Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Psychology, Social, Psychology, individual mobility, intergroup relations, self-group distancing, social identity, social inequality, stigma, SAME-SEX CONFLICT, QUEEN-BEE, INTERGROUP RELATIONS, COLOR-BLINDNESS, DIVERSITY, WORK, DISCRIMINATION, MINORITY, WOMEN, IDENTIFICATION, 1608 Sociology, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Social Psychology, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology, 5205 Social and personality psychology

Abstract:

Despite equal rights, minority groups such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ + people, and people with mental or physical disabilities face discrimination on a day‐to‐day basis in subtle and hard‐to‐recognize forms. As discrimination slips beneath the surface, it becomes difficult to fight the stigma using collective social identity coping mechanisms. Instead, individual mobility responses such as distancing the self from the stigmatized identity (“self‐group distancing”) become more viable as a way to improve one's individual standing. In this overview of the state of the art, we take a social identity lens to reflect on the current empirical knowledge base on self‐group distancing as a coping mechanism and provide a framework on what self‐group distancing is; when, where and why self‐group distancing likely occurs; and what its consequences are at the individual and the collective level. The contributions in this special issue provide novel insights into how these processes unfold, and serve as a basis to set a future research agenda, for example on what can be done to prevent self‐group distancing (i.e., interventions). Together, the insights highlight that while self‐group distancing may seem effective to (strategically and temporarily) alleviate discomfort or to improve one's own position, on a broader collective level and over time self‐group distancing tends to keep the current unequal social hierarchy in place.