Identity Management Strategies Scales

Abstract

The Identity Management Strategies Scales (IMSS), developed by organizational psychologist Scott B. Button (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—most notably the foundational conceptual taxonomy established by James D. Woods (1993)—the IMSS operationalizes identity management along three distinct, non-mutually exclusive behavioral dimensions: Counterfeiting (6 items), Avoiding (7 items), and Integrating (10 items). Comprising a total of 23 self-report items administered via a 7-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), 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.

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’s 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.

Keywords

Identity Management Strategies Scales, IMSS, workplace diversity, sexual orientation disclosure, stigma management, counterfeiting, avoiding, integrating, minority stress, Scott B. Button

Authors

The Identity Management Strategies Scales were conceived and developed by Scott B. Button, Ph.D. The instrument originated as part of his doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Psychology at The Pennsylvania State University 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.

• Primary Author: Scott B. Button, Ph.D.
• Academic Affiliation during Scale Inception: Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
• Subsequent Professional Affiliation: Modern Management, Inc., and human resource management consulting practice.
• Key Seminal Publications: Button (1996, doctoral dissertation); Button (2001, Journal of Applied Psychology); Button (2004, Group & Organization Management).

Purpose

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.

Historically, research on workplace disclosure operated under simplistic dichotomies—categorizing 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:

• Quantifying Distinct Strategic Dimensions: Rather than viewing disclosure as a static trait, the scale operationalizes identity management as multidimensional behavioral patterns comprising active fabrication of heterosexuality, defensive evasion of personal discourse, and full personal and socio-political identity integration.
• Investigating Organizational Antecedents: The IMSS serves to evaluate how specific workplace conditions—such as non-discrimination policies, domestic partner benefits, supportive leadership, and perceived psychological safety—shape the coping strategies selected by sexual minority personnel.
• Assessing Individual and Organizational Well-being: In occupational health psychology, the scale provides a mechanism to examine the cognitive, emotional, and physical strain induced by constant impression management. Extensive research links chronic concealment and counterfeiting with elevated minority stress, workplace hypervigilance, emotional exhaustion, diminished job satisfaction, and elevated turnover intentions.
• Evaluating Diversity and Inclusion Interventions: Organizations and diversity consultants utilize the IMSS as a benchmarking and assessment metric to examine whether organizational culture shifts result in decreased reliance on protective concealment strategies (Counterfeiting and Avoiding) and increased adoption of open authentic engagement (Integrating).

Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by the IMSS is workplace identity management 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:

1. Counterfeiting (6 Items)

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.

2. Avoiding (7 Items)

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.

3. Integrating (10 Items)

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.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical foundations of the Identity Management Strategies Scales draw from sociological, psychological, and organizational frameworks of stigma, impression management, and identity negotiation.

Goffman’s Stigma Theory and Information Control

The overarching sociological architecture of the IMSS rests upon Erving Goffman‘s (1963) seminal formulation of social stigma and the distinction between the discredited (individuals whose stigma is visible or widely known) and the discreditable (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 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.

Woods’s Tripartite Model of Sexual Identity Management

While Goffman provided the broad conceptual vocabulary, James D. Woods’s (1993) qualitative investigation of gay men in corporate America—published in The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America—served as the direct operational foundation for Button’s scale. Woods documented that gay professionals do not merely inhabit a static closet; rather, they navigate professional interactions using three distinct communicative postures:

1. Counterfeiting: Constructing a false heterosexual identity to preserve safety and career mobility.
2. Avoiding: Regulating the flow of personal information and structuring boundaries to keep sexuality invisible without actively lying.
3. Integrating: Reconciling professional and personal domains by bringing sexual identity into public view, dismantling the corporate division between public professionalism and private life.

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.

Minority Stress Theory and Cognitive Load Perspectives

Contemporary applications of the IMSS incorporate Ilan H. Meyer’s (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.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the IMSS has been rigorously tested across numerous empirical studies, dissertations, and organizational surveys.

Construct and Structural Validity

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—Counterfeiting, Avoiding, and Integrating—represent 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 ($r = .35$ to $.52$), demonstrating that employees who fabricate heterosexuality also rely heavily on conversational avoidance. Conversely, Integrating demonstrates moderate to strong negative correlations with both Counterfeiting ($r = -.30$ to $-.48$) and Avoiding ($r = -.42$ to $-.60$).

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

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 ($r > .65$), 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.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

The predictive validity of the IMSS is well-documented within organizational behavior literature:

• Workplace Climate: Button (2001) demonstrated via hierarchical linear modeling and cross-level regression that organizational diversity climates, explicit anti-discrimination policies, and supportive supervisory behaviors significantly predict higher Integrating scores and lower Counterfeiting and Avoiding scores.
• Occupational Health Outcomes: Avoidance and counterfeiting consistently predict elevated self-reported psychological strain, job anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and physical health complaints (Button, 2001; Lipka, 2010). Conversely, integration is associated with greater affective commitment, intrinsic job satisfaction, and perceived organizational support, provided the broader workplace climate is relatively safe.
• Turnover Intentions: Employees exhibiting elevated Avoiding and Counterfeiting scores display substantially higher turnover intentions, mediated by feelings of workplace inauthenticity and alienation.

Reliability

The Identity Management Strategies Scales demonstrate robust internal consistency reliability across varied organizational contexts, industries, and demographic cohorts of sexual minority employees.

