Hair and Its Ramifications (HAIR): A model describing how hair bias shapes Black women’s work experiences when wearing natural hair.

Despite the CROWN Act of 2022, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, current hair bias research and frameworks have not fully accounted for how hair microaggressions connect to Black women's experiences at work. Grounded in social identity theory and conservation of resources theory, we introduce the hair and its ramifications model, a comprehensive model on the consequences of hair-related microaggressions with a distinct focus on Black women's hair. We emphasize Black women because they are the targets of hair bias for reasons that include both their racio-ethnic status and their gender status (intersectionality), which results in their unique experience of identity threats and subsequent adverse outcomes. The hair and its ramifications model offers boundary conditions that either increase the possibility that identity threat will occur after a hair microaggression or reduce the negative impact of an identity threat on perceived inclusion. We also discuss implications related to Black women's experience when the environment devalues their natural hair and encourages them to modify their hair to meet Eurocentric standards of beauty, particularly if they want to advance within organizations. Theoretical and future research implications of the hair and its ramifications model are also offered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).