Navigating the Workplace: The Costs and Benefits of Shifting Identities at Work among Early Career U.S. Black Women

Gendered Racism and Mental Health among Young Adult U.S. Black Women: The Moderating Roles of Gendered Racial Identity Centrality and Identity Shifting

“…As a consequence of this dual oppression, Black women may develop strategies to mitigate experiencing gendered racial discrimination through an array of options including remaining silent, confronting their perpetrator, or shifting (e.g. altering how one speaks and behaves) (Dickens and Chavez 2018;Dickens et al 2019;Hall et al 2012).…”

“…Another way Black women cope with experiences of raceand gender-based discrimination is by engaging in identity shifting. Identity shifting is described as the conscious or unconscious process of altering how one speaks (e.g., code switching) and acts in order to mitigate the negative outcomes of experiencing discrimination (Dickens and Chavez 2018;Jones and Shorter-Gooden 2004). Whereas code switching describes how individuals might modify their vocabulary or shift their pitch to better accommodate the expectations of the listener (Glenn and Johnson 2012;Gumperz 1982), identity shifting is the term that incorporates both the language aspect of shifting (e.g., code switching) and the behavioral aspect of shifting (e.g., altering how one acts so as not to confirm stereotypes about one's social group).…”

“…Identity shifting can be an anticipatory coping strategy to avoid experiencing discrimination and it can become a reactive strategy to immediate discrimination. Due to past experiences of discrimination, Black women may engage in shifting as anticipatory coping by taking steps to present one's self in a manner that may prevent or reduce the likelihood of being a target of discrimination (Dickens and Chavez 2018;Shih et al 2013). Further, Dickens et al (2019) proposed that respectability politics (i.e., adhering to dominant views of respectability), tokenism (i.e., symbolic or superficial showcase of minority representation), and racialized gendered socialization (i.e., parental teaching of one's gender and/or racial identity) can influence motivations and pressures to engage in identity shifting in the workplace.…”

Something Old and Something New: Future Directions in Vocational Research With People of Color in the United States

“…Notable examples include qualitative inquiries on the career development of prominent women of color (Gomez et al, 2001; Richie et al, 1997) and quantitative applications of vocational theories with women of color (e.g., Flores & O’Brien, 2002; McWhirter, Hackett, & Bandalos, 1998) and men of color (e.g., Arevalo Avalos & Flores, 2016; Ojeda & Pina-Watson, 2013). Still much of the intersectional research on vocational issues seems to be conducted by scholars outside of vocational psychology (e.g., Collins, Dumas, & Moyer, 2017; Dickens & Chavez, 2018; Harris, 2014; L. T. O’Brien, Blodorn, Adams, Garcia, & Hammer, 2015; Tariq & Syed, 2018; Yu, 2014, 2016).…”

Conflicted: An Autoethnography on Researching the Minority Swimming Gap

“…While the constant awareness may be exhausting for Black women who often assimilate in the (White) workplace, it is frequently done (Dickens & Chavez, 2017). In the same vein of DuBois (1907), Dickens and Chavez (2017) refer to the aforementioned duality as "identity shifting" with Black women vacillating "…between the benefits and costs of identity shifting, altering their dialect and behavior to meet social norms" and to advance in the workplace (p. 1). "However, engaging in organizational social mobility does not mean that one will automatically assimilate or substitute her cultural, racial, and ethnic identity for that of the majority culture" (Owens Patton, 2006, p. 27).…”