The Identity Management Strategies Scales<\/strong> (IMSS), developed by organizational psychologist Scott B. Button<\/a> (1996, 2001, 2004), is a widely utilized psychometric instrument designed to assess the behavioral and communicative strategies that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) employees employ to manage their stigmatized sexual identities within workplace environments. Grounded in sociological and organizational theories of stigma management<\/a>\u2014most notably the foundational conceptual taxonomy established by James D. Woods (1993)\u2014the IMSS operationalizes identity management along three distinct, non-mutually exclusive behavioral dimensions: Counterfeiting<\/strong> (6 items), Avoiding<\/strong> (7 items), and Integrating<\/strong> (10 items). Comprising a total of 23 self-report items administered via a 7-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree<\/em>) to 7 (strongly agree<\/em>), the instrument evaluates the spectrum of self-presentation ranging from deliberate fabrication of a heterosexual persona to active concealment and open identity disclosure accompanied by workplace advocacy.<\/p>\n Extensive psychometric investigations demonstrate that the IMSS exhibits robust structural validity and high internal consistency across diverse organizational contexts. Original validation samples and subsequent organizational field studies report Cronbach\u2019s alpha coefficients of .76 to .82 for Counterfeiting, .86 to .89 for Avoiding, and .89 to .92 for Integrating. Confirmatory factor analytic investigations consistently support the oblique three-factor model over unidimensional or orthogonal alternatives. Furthermore, the subscales demonstrate predictable patterns of convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity with constructs such as organizational climate for diversity, perceived discrimination, psychological strain, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and affective turnover intentions. By providing an empirically validated measurement framework, the IMSS remains an indispensable diagnostic and empirical tool for researchers and organizational practitioners examining the nuances of workplace inclusion, minority stress, and invisible identity negotiation.<\/p>\n Identity Management Strategies Scales, IMSS, workplace diversity, sexual orientation disclosure, stigma management, counterfeiting, avoiding, integrating, minority stress, Scott B. Button<\/p>\n The Identity Management Strategies Scales were conceived and developed by Scott B. Button, Ph.D.<\/strong> The instrument originated as part of his doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Psychology at The Pennsylvania State University<\/a> under the direction of prominent organizational psychologists. Dr. Button subsequently published foundational psychometric evaluations and empirical investigations stemming from this work in leading peer-reviewed industrial-organizational psychology journals.<\/p>\n Unlike visible social categories such as race, biological sex, or overt physical disability, sexual orientation represents a potentially concealable, or “invisible,” social stigma. Consequently, lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees are continuously confronted with strategic choices regarding whether, when, how, and to what extent they reveal their sexual identity to supervisors, peers, subordinates, and external stakeholders. The primary purpose of the Identity Management Strategies Scales is to quantify the specific behavioral tactics mobilized by sexual minority employees to navigate these social realities in occupational settings.<\/p>\n Historically, research on workplace disclosure operated under simplistic dichotomies\u2014categorizing individuals as either “in the closet” or “out.” Such binary conceptualizations failed to capture the dynamic, situational, and multifaceted nature of identity management. The IMSS was formulated to resolve this theoretical and empirical limitation by capturing three distinct behavioral patterns that individuals may utilize simultaneously across different workplace contexts:<\/p>\n The construct assessed by the IMSS is workplace identity management<\/em> among individuals with concealable stigmatized identities. In organizational psychology, identity management refers to the ongoing behavioral, cognitive, and communicative efforts through which individuals negotiate their social identities within interpersonal spheres. The IMSS operationalizes this construct across three empirically validated, theoretically derived subscales:<\/p>\n Counterfeiting represents an active, deceptive impression-management strategy wherein the employee deliberately constructs and projects a false heterosexual persona. Rather than merely staying silent, an individual engaging in counterfeiting actively manufactures heterosexual signifiers to mislead coworkers and leadership. Behavioral manifestations include inventing fictional dates with opposite-sex partners, referencing distant opposite-sex romantic history while omitting ongoing same-sex relationships, deliberately altering one’s speech, mannerisms, or participation in gendered leisure activities (such as sports) to conform to heteronormative stereotypes, and even laughing at anti-gay slurs or derogatory humor to project ingroup solidarity with heterosexual peers. Counterfeiting imposes an extraordinary cognitive load and psychological toll, as it requires sustained vigilance and continuous fabrication of one’s personal life narrative.