Date of Award

5-2021

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Honors Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

India Johnson

Abstract

LGBTQ+ persons face unsupportive workplace environments, and including an employee’s gender pronouns, (i.e. one’s personal pronouns reflecting their gender identity), in organizational materials may signal that a workplace is an inclusive space for LGBTQ+ identifying people. We examined if the inclusion of gender pronouns in organizational materials encourages identity-safety for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Lesbian, gay, & bisexual participants (N = 111; 94.5% cisgender) were recruited via Turkprime.com to partake in this online study. They viewed the homepage for a fictitious company, Uptown Consulting, and were then randomly assigned to view a profile of a successful female employee of the company with gender pronouns present (i.e. she/her) or absent. To operationalize identity-safety, participants reported their anticipated organizational commitment, organizational attractiveness, and anticipated trust. As predicted, relative to participants viewing the profile with gender pronouns absent, those who viewed the profile with gender pronouns present reported significantly greater feelings of anticipated organizational identity-safety. This study offers initial evidence that the presence of gender pronouns promotes feelings of identity-safety in organizational settings among LGBTQ+ identified people.

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