Authentic allyship? Unique threats and benefits of authenticity to allyship

Abstract: Despite concerns about inauthentic allyship, we know little about the impact of would-be allies’ feelings of authenticity on future behaviors. We suggest a lack of felt authenticity (or subjective alignment between internal and external states) as an ally can be a barrier to allyship. We propose that affirming allies’ felt authenticity may increase allyship by increasing their psychological standing, the subjective experience of legitimacy to perform an action. We test our hypotheses across six studies (N=4153, 4 pre-registered). First, we find that felt authenticity, but not perceived authenticity, was associated with greater engagement in allyship after the murder of George Floyd. Next, we present three experiments that provide causal evidence that increased feelings of authenticity as an ally lead to greater allyship. Finally, we conduct two pre-registered experiments to show when felt authenticity is first bolstered, individuals report greater psychological standing and are more likely to enact allyship. We compare this approach to an external appeal from management to engage in allyship. We discuss important implications for efforts to cultivate allies, introducing a simple intervention to affirm allies’ authenticity.

Keywords: allyship, race, racial justice, psychological standing, inequity