Cheryl R. Kaiser

A theoretical perspective on coping with stigma

Stigmatized people have a vast array of responses to stressors resulting from their devalued social status, including emotional, cognitive, biological, and behavioral responses. This article uses existing theory and research on general stress and coping responses to describe responses to stigma-related stressors and to discuss the adaptiveness of these responses.

Stop Complaining! The Social Costs of Making Attributions to Discrimination

Recent research indicates that stigmatized people may avoid claims of discrimination because such attributions are costly in terms of perceived control over outcomes and social self-esteem. The authors hypothesized that minimization of discrimination also occurs in part because negative social costs accompany attributions to discrimination. In Experiment 1, an African American who attributed a failing test grade to discrimination was perceived as a complainer and was less favorably evaluated in general than was an African American who attributed his failure to the quality of his test answers. This overall devaluation occurred regardless of the objective likelihood that discrimination occurred. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and revealed that this devaluation generally occurred only when the target made discrimination attributions, not when he made other external attributions. The social costs of making attributions to discrimination may prevent stigmatized people from confronting the discrimination they face in their daily lives.

It's Not My Fault: When and Why Attributions to Prejudice Protect Self-Esteem:

This study tested the hypothesis that awareness of the possibility of being a target of discrimination can provide individuals with a means of self-esteem protection when they are faced with negative outcomes. Men and women contemplated being rejected from a course due to sexism, personal deservingness, or an exclusively external cause. Regardless of gender, participants in the sexism condition blamed themselves less, attributed the rejection less to internal causes, and anticipated feeling less depressed than those in the personal deservingness condition. Furthermore, the more participants discounted the rejection—blamed it more on discrimination than themselves—the less depressed emotions they anticipated feeling. Discounting did not buffer participants from feeling hostility or anxiety. These findings advance our understanding of when and why attributions to prejudice protect emotional well-being.

Prejudice Expectations Moderate Preconscious Attention to Cues That Are Threatening to Social Identity

Two studies examined whether chronic and situational expectations about being stigmatized predict attention toward cues that are threatening to social identity. In Study 1, womens chronic expectations about experiencing sexism were positively associated with their attention toward subliminal cues threatening to their social identity. In Study 2, women were vigilant toward subliminal cues threatening to their social identity when the experimental situation conveyed that their gender was devalued, but not when the experimental situation promoted value and respect for their gender. Women were vigilant toward consciously presented cues threatening to their social identity regardless of the attitudes the experimental context conveyed toward their group. These studies have important theoretical and practical implications for understanding the psychological experience of possessing a devalued social identity.

A Stress and Coping Perspective on Confronting Sexism

In this study we tested a stress and coping model of confronting sexism. One hundred fourteen university women completed measures of optimism, cognitive appraisals about the prospects of confronting discrimination (expectations of the costs and benefits of confrontation as well as confrontation-related anxiety), and reported on the extent to which they behaved confrontationally in two recent encounters with sexism. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that an optimistic outlook on life was associated with more more benign appraisals of the consequences of confronting discrimination, which in turn was associated with greater reports of confrontational responses to prejudice. This study suggests that silence in the face of prejudice does not necessarily or generally represent contentment with the status quo and emphasizes the importance of understanding how appraisals of the costs and benefits of confronting discrimination relate to this process.

Why Are Attributions to Discrimination Interpersonally Costly? A Test of System- and Group-Justifying Motivations

In two studies, Whites’ endorsement of system-justifying beliefs predicted increased negativity toward Blacks who blamed negative events on discrimination. Whites’ system-justifying beliefs were not associated with negativity toward Blacks who blamed negative events on other internal causes, external causes, or nondiscriminatory unfairness. These negative reactions toward discrimination claimants were mediated by perceptions that the claimant held dissimilar values and failed to take personal responsibility for outcomes. In both studies, participants’ White Identification did not moderate the relationship between the Black target’s attribution for failure and subsequent negative perceptions of that individual, thus providing evidence against a group-justification explanation of these findings.

Reacting to Impending Discrimination: Compensation for Prejudice and Attributions to Discrimination

This experiment tested the hypothesis that stigmatized people attempt to compensate for or overcome the effects of prejudice on social interactions. In an adaptation of Ruggiero and Taylor’s minimization of discrimination design, the authors informed 134 women either prior to or after completing a task that there was some chance that a prejudiced man would evaluate them. The women who were forewarned about prejudice compensated for this threat by distancing themselves from traditional feminine stereotypes relative to the women who learned about prejudice only after the experimental task was completed. However, the overall impression created by the women who were forewarned about prejudice suffered in this process. In addition, the authors did not replicate the minimization of discrimination finding. Regardless of when the women learned about prejudice, those who faced certain and possible prejudice were equally likely to attribute failing feedback to discrimination.