Internal Consistency

In the original scale development and validation research by Button (1996, 2001, 2004), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were established as follows:

• Counterfeiting Subscale (6 items): $\alpha = .76$ (reported between $.76$ and $.82$ in subsequent replications).
• Avoiding Subscale (7 items): $\alpha = .86$ (ranging from $.85$ to $.89$ in organizational samples).
• Integrating Subscale (10 items): $\alpha = .89$ (ranging from $.89$ to $.93$ across diversified professional cohorts).

In Lipka’s (2010) investigation examining sexual minority employees confronting heterosexism, internal consistencies replicated these original findings, with alpha values of $.78$ for Counterfeiting, $.86$ for Avoiding, and $.90$ for Integrating. Mean inter-item correlations across the subscales typically fall within the optimal range of $.30$ to $.55$, indicating that the items share common variance without exhibiting excessive redundancy.

Stability and Test-Retest Reliability

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 ($r_{tt} = .68$ to $.78$). 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.

Factor Analysis

The underlying latent structure of the IMSS has been evaluated through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic methodologies.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

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:

• Factor 1 (Integrating): Captured items indexing open disclosure, socio-political advocacy, visibility of gay/lesbian artifacts, and pride (eigenvalues consistently exceeding 6.0).
• Factor 2 (Avoiding): Captured items indexing conversational deflection, boundary management, aloofness, and avoidance of social events.
• Factor 3 (Counterfeiting): Captured items involving fabricated romantic partners, intentional mannerism alteration, and complicity in anti-gay humor.

All 23 retained items exhibited primary factor loadings exceeding $.45$, with minimal cross-loadings (all secondary loadings $< .25$).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

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:

• Unidimensional Model: Positing all 23 items load onto a single general “outness” factor resulted in extremely poor fit: $\chi^2/df > 5.2$, CFI $< .65$, RMSEA $> .13$, SRMR $> .12$.
• Two-Factor Model (Concealment vs. Disclosure): Merging Counterfeiting and Avoiding into a single concealment factor against Integrating yielded sub-optimal fit indices: $\chi^2/df > 3.6$, CFI $\approx .78$, RMSEA $\approx .10$.
• Hypothesized Three-Factor Oblique Model: Demonstrated excellent fit across multiple independent samples: $\chi^2/df < 2.1$, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) $= .93$ to $.96$, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) $= .92$ to $.95$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) $= .048$ to $.062$ (90% CI $[.041, .069]$), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) $= .051$.

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.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structural, administrative, and scoring parameters of the Identity Management Strategies Scales are summarized below:

• Test Name: Identity Management Strategies Scales (IMSS).
• Primary Author: Scott B. Button, Ph.D.
• Publication Years: 1996 (Dissertation), 2001 (Cross-level study), 2004 (Measurement validation).
• Target Population: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees across organizational and industrial settings. (Adaptable for broader sexual minority populations).
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized questionnaire.
• Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 8 minutes.
• Total Item Count: 23 items.
• Subscale Composition:
  • Counterfeiting: 6 items (Items 1 to 6).
  • Avoiding: 7 items (Items 7 to 13).
  • Integrating: 10 items (Items 14 to 23).
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert response scale scored as:
  • 1 = strongly disagree
  • 2 = disagree
  • 3 = slightly disagree
  • 4 = uncertain
  • 5 = slightly agree
  • 6 = agree
  • 7 = strongly agree
• Scoring Procedures:
  • All items are positively keyed toward their respective subscale construct. No reverse scoring is necessary.
  • Subscale scores are typically computed as the mean (average) of the items comprising that dimension (sum of item responses divided by the number of items in that subscale), yielding scores from 1.00 to 7.00 for each strategy.
  • Alternatively, sum scores can be utilized: Counterfeiting range = 6 to 42; Avoiding range = 7 to 49; Integrating range = 10 to 70.
  • Interpretation: A single global composite score should not be calculated because the three strategies represent functionally distinct behavioral domains. High scores on Counterfeiting indicate frequent deliberate fabrication of heterosexuality; high scores on Avoiding reflect active conversational and interpersonal withdrawal; high scores on Integrating reflect comprehensive openness, transparency, and identity advocacy.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

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.

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.

References

• Button, S. B. (1996). Organizational efforts to affirm sexual diversity: A multi-level examination (Doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
• Button, S. B. (2001). Organizational efforts to affirm sexual diversity: A cross-level examination. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.1.17
• Button, S. B. (2004). Identity management strategies utilized by lesbian and gay employees: A quantitative investigation. Group & Organization Management, 29(4), 470–494. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601103257417
• Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Prentice-Hall.
• Lipka, P. (2010). Sexual minorities in the workplace: An examination of individual differences that affect responses to workplace heterosexism (Doctoral dissertation, Clemson University). TigerPrints All Dissertations. Paper 539. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/539
• Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 129(5), 674–697. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.5.674
• Mohr, J., & Fassinger, R. (2000). Measuring dimensions for lesbian and gay male identity: The Outness Inventory. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 33(2), 66–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2000.12068999
• Pachankis, J. E. (2007). The psychological implications of concealing a stigma: A cognitive-affective-behavioral model. Psychological Bulletin, 133(2), 328–345. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.2.328
• Woods, J. D. (1993). The corporate closet: The professional lives of gay men in America. Free Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)