The talk, “Will the Real Ally Please Stand Up: Promoting Women of Color Through Allyship,” focused on how role models can signal allyship and encourage black women to feel belonging in environments where they are traditionally underrepresented.

The project is the product of an ongoing collaboration with Evava S. Pietri, a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI). Together, Johnson and Pietri examine how role models lacking a shared racial identity with black women can potentially serve as role models and encourage black women to feel belonging in environments where they are underrepresented. The research was also conducted in collaboration with two current students Johnson is mentoring: Ashanti Desauguste ’19 and Samira Foster ’19. 

India R. Johnson, assistant professor of psychology, co-authored the research. The annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology is the largest professional meeting of social psychologists and attracted over 5,000 attendees. This year’s meeting was held in Atlanta.

Cockrell and Carpenter have been working with Johnson on the research for almost two years and Cockrell is currently assisting Johnson with preparing the research for publication.

Cockrell and Carpenter’s research examines how allyship can be used as tool to attract white women to STEM fields and fits with Johnson’s larger body of research examining how to support individuals in underrepresented environments.

The SPSP grant is an extension of earlier work recently published by Johnson and her collaborator, Eva Pietri, in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. This research explores how STEM companies can best signal they value black women in STEM environments, a needed area of study as black women are among the least represented groups in STEM. In addition to featuring a greater representation of black men and women, Johnson and Pietri’s work finds that a white female scientist expressing allyship with women of color also makes black women feel more valued in STEM. The in press paper can be accessed here: 

The proposed work and recently published paper are a part of Johnson’s larger body of work examining how to best support individuals of various identities in environments where they are traditionally underrepresented. 

In conjunction with colloborators Eva Pietri and Ezgi Ozgumus from Indiana University and Purdue University, Indianapolis, Johnson’s work titled “When Race and Gender Collide: Promoting Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math” examined a role model intervention to bolster black women’s sense of belonging in STEM companies. 

Buck’s work titled “Assessing Progress: Outgroup Perceptions of LGBT Equality” examined factors that predict heterosexual cisgender participants’ perceptions of social progress and inequality in the LGBT community.

The annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology is the largest professional meeting of social psychologists and attracts social psychologists from across the world. This year’s meeting was held in New Orleans, LA.