At the Margins: A Distinctiveness Approach to the Social Identity and Social Networks of Underrepresented Groups Author(s): Ajay Mehra, Martin Kilduff, Daniel J. Brass Source: The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Aug., 1998), pp. 441-452 Published by: Academy of Management Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/257083 Accessed: 06/01/2009 11:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aom. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Academy of Management is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Academy of Management Journal. http://www.jstor.org ? Academy of Management Journal 1998, Vol. 41, No. 4, 441-452. AT THE MARGINS: A DISTINCTIVENESS APPROACH TO THE SOCIAL IDENTITY AND SOCIAL NETWORKS OF UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS AJAY MEHRA University of Cincinnati MARTIN KILDUFF DANIEL J. BRASS The Pennsylvania State University Using distinctiveness theory, this research showed that the relative rarity of a group in a social context tended to promote members' use of that group as a basis for shared identity and social interaction. Relative to majority group members, racial minorities and women in a master of business administration cohort were more likely to make identity and friendship choices within-group. The marginalization of racial minorities in the friendship network resulted both from exclusionary pressures and from minor- ity individuals' own preferences for same-race friends. By contrast, the marginaliza- tion of women resulted more from exclusionary pressures than from their preferences for woman friends. People are social beings who seek to establish ranks (Brass, 1985). A recent report, for example, ties of identity and friendship with others. In orga- showed that only 57 women (compared to 2,373 nizational settings, diverse groups of people use men) held positions in the highest ranks of Fortune these ties for social support and work accomplish- 500 companies (Catalyst, 1996). ment. But the process of identification and friend- Given the rarity of studies that examine the net- ship formation may unfold differently for members works of both women and minorities (see Ibarra of minority groups and members of majority [1995] for one such study), it remains unclear groups. whether women and members of racial minority Research on the patterning of social relations in groups face similar pressures in informal networks. organizations has suggested the importance of vis- Research does suggest that people tend to interact ible categories such as race and sex as bases for with similar others, and this is particularly true for identification and network formation (e.g., Hughes, relations, such as friendship, that are more expres- For the extent to which women are 1946). example, sive than instrumental (Blau, 1977). Together with a token in a work rather than a presence setting exclusionary pressures from the majority, this pref- substantial of the workforce tends to proportion erence for similar, or "homophilous," others may influence informal interaction patterns (Kanter, contribute to segregation within informal networks Access to informal networks is 1977a). important (Brass, 1985). because, to done in indi- get things organizations, The homophily proposition, however, leaves the viduals must draw on both instrumental resources basis of similarity unspecified. In a social context as work-related advice and and (such sponsorship) that includes men and women of different races, it emotional resources (such as friendship) that infor- is unclear whether people are more likely to iden- mal network contacts offer (Ibarra, 1993). Lack of tify with and select friends on the basis of sex, race, access to informal networks may be one reason that or some other nominal characteristic. We sought to women and minorities, who are entering organiza- clarify the patterns and consequences of such net- tions in unprecedented numbers, are still under- work preferences (1) by examining the extent to represented, especially in upper-management which membership in salient demographic groups influenced social identification and interaction & We thank three reviewers and patterns (cf. Ely, 1995; Tsui, Egan, O'Reilly, 1992) anonymous Angelo and the extent to which members DeNisi for insights and recommendations that helped (2) by examining develop our arguments.Thanks also to Dennis Gioia and of underrepresented groups tended to occupy the Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca for constructive comments on margins of informal social networks. previous drafts. Our sample consisted of individuals enrolled in 441 442 Academy of ManagementJournal August an elite master of business administration (M.B.A.) group. But this prediction still left unanswered the program that functioned as one of the portals to question of which of several possible underrepre- management in corporate America (Kilduff & Day, sented groups any particular individual will tend 1994). These managers-in-training made network to identify with most strongly. For example, when and social identity choices in a campus setting that is an African American woman more likely to feel imposed relatively few of the hierarchical con- strongly African American, and when is she more straints on interaction characteristic of formal or- likely to feel strongly female? Distinctiveness the- ganizations. We compared the identification and ory suggests that race will be a more salient basis friendship patterns of women with those of men, for identity when a person is in a group numeri- compared the patterns of whites with those of ra- cally dominated by those of the same sex as the cial minorities, and examined the structural mar- focal person but of a different race, and sex will be ginality of those groups. a more salient basis for identity when a person is in a group dominated by those of the same race but of the other sex. Distinctiveness theory suggests that THEORYAND HYPOTHESES the salience of a category as a basis for social iden- tification is a function of its relative rarity in a Distinctiveness and Social Identity given context. What determines individuals' identifications 1. The with others? Distinctiveness (McGuire, Hypothesis relative rarity of a social theory in a social will 1984) suggests a parsimonious answer: People in a category particular setting pro- social context tend to with others with mote members' use of that social category as a identify basis social whom they share characteristics that are relatively for identification. rare in that context. Thus, two African Americans In our sample, members of racial minorities were in a of crowd whites will tend to notice and iden- numerically rarer than women. For racial minori- with each other of common tify because their race; ties, we predicted that race would be a stronger when in a of however, group other African Ameri- category for social identification than sex. How- the same two are to notice or cans, people unlikely ever, for whites, the same reasoning suggested that with each other on the of identify basis race. Ac- sex, not race, would be a stronger category for so- cording to distinctiveness theory, the attention- cial identification. salience grabbing of distinctive characteristics is Similarly, we predicted that the salience of race the for social identification. basis Distinctiveness relative to sex would help determine whether extends of theory understanding homophily by people more often chose same-sex or same-race suggesting that similarity is relative to the context. friends. To the extent that an individual is in a In a of the test distinctiveness theory, salience of numerical minority with respect to sex or race, then was for ethnicity higher minority (African Ameri- that category becomes more salient as the basis for can and Hispanic) grade school children than it friendship choice. was for those in the majority (whites). Only 1 per- cent of the white majority children spontaneously Hypothesis 2. The relative rarity of a social mentioned ethnicity in self-descriptions, compared category in a particular social setting will tend to 17 percent of the African American and 14 per- to promote members' use of that social cate- cent of the Hispanic children (McGuire, McGuire, gory as a basis for friendship formation. Child, & Fujioka, 1978). A follow-up study exam- ined the effect of the sex composition of a group on Marginality the use of sex as a self-identifying characteristic. The likelihood of a child's mentioning his or her Members of underrepresented groups are likely sex in a self-description increased as a function of to be less central in friendship networks than mem- the number of opposite-sex others in the child's bers of well-represented groups because of the household (McGuire, McGuire, & Winton, 1979). former'stendency to select friends from the distinc- Similarly, in an experiment using ad hoc groups, tive groups to which they belong rather than from identification based on sex was more frequent in the social network as a whole.