Consequences of Stigma

1
Consequences of Stigma
2

• Young, Nussbaum, Monin, 2007
• 32 students
• completed online survey about health behaviors
• were informed of risk for Liscus Acidophilus
  (Tuners Disease)
• read information about disease, modeled after
  influenza

3

• Liscus Acidophilus (commonly called Tuners
  Disease) is a contagious respiratory disease.
  The disease is transmitted through bacterial
  contact, and can cause mild to severe illness,
  and at times can lead to death. The best way to
  prevent Tuners Disease is by getting a
  vaccination each year. Every year in the United
  States, on average 5 to 20 of the population
  gets Tuners Disease more than 200,000 people
  are hospitalized from complications, and about
  36,000 people die from Tuners Disease. Some
  people, such as older people, young children, and
  people with certain health conditions, are at
  high risk for serious complications.

4

• Liscus Acidophilus (commonly called Tuners
  Disease) is a contagious respiratory disease.
  The disease, frequently transmitted sexually, can
  cause mild to severe illness, and at times can
  lead to death. The best way to prevent Tuners
  Disease is by getting a vaccination each year.
  Every year in the United States, on average 5 to
  20 of the population gets Tuners Disease more
  than 200,000 people are hospitalized from
  complications, and about 36,000 people die from
  Tuners Disease. Some people, such as older
  people, young children, and people with certain
  health conditions, are at high risk for serious
  complications.

5

• Young, et al., 2007
• 32 students
• completed online survey about health behaviors,
  then debriefed
• after debriefing, were informed of risk for
  Liscus Acidophilus (Tuners Disease)
• read information about disease, modeled after
  influenza
• Control group disease is transmitted through
  bacterial contact
• Sex risk group disease is frequently
  transmitted sexually
• Participants indicated likelihood of getting
  tested.

6

• Young, et al., 2007
• Results

7

• Young, et al., 2007
• Researchers manipulated whether disease was
  transmissible through unprotected sex.
• 113 students judged likelihood of a target whod
  contracted the disease engaging in immoral
  behaviors.
• Result targets with sexually-transmissible
  disease seen as more immoral.
• Researchers manipulated whether disease was
  transmissible through unprotected sex.
• 112 students considered how likely they would be
  to tell other people that they had contracted the
  disease.
• Result participants with sexually-transmissible
  disease were less likely to tell others that they
  had contracted it.

8
Conclusions

• The stigma attached to sexually transmissible
  disease
• Confers perceptions of immorality
• Heightens fears of appearing immoral
• Reduced likelihood of getting tested for the
  disease
• With potentially dire health consequences.

9
But what is stigma?

• Plous a mark of inferiority or shame.
  Stigmatized groups are usually looked down upon
  or avoided.
• Stigma is a mark that violates a norm.
• Whitley Kite stigmatized groups violate the
  norms established by the dominant group and, as
  such, are marked by the resulting social stigma.
• So stigma is also the negative value attached to
  a mark, due to its violation of a norm.

10
st??µa

• Etymology
• Greek scar left by a hot iron, i.e., a brand
• Used to identify criminals, slaves, or traitors
  as blemished or morally polluted persons to be
  avoided or shunned, particularly in public places
• Plural stigmata

11
Dimensions of stigma(Jones, Farina, Hastorf,
Markus, Miller, Scott, 1984)

• Course
• Concealability
• Aesthetic qualities
• Origin
• Peril

12
Dimensions of stigma(Jones et al., 1984)

• Course
• Also stability
• the duration of the stigma
• Brief (unstable)
• Acne
• Permanent (stable)
• Facial scarring
• More stable stigmas are usually more negative.

13
Dimensions of stigma(Jones et al., 1984)

• 2. Concealability
• The ability to hide or control the stigma
• Concealable
• Homosexuality
• Depression
• Unconcealable
• Skin color
• Gender
• Age
• Implications for peoples ability to manage
  negative reactions to their stigma
• However, concealability can have negative
  consequences. E.g., failure to seek treatment for
  mental illness.

14
Dimensions of stigma(Jones et al., 1984)

• 3. Aesthetic qualities
• Unattractiveness
• Acne
• Disfigurements and deformity (scarring, missing
  limbs, etc.)
• Facial symmetry
• Subject to cultural norms
• Body shape
• Hair, skin, and eye color
• Generally, less attractive individuals are more
  stigmatized.

