the lead up to this important life transition. While financial planning is routinely prioritized, evidence suggests that the social changes in retirement can be just as challenging to manage — if not more. GROUPS 4 RETIREMENT (G4R) is a new online intervention that addresses this gap by...

We examined the implications of the institutional racial/ethnic designation of Arab Americans as White. Do Arab Americans prefer this categorization or another, and what factors predict categorization in one way or another? In Study 1, a representative sample of Arab Americans in Southeast Michigan (N = 1,001 57% female, ages 18 to 88, Age M = 43.6...

Interpersonal allyship may serve as a justice cue to signal that an environment is fair to women without increasing men's expectations of anti-male bias. We investigated how exposure to justice cues communicated at the interpersonal and organizational level impact men's and women's perceptions of procedural justice and fairness at an organization....

The current study examines the nature of actions that U.S. college women (N = 267) engage in to promote, protect, or enhance the welfare of other women. The study had two goals: 1) to distinguish between traditional forms of action (traditional collective action) and more informal, interpersonal, forms of action (small acts) among college women; an...

Objectives: The rejection–identification model (RIM; Branscombe et al. 1999) suggests group identification mitigates the negative effects of perceived discrimination on psychological well-being. The RIM has not been applied to instances of interminority ingroup rejection–discrimination by one’s ingroup toward another of their ingroups (e.g., a gay...

One of the most serious challenges inherent in retirement transition is coping with social identity changes. We investigated social identity processes and the role of social engagement during retirement transition by examining the life narratives of recently retired university faculty (14 males and 5 females) from twelve different academic areas. T...

In the aftermath of intergroup harm, victim groups often claim rights for restitution. Research has assessed how members of perpetrator groups respond to such claims, revealing that group-based guilt, shame, and anger can predict support for reparations. Though they have distinct foci, these group-based emotions are based on appraisals of ingroup h...

Does commitment to allyship from a dominant group member cue identity-safety for women in male-dominated environments? We examine this question by assessing women’s perceptions of workplaces that included the presence (vs. absence) of a male ally (Studies 1–3) or a female ally (Study 3), and determine the impact of Black versus White allies for Bla...

The historical trauma associated with the Indian Residential School (IRS) system was recently brought to the awareness of the Canadian public. Two studies investigated how the salience of this collective victimization impacted non-Indigenous Canadians’ expectations that Indigenous peoples ought to derive psychological benefits (e.g., learned to app...

Women experience gender discrimination in numerous important life domains, which can harm psychological well-being. Benefit-finding—identifying the positive implications of having overcome a negative experience—has been theorized as a coping strategy to improve well-being. We experimentally tested whether prompting women, recruited online, to consi...

We test common sense psychology of intragroup relations whereby people assume that intragroup respect and ingroup prototypicality are positively related. In Study 1a, participants rated a group member as more prototypical if they learned that group member was highly respected rather than disrespected. In Study 1b, participants rated a group member...

In 2018, more women than ever have run for and been elected to public office in the United States. Moreover, there has been an increase in women’s collective actions aimed at improving the welfare of women. In this social and political context, we examined the motivational mechanisms of collective action among college women in response to gender in...

Imagine that you witness an incident in which a man denies a woman a night surveillance job. You might suspect that this decision reflects his prejudicial intention and consequently perceive his decision as sexist, more so than if the perpetrator had been a woman. That is because you may not expect a woman to have hostile intentions toward another...

We investigated the effects of group-level perspective taking when the target is an outgroup versus an ingroup. Men and women adopted the perspective of women suffering from wage inequality or remained objective. Men set lower injustice standards (i.e., required less evidence to conclude that gender inequality was unfair) and experienced higher emp...

There is growing recognition that identification with social groups can protect and enhance health and well-being, thereby constituting a kind of “social cure.” The present research explores the role of control as a novel mediator of the relationship between shared group identity and well-being. Five studies provide evidence for this process. Group...

We propose a Heiderian common sense psychology (Heider, 1958) of intragroup relations whereby people assume that intragroup respect and ingroup prototypicality are positively related. In Study 1a, participants rated a group member as more prototypical if they learned that group member was highly respected rather than disrespected. In Study 1b, part...

Many people report disliking taxes despite the fact that tax funds are used to provide essential services for the taxpayer and fellow citizens. In light of past research demonstrating that people are more likely to engage in prosocial action when they recognize how their assistance positively impacts the recipient, we examine whether recognition of...

