The cues hypothesis.

One aspect of my research program focuses on how situational cues in academic, organizational, and group environments affect people’s cognition, motivation, performance, and physiology.   Current explanations in the literature for the under-representation and underperformance of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields, and of minorities in academia, focus on biological and socialization factors that may contribute to these phenomena.  My work posits and examines the cues hypothesis, testing how the structure, organization, and situational cues in a setting impact people with stereotyped or stigmatized social identities, making them cognitively and physiologically vigilant, depressing their sense of belonging, and decreasing their desire to continue to participate in the setting (Murphy, Steele & Gross, 2007).

Social identity contingencies.

Another aspect of my research examines the concerns that people have when they enter a setting where threatening situational cues may be present. The stereotyping and prejudice literature leads us to believe that targets’ concerns in a setting are primarily about perceivers’ prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behaviors. My research asks whether, in these settings, targets have concerns broader than those of prejudice and discrimination.  Termed social identity contingencies, data show that targets are concerned about the evaluative, self-presentational and treatment concerns that are contingent on their social identity in a setting and signaled to them by the situational cues in the environment. These perceived contingencies are people’s concerns about how they will have to negotiate the setting, what real behaviors they will have to take in order to be perceived as belonging in the setting. I study both the cues that signal threatening identity contingencies and the consequences of perceived contingencies including people’s situational sense of belonging, their motivation to persist in the settings, and their cognitive and physiological functioning (Murphy & Steele, under review).

The culture of genius.

Another line of research examines how organizations’ philosophies of intelligence—whether organizations believe that intelligence is a fixed trait, or that it is malleable and expandable by hard work and effort—affects workers. Research with Carol Dweck demonstrates that when people apply for membership to an environment that holds a fixed belief of intelligence, the environment’s philosophy not only affects applicants’ self-presentations, but also has sticky effects—seeping into the way people conceive of the self, and how they treat and judge other newcomers to the environment (Murphy & Dweck, under review). Current work in this area examines the representations of intelligence and genius in society and measure their effects on people’s creativity, performance, and motivation in various work settings (Murphy, Dweck & Markus, in progress).

Interracial friendships and interactions.

One final line of work examines situational cues in inter- and intra-racial interactions that affect people’s levels of identity threat, emotional experiences, cognitive performance, and motivation to build friendships. In one paper, we have examined how a White interaction partner’s friendship network has important meaning for minority students when they anticipate interacting with him/her. If the White partner has diverse friends, the minority student feels that they will be stereotyped less, experience fewer identity contingencies, and is more willing to discuss sensitive racial topics with their partner (Wout, Murphy & Steele, under review). Current work is examining other situational cues—such as interaction goals and diversity messages—in inter- and intra-racial settings that affect minority and majority members’ psychological and physiological outcomes (Murphy & Wout, in progress; Murphy & Richeson, in progress).