Identity-reframing interventions: How to effectively highlight individuals' background-specific strengths

Abstract

Many low-status groups are portrayed as deficient. Countering such stigmatizing narratives, identity-reframing interventions reframe low-status group members as strong and resourceful agents. This approach can help members of low-status groups successfully pursue major life goals. In one test, an identity-reframing intervention increased engagement in an online-university among refugees by 23% over 1 year. In another, it increased the degree to which people with experiences of depression successfully completed a meaningful self-chosen goal over 2 weeks. The present review describes how identity-reframing interventions work on a practical and theoretical level, where they might not work, how they contribute to theory and practice, how they can be adapted to new populations and contexts, and what novel questions they direct us to.