Carol K. Sigelman

The early development of stigmatizing reactions to physical differences

Abstract In a comparative analysis of childrens reactions to potentially stigmatized physical attributes, 119 white children in nursery school through third grade completed openended, forced-choice, and free-choice tasks involving seven target children portrayed as: normal, black, of the opposite sex, glasses-wearing, wheelchair-bound, facially disfigured, and obese. Preference for the same-sex, same-race, nondisabled child over other target children was apparent at all ages, suggesting that the earliest form of stigmatization is a generalized bias against anyone who is physically deviant. While attraction to the wheelchair-bound child increased with age, liking for the obese child tended to decrease; moreover, the obese and facially disfigured children came to be more negatively perceived than other targets among elementary school children, suggesting greater differentiation with age among various stigmatizing attributes. Girls were consistently more acceptant of the wheelchair-bound child than boys were, while tending to be more negative toward cosmetic defects. Limits on the generalizability of stigmatization phenomena are discussed.

Sexism, Racism, and Ageism in Voting Behavior: An Experimental Analysis

In order to assess the impact of candidate characteristics and candidate-voter similarity on voting preferences, descriptions of candidates were presented to 1,158 voters in a simulated mayoral election. Five experimental candidates-white female, black female, black male, young white male, and elderly white male-were pitted in two-candidate races against a middle-aged, white male opponent. Ageism in voting patterns was stronger overall than either sexism or racism. The hypothesis that similarity breeds attraction received strong support in the form of pro-female bias among women, pro-black bias among blacks, and pro-white male bias among white males.

Asking questions of retarded persons: A comparison of yes-no and either-or formats

Abstract In view of evidence that mentally retarded persons frequently acquiesce when asked yes-no questions, these readily answered questions were systematically compared to either-or questions on the same topics in interviews with four samples of mentally retarded children and adults. Although slightly fewer interviewees could answer either-or questions than could answer yes-no questions, either-or questions yielded answers that were more consistent from wording to wording, less invalidated by systematic response bias, and somewhat more in agreement with answers given by outside informants, either attendants or parents. The use of pictures in conjunction with either-or questions, while failing to produce significant improvements, tended to increase responsiveness and eliminate the slight bias toward choosing the last of the two options that characterized answers to verbal either-or questions.

Courtesy Stigma: The Social Implications of Associating with a Gay Person

We investigated the operation of courtesy stigma with American male college students who reacted to a fictitious male student described as gay, rooming by choice with a gay male student, involuntarily assigned to room with a gay, or rooming with a male heterosexual. Among respondents who expressed strong intolerance of gays, the voluntary associate of a gay was perceived as having homosexual tendencies and as possessing the same stereotyped personality traits attributed to a gay. No such courtesy stigma was attached to the involuntary associate of a gay by these respondents. Relatively tolerant respondents engaged in no courtesy stigmatization at all. Thus, courtesy stigmatization occurred only under circumscribed conditions and appeared to depend more on the tendency of highly intolerant individuals to infer that a male student who apparently liked a gay individual was himself gay than on a motivation to maintain cognitive consistency.

A Bird of a Different Feather? An Experimental Investigation of Physical Attractiveness and the Electability of Female Candidates

An experimental study assessed whether a female candidates chance of being elected would be affected by her physical attractiveness. Subjects read a biographical description of a candidate and were shown one of three differentially attractive photographs of her; all these materials, including the photos, depicted an actual candidate for Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court who had undergone a dramatic change in personal appearance. The candidate was also described as having highly feminine or masculine sex-role traits or androgynous traits, with subjects in a control condition receiving no such trait descriptions. Analysis revealed that even though the candidates physical attractiveness had no direct impact on her appeal to voters, it did exercise powerful indirect effects mediated by her perceived femininity, dynamism, niceness and age.

The effect of causal information on peer perceptions of children with physical problems

Abstract To test attributional hypotheses about the relationship between perceptions that a problem is uncontrollable and pasitive affective responses to the problems bearer, children in kindergarten/first grade and fourth/fifth grade heard descriptions of obese and wheelchair-bound girls and learned that the cause of each condition was either uncontrollable (disease vs. birth defect vs. parental malfeasance) or unknown. The provision of low-responsibility information reduced the tendency, even in young children, to hold victims responsible for having problems and for correcting them. However, it did not alter their liking for the target children because affective response was more a function of the nature of a problem than its perceived cause.

Research on Community Residential Alternatives for the Mentally Retarded

Publisher Summary Negative attitudes toward the mentally retarded and facilities for them exist, as evidenced by attitude surveys and as witnessed by the expediences of residential facilities. This chapter presents some community residential alternatives for the mentally retarded. It provides an outline of the history of the institutionalization movement. The chapter also describes the status of the empirical knowledge and the ideological undergirding of the movement from publicly supported residential facilities (PRF) toward the community residential facilities (CRF). The research relating to the successful placement of the retarded in the community is also reviewed and critiqued. Research studies on deinstitutionalization have greater methodological and political challenges than that ordinarily reported issues in the area are amenable to empirical investigation. The investigation, more than most, has practical applications that are likely to influence public policy towards the mentally retarded.

The Public and the Paradox of Leadership: An Experimental Analysis

It is commonplace for elected officials to be criticized for failing to exercise strong, independent leadership and also for being unresponsive to the wishes of the public. This study presents an experimental analysis of the sometimes contradictory expectations that citizens have of public officials. The experimental stimuli describe a decision-making situation in which an officeholder must decide whether to act on personal wishes on a controversial measure or as the majority of constituents wish. Several aspects of the situation, including the officials ultimate decision, the rationale underlying the decision, the nature of the officials office, and the character of the issue, are manipulated, and the citizens level of generalized trust in political leaders is also taken into account. Analysis focuses on the extent to which these contextual factors shape evaluations of the official and his or her actions and perceptions of the typicality of the officials actions.

Rich Man, Poor Man: Developmental Differences in Attributions and Perceptions.

In an examination guided by cognitive developmental and attribution theory of how explanations of wealth and poverty and perceptions of rich and poor people change with age and are interrelated, 6-, 10-, and 14-year-olds (N=88) were asked for their causal attributions and trait judgments concerning a rich man and a poor man. First graders, like older children, perceived the rich man as more competent than the poor man. However, they had difficulty in explaining wealth and poverty, especially poverty, and their trait perceptions were associated primarily with their attributions of wealth to job status, education, and luck. Fifth and ninth graders more clearly attributed wealth and poverty to the equity factors of ability and effort and based their trait perceptions on these attributions. Although the use of structured attribution questions revealed more understanding among young children than previous studies have suggested, the findings suggest a shift with age in the underlying bases for differential evaluation of rich and poor people from a focus on good outcomes associated with wealth (a good education and job) to a focus on personal qualities responsible for wealth (ability and effort).

Collective Identity and Intergroup Prejudice among Jewish and Arab Students in the United States.

Relationships between indicators of collective identity (collective self-esteem, religious involvement, and involvement in ethnic organizations) and prejudice toward the other-group were examined in a sample of Jewish and Arab students in the United States. Contrary to expectations, collective identity variables were largely unrelated to prejudice among the Jewish students, although the Jewish students who expressed the least amount of anti-Arab sentiment were those who were the most religious. As expected, the Arab students who (a) had low public collective self-esteem and (b) were highly involved in religious and ethnic organizations tended to be the most prejudiced. The findings for Arab students, in particular, contradict findings obtained in the laboratory, using the minimal intergroup paradigm, and suggest that individuals who are highly involved in in-group activities but believe their group is not viewed favorably by others may derogate the members of a salient out-group in an attempt to acquire a more positive social identity.