Because the underdog in a conflict typically gains the support of observers, nations will often adopt a narrative that persuades both their domestic following and international allies that they are the true victim in the conflict. Three survey studies were conducted to assess the perceptions of citizens of a third-party observer nation (Canada) in...

A pernicious impact of ableism is its tendency to take‐for‐granted ability as a legitimate criterion for negative differential treatment, thereby making disability discrimination difficult to challenge for people with disabilities. This project aims to examine factors underlying disabled persons’ perceptions of discrimination legitimacy and potenti...

We propose that because members of discriminated (vs. advantaged) groups have a history of dealing with injustice, majority group members expect them to be more committed to social justice. By commitment to social justice, we mean supporting, and caring for, the basic rights of virtually any marginalized group. Studies 1a (N = 145) and 1b (N = 120)...

We propose that because members of discriminated (vs. advantaged) groups have a history of dealing with injustice, majority group members expect them to be more committed to social justice. By commitment to social justice we mean supporting, and caring for, the basic rights of virtually any marginalized group. Study 1 (a; N=145 and b; N=120) reveal...

Members of minority groups often expect other ingroup members to be allies in their efforts to confront injustice against their group. Moreover, members of a given minority group may at times feel a sense of solidarity with another minority outgroup, which can catalyze confrontation on behalf of that outgroup. We address when members of different v...

The vast majority of immigration-focused research in psychology is rooted in deficit models that center on negative health outcomes (e.g., depression, acculturative stress, anxiety, substance use), resulting in a widely held assumption that immigrants are at greater risk for pathology and poor well-being compared to native-born individuals. Moreove...

Why does social psychological research on prejudice change across time? We argue that scientific change is not simply a result of empirical evidence, technological developments, or social controversies, but rather emerges out of social change‐driven shifts in how researchers categorize themselves and others within their larger societies. As mainstr...

Among the many factors that influence retirement adjustment, there is increasing recognition of the role played by people’s social relationships. In particular, research points to the benefits that joining new groups can have for people’s well-being when they experience life change. In three studies, we extend this research to assess the contributi...

Previous work in the social identity tradition suggests that adjustment to significant life changes, both positive (e.g., becoming a new parent) and negative (e.g., experiencing a stroke), can be supported by access to social group networks. This is the basis for the social identity model of identity change (SIMIC), which argues that, in the contex...

Objectives: We investigated the association between perceived ethnic discrimination with psychological well-being and life satisfaction among a community sample of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants in the United States. We also assessed whether ethnic/racial group identity centrality moderated this relationship. Method: A community sample of self-re...

Intergroup emotions motivate behavior, yet little is known about how people perceive these emotional experiences in others. In three experiments (Ns = 109, 179, 246), we show that U.S. citizens believe collective guilt is an illegitimate emotional motivator for ingroup political behavior, while collective pride is legitimate. This differential legi...

Although mainstream psychology has received numerous critiques for its traditional approaches to disability-related research, proposals for alternative theory that can encompass the social, cultural, political, and historical features of disability are lacking. The social identity approach (SIA) offers a rich framework from which to ask research qu...

Although disability has been on the psychological agenda for some time, there is limited empirical evidence on the life satisfaction of youth with a disability, especially the effect of discrimination and factors that might mitigate it. We address this critical gap by examining the complex social experiences of youth with a disability and the culmi...

Public support for accepting refugees into Western countries may depend on their perceived cultural malleability—the possibility of cultural change and adaptation. We hypothesize that members of host nations will perceive child refugees as having greater potential for cultural malleability than adults, which, in turn, will positively predict their...

Gender (in)equality is typically studied as a women’s issue to be addressed via systemic measures (e.g., government policy). As such, research focusing on mobilising men (and women) towards achieving gender equality is rare. In contrast, this paper examines the mobilisation of both men and women towards gender equality as common cause. Experiment 1...

The increasingly xenophobic U.S. climate warrants a close investigation of Arab American responses to discrimination. We conducted secondary analyses of two large data sets to examine social identity processes and their relationship to well-being. In a representative sample of Muslim Arab Americans (Study 1, n = 228), discrimination was related to...

Throughout the world, groups that are socially disadvantaged have poorer health compared to groups that are more advantaged. This book examines the role that stigma and discrimination play in creating and sustaining these group health disparities. Stigma is a social construction in which people who are distinguished by a “mark” are viewed as devian...