15
Dimensions of stigma(Jones et al., 1984)

• 4. Origin
• Onset
• also control over onset, i.e., culpability (can
  an internal or external attribution be made for
  the stigma?)
• Less controllable stigmas provoke more pity
• More controllable stigmas provoke more anger
• Origin can be ambiguous
• Obesity
• Homosexuality
• Alcohol addiction
• Criminality

16
Dimensions of stigma(Jones et al., 1984)

• 5. Peril
• Perceived danger
• to physical safety
• to health
• to moral values
• to property, resources, and economic well-being
• May not be correlated with actual danger
• Mental illness and violent crime
• AIDS and contagiousness
• More perilous stigmas are usually more negative.

17
But what does it mean to be stigmatized?

• Consequences of Stigma
• Stereotyping
• Prejudice
• Discrimination
• But stigma can have consequences beyond the
  reactions it elicits in perceivers.
• Many consequences can arise from anticipated
  reactions.
• E.g., consequences for task performance.

18

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Studies 1 2
• Black and White students answered difficult items
  from the GRE.
• Half of Ps told test diagnosed intellectual
  ability
• Half of Ps told test was just a laboratory
  problem-solving task

19

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Results

20

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Study 3
• Same procedure as studies 1 2
• Participants also completed word fragments that
  could be completed with words relating to
• Black stereotypes
• Self-doubt

21

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Race related word fragments
• _ _ C E (RACE)
• L A _ _ (LAZY)
• _ _ A C K (BLACK)
• _ _ O R (POOR)
• C L _ S _ (CLASS)
• B R _ _ _ _ _ (BROTHER)
• _ _ _ T E (WHITE)
• M I _ _ _ _ _ (MINORITY)
• W E L _ _ _ _ (WELFARE)
• C O _ _ _ (COLOR)
• TO _ _ _ (TOKEN)

22

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Self-doubt related word fragments
• L O _ _ _ (LOSER)
• D U _ _ (DUMB)
• S H A _ _ (SHAME)
• _ _ _ E R I O R (INFERIOR)
• F L _ _ _ (FLUNK)
• _ A R D (HARD)
• W _ _ K (WEAK)

23

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Study 3
• Same procedure as studies 1 2
• Participants also completed word fragments that
  could be completed with words relating to
• Black stereotypes
• Self-doubt
• Participants also rated their preferences for a
  variety of activities (some of which were
  black-associated, e.g., jazz, basketball).

24

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Results
• Blacks taking the diagnostic test were more
  likely to demonstrate activation of black
  stereotypes and self-doubt in word completions.
• and also distanced themselves from
  stereotypically black activities.

25

• Steele Aronson, 1995
• Why?
• Blacks are aware of the stereotype that their
  group is intellectually inferior. (The threat is
  in the air.)
• Their awareness of the stereotype is activated by
  the situation (the diagnostic test).
• The situation poses the threat of confirming that
  stereotype through poor performance.
• Preoccupation with this stereotype threat
  interferes with their actual task performance.

26
What about otherperformance domains?

• E.g., sports.
• Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, Darley, 1999
• 40 black and 40 white students played mini-golf
• Some told the task tested natural ability
• Some told the task tested the ability to think
  strategically

27

• Stone et al., 1999
• Results

28
Stereotype Threat

• Does stereotype threat (and lift?) occur for
  other stigmatized groups?
• Asians
• Women
• Could positive stereotypes result in stereotype
  lift?
• Asians stereotyped as having good quantitative
  skills
• Women stereotyped as having poor quantitative
  skills

29
Stereotype Threat

• For example

30

• Shih, Pittinsky, Ambady (1999).
• 46 Asian-American female students
• Completed a test consisting of 12 math questions
  from the Univesity of Waterloos Canadian Math
  Competition
• Researchers made identity salient before the
  test
• Race-salient condition asked questions about
  known languages and family history in America
• Gender-salient condition asked questions about
  living in a co-ed dorm
• Control condition

31

• Shih et al. (1999)
• Results

32
Stereotype Threat

• So, awareness of stereotypes can
• affect performance in a number of domains
• Verbal ability
• Quantitative ability
• Athletic ability
• affect performance by members of a number of
  groups
• Blacks
• Asians
• Whites
• Females
• And can depress, as well as lift, task
  performance.

33
Stereotype Threat

• General features of stereotype threat
• 1. Situational (not personal)
• Stereotype threat arises from situational factors
  making the stereotype salient
• The person need not believe in the stereotype, or
  that it applies to them.
• 2. Not group-specific
• Anyone, from any group, can be affected
• even if the group is not generally stigmatized
• particularly if the performance domain or group
  membership are central to their identities.
• 3. Stereotype-dependent (not identity-dependent)
• Stereotypes (and their relevant performance
  domains) vary from group to group.

