A threat to (academic) success: establishing measures of identity-safe and identity-threatening cues in students' academic environment and their academic success

Social identity threats are circumstances in which an individual is concerned about being devalued or mistreated because of their social group membership(s) (for a review, see Steele, 1997), whereas identity safety cues indicate that these same individuals are valued and respected within a particular environment (Davies et al., 2005; Purdie-Vaughns et al., 2008). Past research has noted that social identity threats and identity safety cues are communicated through environmental and situation cues (Murphy et al., 2007). Further, these cues have been categorized into threat cues (Murphy & Destin, 2016) and safety cues (Kruk & Matstick, 2021); however, stigmatized individuals may integrate identity-safe and identity-threatening cues concurrently (Kruk & Matsick, 2021). Within academic environments, the bulk of early social identity threat research focused on threat’s effects on test performance (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008); however, more research needs to be conducted on more subjective outcomes such as motivation and persistence (Lewis & Sekaquaptewa, 2016). The current study’s findings suggest that students do integrate identity-safe and identity-threatening cues concurrently and separately from minority representation. Additionally, the current study’s fundings suggest that students classify “academic success” as their persistence, perceptions of effort, and their interactions with faculty—not their GPAs.