When and why people conceal their identities

Abstract

Many people conceal identities as a strategy for managing the impressions others have of them. They do so because they believe that managing those impressions can be consequential for their ability to pursue their goals. However, the scope of when people engage in identity concealment, and the process by which that concealment unfolds, are unclear. In this Perspective, we review the literature on identity concealment and synthesize it into a model of concealment that specifies the conditions under which people conceal identities. This model advances theory by explicitly modelling the role of concealability (including differences in concealability attributable to identities, individuals, contexts and interactions between them), accounting for multiple motives for concealment that are related to different levels of the ecological systems in which people are embedded (including goals beyond stigma management), and specifying the social-cognitive process by which these abilities and goals result in concealment. Many people conceal some of their identities to successfully navigate intergroup contexts. In this Perspective, Le Forestier and Lewis propose a model of identity concealment that makes specific predictions about when people choose to engage in concealment that applies to a broad range of motives and identities.