We sometimes think of other people as being part of only one social category, such as nurses, parents or business people. We tend to place them into one ‘box’. However, people never have just one social identity. For example, a young woman who is a mother and a nurse already features four identities linked to age, gender, parenthood and profession.

When we observe other people’s situations, their appearance and their behaviour, we activate corresponding stereotypes based on which social identities we perceive. Without being aware, we often perceive multiple social identities and corresponding stereotypes that overlap. The configuration of this intersection can either reinforce or reduce social distance between us and the Other.

The Danish TV2 advert All That We Share beautifully illustrates the concept of intersected identities. The ad starts by assembling groups of people into boxes (single categories), such as nurses, Muslims and gym goers.

Then, the ad splits people into different groups based on additional categories, such as being a step-parent or having been bullied at school. Social identities start to intersect.

There are alternating ingroup-outgroup configurations between viewer and screen characters. For instance, a viewer who is not a nurse sees a nurse initially as the outgroup. Then, the nurse joins the group of people who have been bullied at school.

If the viewer shares the experience of having been bullied, there is an ingroup-ingroup relation and simultaneously an ingroup-outgroup relation between viewer and character. Both have been bullied, but one is a nurse and the other is not. This shared ingroup identity reduces the social distance between the viewer and the nurse.

The ad continues to shuffle people around into different categories. Thus, some people end up being in at least five different categories. This is the threshold for perceiving a person as a unique individual rather than a categorised group member. For example, as the below images show, one of the nurses is also a life-after-death believer, a loner, someone who has found the meaning of life, and someone who loves Denmark.

The ad ends with all people, despite their differences, being placed together into the category of all who love Denmark. For Danish viewers, this creates the sense of a common ingroup identity they share with all the characters, despite ingroup-outgroup relations seen previously.

For more information about how multiple categorisation and intersectionality can reduce stigma, see Chapter 9.

The next sections focus on stigma reduction strategies that mitigate social and parasocial distance through intersected identities: surprising identity combinations, shared identity, extended intimacy, common identity and individual identity.