Expectations about the Future and the Emotional Consequences of Perceiving Prejudice

Three studies tested the hypothesis that possessing a pessimistic outlook on life moderates the effects of perceiving sexism on emotions and self-esteem. Across all studies, a pessimistic outlook on life (either dispositionally held or experimentally induced) served as a source of emotional vulnerability among women (Studies 1-3) and men (Study 1) faced with evidence of sexism directed against their gender group. Study 3 demonstrated that one’s outlook on life influences emotional adjustment to prejudice through the cognitive appraisal process. Relative to optimists, pessimists appraised sexism as more stressful and believed they possessed fewer resources for coping with it. This research emphasizes the importance of examining sources of vulnerability and resilience in understanding emotional responses to prejudice.

Prejudice and self-esteem: A transactional model

This paper reviews three theoretical models of how prejudice affects the self-esteem of its targets. The stimulus-response model assumes that prejudice has a direct, negative effect on self-esteem. The stimulus-perception-response model recognises that perceptions of prejudice may not directly mirror experiences with prejudice, but predicts that the subjective perception of being a target of prejudice has a direct, negative effect on self-esteem. Both of these models are found to be inadequate. We propose a third, transactional model, which assumes that individuals do not respond in uniform way to being the target of prejudice. Rather, this model contends that self-esteem and emotional responses to prejudice are determined by cognitive appraisals of prejudicial events and coping strategies used in response to these events; these processes, in turn, are shaped by personal, situational, and structural factors. Experiments are presented showing that self-esteem in response to perceived prejudice is moderated by presence or absence of threats to personal identity, clarity of prejudices cues in the situation, ingroup identification, dispositional optimism, endorsement of legitimising ideologies, and group status. We argue that a transactional model of responses to prejudice emphasises sources of resistance as well as vulnerability among targets of prejudice.

Dominant ideology threat and the interpersonal consequences of attributions to discrimination

Contents: Preface. C. van Laar, S. Levin, The Experience of Stigma: Individual, Interpersonal, and Situational Influences. Part I: Confronting, Concealing, and Coping: Responses to Stigma. C.T. Miller, Social Psychological Perspectives on Coping With Stressors Related to Stigma. C.R. Kaiser, Dominant Ideology Threat and the Interpersonal Consequences of Attributions to Discrimination. J.N. Shelton, J.A. Richeson, J. Salvatore, D.M. Hill, Silence Is Not Golden: The Intrapersonal Consequences of Not Confronting Prejudice. D.M. Quinn, Concealable Versus Conspicuous Stigmatized Indentities. J.K. Swim, M.A. Thomas, Responding to Everyday Discrimination: A Synthesis of Research on Goal Directed, Self-Regulatory Coping Behaviors. Part II: Stigma in the Social Context: Coping With Threatening Environments. M. Inzlicht, C. Good, How Environments Can Threaten Academic Performance, Self-Knowledge, and Sense of Belonging. R. Mendoza-Denton, E. Page-Gould, J. Pietrzak, Mechanisms for Coping With Status-Based Rejection Expectations. L.R. Troop, Stigma and Intergroup Contact Among Members of Minority and Majority Status Groups. B. Major, New Perspectives on Stigma and Psychological Well-Being. Part III: Stigma and the Social Basis of the Self. T. McLaughlin-Volpe, Understanding Stigma From the Perspective of the Self-Expansion Model. S. Sinclair, J. Huntsinger, The Interpersonal Basis of Self-Stereotyping. T. Schmader, B. Lickel, Stigma and Shame: Emotional Responses to the Stereotypic Actions of Ones Ethnic Ingroup. J. Crocker, J.A. Garcia, Stigma and the Social Basis of the Self: A Synthesis.Contents: Preface. C. van Laar, S. Levin, The Experience of Stigma: Individual, Interpersonal, and Situational Influences. Part I: Confronting, Concealing, and Coping: Responses to Stigma. C.T. Miller, Social Psychological Perspectives on Coping With Stressors Related to Stigma. C.R. Kaiser, Dominant Ideology Threat and the Interpersonal Consequences of Attributions to Discrimination. J.N. Shelton, J.A. Richeson, J. Salvatore, D.M. Hill, Silence Is Not Golden: The Intrapersonal Consequences of Not Confronting Prejudice. D.M. Quinn, Concealable Versus Conspicuous Stigmatized Indentities. J.K. Swim, M.A. Thomas, Responding to Everyday Discrimination: A Synthesis of Research on Goal Directed, Self-Regulatory Coping Behaviors. Part II: Stigma in the Social Context: Coping With Threatening Environments. M. Inzlicht, C. Good, How Environments Can Threaten Academic Performance, Self-Knowledge, and Sense of Belonging. R. Mendoza-Denton, E. Page-Gould, J. Pietrzak, Mechanisms for Coping With Status-Based Rejection Expectations. L.R. Troop, Stigma and Intergroup Contact Among Members of Minority and Majority Status Groups. B. Major, New Perspectives on Stigma and Psychological Well-Being. Part III: Stigma and the Social Basis of the Self. T. McLaughlin-Volpe, Understanding Stigma From the Perspective of the Self-Expansion Model. S. Sinclair, J. Huntsinger, The Interpersonal Basis of Self-Stereotyping. T. Schmader, B. Lickel, Stigma and Shame: Emotional Responses to the Stereotypic Actions of Ones Ethnic Ingroup. J. Crocker, J.A. Garcia, Stigma and the Social Basis of the Self: A Synthesis.