In two studies we assessed the role of distinctiveness threat, group-based emotions (angst, fear and anger), and prejudice on people's willingness to engage in collective action against immigrant groups. In Study 1 (N = 222) White British participants were either informed that in the next 40 years the proportion of immigrants in the UK is unlikely...

We test three ways context matters in the study of intergroup inequality: where participants are approached, who interacts with participants, and how researchers ask participants questions. Regarding how, we replicate a finding that framing intergroup inequality as outgroup disadvantage rather than ingroup privilege reduces collective guilt in a no...

In three studies (N = 340) we examined the effects of medical versus social model representations of physical disability on awareness of structural discrimination and prodisability policy support among nondisabled persons. In all three studies, we found either an indirect (Studies 1 and 2) or full mediational effect of awareness of structural discr...

Compensatory control theory proposes that individuals can assuage threatened personal control by endorsing external systems or agents that provide a sense that the world is meaningfully ordered. Recent research drawing on this perspective finds that one means by which individuals can compensate for a loss of control is adherence to ideological beli...

Demographic trends reveal that modern societies have become increasingly diverse. Within the social sciences, these changes have been reflected in concerns about the implications of social diversity. Whilst early research noted that diversity may have negative consequences for societies and individuals, more recent scholarship has indicated that di...

Climate change is one of the most important challenges facing our world. As global temperatures continue to rise, intergroup conflicts over increasingly degraded natural resources are likely to increase. The social identity perspective provides a new approach to developing effective interventions to promote the mitigation of and adaptation to clima...

Whether forgiveness is essential for intergroup reconciliation may be disputable, but its potential ability to repair human relationships following offenses committed based on group membership remains of considerable importance. The primary focus of this Special Issue is on the social-contextual factors that encourage forgiveness of past wrongs and...

Membership in important social groups can promote a positive identity. We propose and test an identity resource model in which personal self-esteem is boosted by membership in additional important social groups. Belonging to multiple important group memberships predicts personal self-esteem in children (Study 1a), older adults (Study 1b), and forme...

There is growing recognition that identification with social groups can protect and enhance health and well-being, thereby constituting a kind of "social cure." The present research explores the role of control as a novel mediator of the relationship between shared group identity and well-being. Five studies provide evidence for this process. Group...

When is greater morality expected of groups that have experienced intergroup victimization? Six experiments illustrate that meaning making for the victims, but not the perpetrators, can lead observers to perceive the victims’ descendants as morally obligated to refrain from harming others. Focusing on the lessons of the past for the victim group in...

We investigate how selection policiesthe rules defining access to a valued positioncan act as situational cues signaling social identity threat or safety among women and men. College students took a logic test ostensibly determining their assignment to a position of leader or subordinate for a subsequent task. Study 1 showed that when only the test...

Every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed by the deeds of the ancestors. (Hannah Arendt) When we speak of reducing social inequality, we often lose sight of or fail to capture the impact of organizational and collective processes that embody the social structure of...

Although fairness rules provide a basis for conflict resolution, social and psychological processes can lead people to use these rules flexibly to allow their own groups to compare favorably relative to other groups. In two studies, we examined the expression of such ethnocentric fairness in the context of the Olympic Games. Participants rated the...

Research on perceptions of discrimination has focused on group-based differential treatment that is widely accepted as being illegitimate (e.g., based on race or gender). The present research investigates how individuals interpret less obvious forms of group-based exclusion based on age (Study 1) and vision correction status (Study 2). We propose t...

Hope is an emotion that has been implicated in social change efforts, yet little research has examined whether feeling hopeful actually motivates support for social change. Study 1 (N = 274) confirmed that hope is associated with greater support for social change in two countries with different political contexts. Study 2 (N = 165) revealed that ho...

In four experiments, we assessed when the salience of ingroup historical victimization will encourage a sense of moral obligation to reduce the suffering of others. Historically victimized groups (Jews and women; Experiments 1 and 3) who considered the lessons of the past for their ingroup felt heightened moral obligation to help other non-adversar...

We examined the impact of anticipating poor economic conditions on financial risk-taking. In Experiment 1, the salience of poor future economic prospects was manipulated among young adults. Those who were reminded of their poor future economic prospects were more likely to take the opportunity to gamble with their money than those in the control co...

