Whose Good Old Days? Emphasizing History Triggers Social Identity Threat Among Black Americans

Many mainstream organizations celebrate and emphasize their historical successes. In their history, however, they often marginalized racial minorities, women, and other underrepresented groups. We suggest that when organizations celebrate their histories, even without mentioning historical marginalization, they can undermine belonging and intentions to participate in the organization among historically marginalized groups. Three experiments (N’s = 198, 651, 811) demonstrate that Black participants who were exposed to an organization that celebrated their history versus the present showed reduced belonging and intentions to participate in the organization. These effects were mediated by expectations of biased treatment from coworkers in the organization. However, this negative effect of celebrating history no longer occurred when it was clear that the organization had a history of diversity and inclusion. Taken together, these findings suggest that emphasizing organizational history is a source of social identity threat among marginalized groups.