34
Stereotype threat

• Can stereotype threat be reduced?
• Reduce perceived diagnosticity of tests
• Reduce perceived difficulty of tests
• ST effects strongest for more difficult tasks
• Provide role models
• Women perform better on a math test after reading
  about successful women.

35

• Some types of situations evoke stereotype threat,
  leading people to anticipate confirming a
  negative stereotype.
• Are some types of people more likely to
  anticipate being stigmatized?
• Stigma consciousness the extent to which people
  expect to be stereotyped

36

• Pinel, 2002
• 59 male and 59 female participants
• All female Ps had completed a Stigma
  Consciousness Questionnaire
• Males and females were paired into opposite-sex
  dyads to participate in a mock hiring decision
• Females received information about male partner
• Sexist
• Non-sexist
• Participants shared their impressions of each
  other in an interaction.
• Finally, participants evaluated essays written by
  each other.

37

• Pinel, 2002
• Results

38
Does stigma also have negative consequences for
self-esteem?

• Why might it?
• Reflected appraisals
• The looking-glass self (Cooley, 1956)
• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• Occur when someone acts on an initially false in
  a way that causes those beliefs to become true.
• Efficacy-based self-esteem
• Self-esteem earned through successful action
• So we might reasonably conclude that stigmatized
  groups have low self-esteem.

39
Stigma Self-esteem

• However, data is mixed at best.
• Crocker Major, 1989
• Blacks have higher self-esteem than other ethnic
  groups, Whites included
• Women do not have lower self-esteem than men
• People with unattractive marks (e.g., obesity,
  facial disfigurement) do not have lowered
  self-esteem
• People who are developmentally disabled to not
  have lowered self-esteem.

40
Stigma Self-esteem

• Why dont these stigmatized groups have low
  self-esteem?
• Self-protective properties of stigma (Crocker
  Major, 1989)
• Attributing negative feedback to group membership
• Ingroup comparisons
• Selectivity of values

41
Can stigmatization have consequences for the
stigmatizer?

• Evidence suggests that, for people prejudiced
  toward an outgroup, interaction with members of
  that group may impair executive function.
• Executive function the ability to regulate
  behavior by overriding automatic impulses.

42
Consequences for the stigmatizer

• Like a computer processor, the executive function
  has a limited capacity.
• Prejudiced people, when interacting with an
  outgroup, must override more automatic impulses,
  taxing their executive function.
• This taxing of their executive function may
  impair their ability to self-regulate later.

43

• Richeson Shelton, 2003
• 50 white students
• Completed the IAT
• Interacted with a Black or White confederate
• Completed a Stroop task

44

• Richeson Shelton, 2003
• Stroop task (easy)
• RED BLUE
• BLUE RED
• GREEN GREEN
• GREEN RED
• BLUE BLUE
• RED GREEN
• BLUE RED

45

• Richeson Shelton, 2003
• Stroop task (hard)
• RED RED
• BLUE BLUE
• RED GREEN
• BLUE RED
• BLUE GREEN
• GREEN BLUE
• RED GREEN

46

• Richeson Shelton, 2003
• 50 white students
• Completed the IAT
• Interacted with a Black or White confederate
• Completed a Stroop task

47

• Richeson Shelton, 2003
• Results

48
Can stigma have consequences for the stigmatized
persons associates?

• Do you know someone (either friend or family) who
  is
• Black
• Middle Eastern
• Overweight
• Homosexual/queer
• A feminist
• In a fraternity/sorority
• An evangelical Christian
• Disabled
• Alcoholic

Stigma by association The courtesy stigma
arising from association with someone possessing
a primary stigma
49

• Neuberg, Smith, Hoffman, Russell, 1994
• 104 male students
• Viewed an interaction between two male friends
  (targets 1 and 2)
• Target 2 shared information about a romantic
  partner who was
• Same-sex
• Opposite sex
• Participants indicated social comfort toward
  Target 1

50

• Neuberg, Smith, Hoffman, Russell, 1994
• Results

51

• Hebl Mannix, 2003
• 40 male and female participants
• asked to evaluate information about a job
  candidate, including a résumé and a photo taken
  at a small social reception
• Photos depicted targets seated next to
• Heavy female targets
• Average-weight female targets
• Participants rated applicants hiring
  eligibility, professional qualities, and
  interpersonal skills.

52

• Hebl Mannix, 2003
• Results

53
Stigma by Association

• Can arise from a variety of stigmas
• Homosexuality
• Obesity
• etc.
• Can arise due to different types of associations
• Roommates
• Mere proximity
• Can have consequences for
• Social approachability
• Hiring prospects