<\/p>\n Avoiding is a self-protective, defensive strategy aimed at minimizing or circumventing situations where personal identity disclosure might become necessary or expected. Unlike counterfeiting, avoiding does not involve manufacturing explicit falsehoods; instead, it relies on psychological and physical distance, communicative boundaries, and conversational deflection. Employees who utilize avoiding strategies consciously evade informal workplace gatherings (e.g., happy hours, office parties, collaborative lunches), refrain from asking coworkers personal questions to preempt reciprocal inquiries, establish rigid boundaries between “business” and “pleasure,” abruptly terminate or change conversations when romantic topics arise, and cultivate an aloof or “loner” workplace persona. While avoiding protects the employee from overt interpersonal rejection or disclosure risks, it frequently impedes workplace social capital, mentorship acquisition, and collegial trust.<\/p>\n Integrating represents an open, transparent, and assertive identity management strategy wherein the individual fully incorporates their sexual orientation into their workplace identity. Integrating transcends mere passive honesty when directly interrogated; it encompasses proactive communication, socio-political advocacy, and cultural visibility. Core behaviors include discussing same-sex partners and personal weekend activities openly, displaying symbolic artifacts or photographs of partners within one’s workspace, receiving calls from gay and lesbian friends at work, openly challenging homophobic jokes or discriminatory company policies, and expressing pride in one’s identity. Integrating fosters authenticity, decreases the cognitive tax associated with concealment, and promotes organizational transformation, though its execution is heavily contingent upon the employee’s perceived level of psychological safety within the immediate work group.<\/p>\n The theoretical foundations of the Identity Management Strategies Scales draw from sociological, psychological, and organizational frameworks of stigma, impression management, and identity negotiation.<\/p>\n The overarching sociological architecture of the IMSS rests upon Erving Goffman<\/a>‘s (1963) seminal formulation of social stigma and the distinction between the discredited<\/em> (individuals whose stigma is visible or widely known) and the discreditable<\/em> (individuals possessing a covert stigma that is not immediately discernible). For the discreditable, the central dilemma is not managing interpersonal tension during interactions, but rather managing information<\/em> about their hidden attribute. Goffman identified several forms of “passing” (fabricating normality) and “covering” (minimizing the salience of the stigma), which directly informed modern conceptualizations of identity management in institutional settings.<\/p>\n While Goffman provided the broad conceptual vocabulary, James D. Woods\u2019s (1993) qualitative investigation of gay men in corporate America\u2014published in The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America<\/em>\u2014served as the direct operational foundation for Button\u2019s scale. Woods documented that gay professionals do not merely inhabit a static closet; rather, they navigate professional interactions using three distinct communicative postures:<\/p>\n Button (1996, 2001) recognized the immense diagnostic potential of Woods’s qualitative typology and translated these behavioral patterns into standardized, psychometrically validated Likert-type items suitable for rigorous quantitative inquiry.<\/p>\n Contemporary applications of the IMSS incorporate Ilan H. Meyer<\/a>\u2019s (2003) Minority Stress Theory and cognitive resource frameworks (Pachankis, 2007). According to minority stress theory, sexual minorities experience chronic, excess stress due to hostile, heterosexist societal structures. Concealment and vigilance represent distal and proximal stressors that deplete executive cognitive resources. By quantifying counterfeiting and avoiding, the IMSS operationalizes the precise regulatory mechanisms through which identity concealment consumes self-regulatory stamina, precipitating burnout, depressive symptoms, and organizational withdrawal.<\/p>\n The psychometric validity of the IMSS has been rigorously tested across numerous empirical studies, dissertations, and organizational surveys.<\/p>\n Construct validity was initially established by Button (1996, 2001) using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). These analyses confirmed that the three subscales\u2014Counterfeiting, Avoiding, and Integrating\u2014represent distinct yet interrelated dimensions rather than poles of a single disclosure continuum. Factor correlations indicate that Counterfeiting and Avoiding typically share a moderate positive correlation ($r = .35$<\/span> to $.52$<\/span>), demonstrating that employees who fabricate heterosexuality also rely heavily on conversational avoidance. Conversely, Integrating demonstrates moderate to strong negative correlations with both Counterfeiting ($r = -.30$<\/span> to $-.48$<\/span>) and Avoiding ($r = -.42$<\/span> to $-.60$<\/span>).<\/p>\n Convergent validity has been established by evaluating correlations between the IMSS subscales and validated measures of outness, such as the Outness Inventory (Mohr & Fassinger, 2000). The Integrating subscale correlates highly with overall outness across social and occupational domains ($r > .65$<\/span>), whereas Counterfeiting and Avoiding exhibit strong inverse associations. Discriminant validity has been demonstrated against general personality constructs, such as the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness), confirming that the IMSS measures specific context-dependent behavioral strategies rather than general dispositional tendencies or general communicative competence.