In 2 meta-analyses, we examined the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological well-being and tested a number of moderators of that relationship. In Meta-Analysis 1 (328 independent effect sizes, N = 144,246), we examined correlational data measuring both perceived discrimination and psychological well-being (e.g., self-esteem,...

Although many forms of differential treatment based on group membership are perceived to be legitimate, disadvantaged group members' responses to discrimina-tion have been studied primarily in contexts in which such treatment is appraised as illegitimate. This has resulted in an impoverished understanding of differential group-based treatment and a...

In four experiments, we tested whether members of stigmatized groups are expected to be more tolerant toward other minorities than members of non-stigmatized groups and assessed the consequences of disconfirming those expectancies. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that majority group members expected members of a stigmatized group to be more tolerant tow...

European and Chinese Canadians' perceptions and expectations of the Canadian government's apology for the head tax placed on Chinese immigrants during the early twentieth century were examined, along with Chinese Canadians' willingness to forgive the transgression. Among both European and Chinese Canadians, beliefs about the importance attributed t...

Integrating research on intergroup emotions and scapegoating, we propose that moral outrage toward an outgroup perceived to be unjustly harming another outgroup can represent a motivated displacement of blame that reduces collective guilt over ingroup harm-doing. We tested this hypothesis by manipulating the purported cause of working-class America...

Collective guilt from harm one's group has caused an out‐group is often undermined because people minimize or legitimize the harm done (i.e., they generate exonerating cognitions). When a group action has harmed both the in‐group and an out‐group, focusing people on “self‐harm”—ways in which the in‐group has harmed itself—may elicit more collective...

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that perceptions of the legitimacy of discrimination moderate the extent to which targets respond to pervasive discrimination with commitment to their ingroup. Both the perceived pervasiveness and legitimacy of discrimination directed toward the ingroup were manipulated among group members of a stigmatized grou...

Objective: To assess the role that social contextual factors exert on the way people with disproportionate short stature (dwarfism) cope with the negative consequences of discrimination. Method: Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we compare the coping process of people with dwarfism from Spain (N = 63) and the USA (N = 145), two coun...

In 2 studies, participants' perceptions and emotional responses toward Wal-Mart were investigated. Moral anger was tested as a mediator of the relationships between ethical concerns and willingness to support or take confrontational actions against Wal-Mart. In Study 1, greater ethical concerns predicted less consumer support and increased willingn...

We examined the effect of corporate renaming of a stadium on fans’ felt anger and perceived harm to the team’s distinctiveness by asking participants to imagine that their historic local sport venue was renamed (or not) after a large corporation or a wealthy individual. Participants reported more perceived harm to the team’s distinctiveness when a...

Using structural equation modeling and cross-lagged analyses, this longitudinal study investigates ethnic identification, a group-based coping strategy, as a mediator of the influence of perceived discrimination on psychological well-being and willingness to engage in activism on behalf of one’s ethnic group among Latino students in both their firs...

In 4 studies we examined individuals' reactions when another person intentionally copies their distinctive public identity characteristics. In Study 1, participants reacted with anger and a desire to confront the copycat when many (vs. few) public identity characteristics were copied. Study 2 showed that participants did not react negatively to uni...

The authors investigated when observers assign contemporary group members moral obligations based on their group's victimization history. In Experiment 1, Americans perceived Israelis as obligated to help Sudanese genocide victims and as guiltworthy for not helping if reminded of the Holocaust and its descendants were linked to this history. In Exp...

Two studies examined the effects of social identity concerns on the moral justification of torture. British and American nationals read a media report concerning the torture of a terrorist suspect that they were led to believe had been perpetrated either by members of their own nation's security services or by another nation's security services. Wh...

Successful reconciliation between groups following a violent conflict requires psychological change. We test a model predicting intergroup attitudes towards Muslims in Lebanon among Maronite (Christian) Lebanese youths. Identification with both their religious subgroup and with the superordinate national group predicted attitudes towards Muslims, i...

There are ongoing debates both in personality psychology and social psychology on the causes and consequences of personality stability and change. Recent work on social roles suggests that as people change roles (e.g. employee to manager), different experiences and demands are internalised into one's self-concept shaping identity and personality. I...

Two experiments examined effects of heightened awareness of white privilege (illegitimate advantages held by White Americans) and efficacy to reduce racial inequality on White American college students’ attitudes toward African Americans and White Americans. Efficacy to reduce inequality was either measured (Experiment 1) or manipulated (Experiment...