Social Identity and Experiences of Belonging

Abstract

The goal of this study was to better understand experiences of belonging among individuals with different stigmatized social identities. It was hypothesized that individuals with a stigmatized social identity would experience belonging differently than individuals without a stigmatized social identity, and that social identity would be more relevant to experiences of belonging for individuals with a stigmatized social identity. This study employed a mixed-method analysis combing quantitative and qualitative approaches. Participants included 87 college students at the State University of New York at Purchase College. Participants responded to an open-ended prompt asking them to provide a personal narrative about a time when they felt a sense of belonging and then completed a survey with 11 Likert-type questions that assessed different facets of belonging. One-way ANOVA's and independent samples t-tests were used to analyze the data collected. Though no statistically significant differences were found, qualitative results of this study suggest that individuals with stigmatized social identities, especially individuals with a stigmatized gender identity, experience belonging differently. Keywords: belonging, social identity, stigma, race, gender.