<\/p>\n The predictive validity of the IMSS is well-documented within organizational behavior literature:<\/p>\n The Identity Management Strategies Scales demonstrate robust internal consistency reliability across varied organizational contexts, industries, and demographic cohorts of sexual minority employees.<\/p>\n In the original scale development and validation research by Button (1996, 2001, 2004), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were established as follows:<\/p>\n In Lipka\u2019s (2010) investigation examining sexual minority employees confronting heterosexism, internal consistencies replicated these original findings, with alpha values of $.78$<\/span> for Counterfeiting, $.86$<\/span> for Avoiding, and $.90$<\/span> for Integrating. Mean inter-item correlations across the subscales typically fall within the optimal range of $.30$<\/span> to $.55$<\/span>, indicating that the items share common variance without exhibiting excessive redundancy.<\/p>\n Because identity management strategies are responsive to situational fluctuations, departmental transfers, and shifts in immediate leadership, longitudinal studies demonstrate moderate test-retest reliability across 3- to 6-month intervals ($r_{tt} = .68$<\/span> to $.78$<\/span>). This level of stability indicates that while individuals possess baseline behavioral tendencies, the IMSS remains appropriately sensitive to environmental interventions, leadership changes, and policy implementations.<\/p>\n The underlying latent structure of the IMSS has been evaluated through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic methodologies.<\/p>\n In the scale’s initial derivation (Button, 1996), principal axis factoring with oblique (Promax and Oblimin) rotations was conducted on an initial pool of candidate items generated from Woods’s (1993) qualitative categories. The scree test, eigenvalues greater than 1.0, and parallel analysis converged on a clean three-factor solution accounting for the majority of common variance:<\/p>\n All 23 retained items exhibited primary factor loadings exceeding $.45$<\/span>, with minimal cross-loadings (all secondary loadings $< .25$<\/span>).<\/p>\n Subsequent investigations (Button, 2001, 2004; Lipka, 2010) tested competitive structural models via CFA to evaluate whether the hypothesized three-factor oblique model provided superior fit compared to rival specifications:<\/p>\n These findings substantiate that counterfeiting (active fabrication) and avoiding (passive silence\/boundary creation) are psychometrically and structurally non-equivalent strategies that must be measured as distinct latent dimensions.<\/p>\n The structural, administrative, and scoring parameters of the Identity Management Strategies Scales are summarized below:<\/p>\n The Identity Management Strategies Scales were established through academic research authored by Dr. Scott B. Button in 1996 and formally detailed in peer-reviewed scientific literature in 2001 and 2004. As an academic assessment tool developed for educational, psychological, and scientific inquiry, the scale is generally accessible for non-commercial research, academic theses, and university-based organizational investigations without royalty fees, provided proper formal academic citation is rendered.<\/p>\n Commercial utilization, implementation in corporate consulting diagnostics, inclusion within proprietary assessment software, or widespread organizational audits may require explicit permission from the copyright holders (which may include the original author or publishing bodies such as the American Psychological Association or SAGE Publications, depending on the specific publication context). Researchers wishing to deploy the scale are advised to consult the primary publications and institutional repositories hosting the original dissertation and validation instruments.<\/p>\nKeywords<\/h2>\n
Authors<\/h2>\n
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Purpose<\/h2>\n
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Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
1. Counterfeiting (6 Items)<\/h3>\n
2. Avoiding (7 Items)<\/h3>\n
3. Integrating (10 Items)<\/h3>\n
Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
Goffman\u2019s Stigma Theory and Information Control<\/h3>\n
Woods\u2019s Tripartite Model of Sexual Identity Management<\/h3>\n
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Minority Stress Theory and Cognitive Load Perspectives<\/h3>\n
Validity<\/h2>\n
Construct and Structural Validity<\/h3>\n
Convergent and Discriminant Validity<\/h3>\n
Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity<\/h3>\n
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Reliability<\/h2>\n
Internal Consistency<\/h3>\n
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Stability and Test-Retest Reliability<\/h3>\n
Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)<\/h3>\n
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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)<\/h3>\n
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Instrument \/ Measurement Tool<\/h2>\n
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Permissions & Fee and Test Year<\/h2>\n
References<\/h2>\n
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13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)<\/h2>\n