Dr. Jones and Dr. Lindsey Published in Journal of Business and Psychology

For release:  January 2, 2019

Dr. Kristen Jones, Assistant Professor of Management, and Dr. Alex Lindsey, Instructor of Management, recently published a paper entitled "Stigma expression outcomes and boundary conditions: A meta-analysis," in the Journal of Business and Psychology. Their co-authors are Dr. Isaac Emmanuel Sabat, Psychology Professor at Texas A&M University, Dr. Eden Beth King, Psychology Professor at Rice University, Dr. Carolyn Winslow, Psychology Professor at George Mason University, Ashley Membere, Psychology Professor at George Mason University, and Nicholas Smith, Psychology Professor at Portland State University.

The decision to express a stigmatized identity inside and outside of the workplace is highly complex, with the potential for negative and positive outcomes. This meta-analysis examined the intrapersonal and interpersonal, workplace and non-workplace outcomes of engaging in this identity management strategy. Synthesizing stigma and relationship-formation theories, the authors hypothesized and tested boundary conditions for these relationships including the visibility and controllability of the stigma, study setting, and gender of the interaction partner. Through the analysis of 65 unique samples (k = 108), they found that expression is more likely to lead to beneficial outcomes in interpersonal, workplace, and non-workplace domains, but only for less visible stigmas and for studies conducted within a field versus lab setting. Finally, the authors explored stigma expression across specific stigmatized identities and determined that there are consistently positive outcomes of expression for individuals with stigmatized religious and sexual orientation identities.