John B. Pryor

Attractiveness of the underling: An automatic power → sex association and its consequences for sexual harassment and aggression.

One characteristic of men who sexually harass is that they are not aware that their actions are inappropriate or a misuse of their power (L. F. Fitzgerald, 1993a). We investigated the existence and automaticity of a mental association between the concepts of power and sex, and its consequences for sexual harassment tendencies. Using a subliminal priming paradigm, Experiment 1 demonstrated an automatic link between power and sex, and only for men high in the likelihood to sexually harass or aggress. In Experiment 2, male participants were unobtrusively primed with either power-related or neutral stimuli. For men likely to sexually aggress, but not other participants, attraction ratings of a female confederate were significantly higher in the power priming than the neutral priming condition.

Sexual harassment proclivities in men

Three studies were conducted to develop and validate a measure of sexual harassment proclivities in males. Previous studies of sexual harassment were reviewed and a gap in the current knowledge of the psychological characteristics of sexual harassers was revealed. A possible technique for studying sexual harassment proclivities was suggested by recent research on rape proclivities. Two initial studies using this technique found (1) that the likelihood of sexually harassing can be reliably measured and 2) that this measure correlated with related attitude and belief measures. The third study demonstrated that the likelihood of sexual harassment measure can predict sexual behaviors in a laboratory setting.

Stigma: Advances in Theory and Research

It has been 50 years since the publication of Goffmans influential work Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. This special issue celebrates Goffmans contribution with 14 articles reflecting the current state of the art in stigma research. In this article, we provide a theoretical overview of the stigma concept and offer a useful taxonomy of four types of stigma (public stigma, self-stigma, stigma by association, and structural stigma). We utilize this taxonomy to organize an overview of the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we outline new developments and challenges in stigma research for the coming decades.

The lay person's understanding of sexual harassment

The literature on how lay people interpret behavior as sexual harassment is reviewed. An attributional model of this interpretation process is proposed. An experiment testing some of the basic postulates of the attribution model is reported. The results of the experiment generally supported the attribution model.

A Social-Psychological Analysis of HIV-Related Stigma A Two-Factor Theory

Despite the best efforts of public health agencies, HIV/AIDS continues to carry a significant stigma in the general population. Research indicates that peoples negative reactions to persons with AIDS (PWAs) are due to their relatively automatic reactions to a disease that has become associated with death, promiscuity, drugs, and homosexuality. There is also evidence that more controlled or effortful information processing influences how people respond to PWAs. A model of HIV-related stigma is developed that assumes psychological reactions to stigmatized persons are governed by a primarily associative and a rule-based system, and that there is a temporal pattern such that initial reactions are governed by the associative system whereas subsequent reactions are governed by the rule-based system. Because associations to PWAs often are negative, relatively automatic reactions tend to be negative; however, if perceivers have enough time, motivation, and cognitive resources, they may adjust their initial reactions in a more positive direction. This theoretical model has general implications for understanding how any perceived stigma influences social cognition processes.

Interpretations of sexual harassment: An attributional analysis

Two studies were conducted to examine an attributional model of judgments of sexual harassment. The key assumption of the model is that judgments of sexual harassment involve the attribution of negative intentions (e.g., hostility or callousness) to an actor with regard to a sexual behavior. The two studies effectively demonstrated that many factors known to influence the attribution of intentionality play an important role in judgments of sexual harassment. The findings are discussed with regard to understanding how people differ in their judgments of sexual harassment.

Reducing AIDS-related stigma in developing countries : The importance of theory-and evidence-based interventions

In many developing countries persons living with HIV and AIDS experience strong stigma and discrimination, and AIDS-related stigma has an enormous negative impact on their social relationships, access to resources, and psychological well being. Moreover, AIDS-related stigma hampers HIV-related health promotion, including voluntary HIV counselling and testing. In this article, we will argue that programs to reduce AIDS-related stigma are most likely to be effective if these programs are based upon thorough needs assessments, theory- and evidence-based intervention strategies and collaborative planning. A protocol for health promotion programs design is outlined. Furthermore, psychosocial correlates of AIDS-related stigma in developing countries, social-psychological theories that might be useful in designing intervention strategies to reduce stigmatisation and successful elements of previous interventions aimed at stigma reduction are discussed. It is concluded that psychological theory does provide guidelines for the development of stigma-reducing intervention programs, but that such programs can only be effective when based upon context-specific needs assessment and collaborative planning.

Sexual Cognition Processes in Men High in the Likelihood to Sexually Harass

This research explored the cognitive processes that underlie sexual harassment proclivities in men. It was postulated that men who are high in the likelihood to sexually harass women (LS perceive a connection between sexuality and social dominance. Such a sexuality/dominance cognitive link was hypothesized to bias the processing of social information so as to create an illusory correlation between dominance and sexuality terms in a frequency estimation task. Male subjects viewed a series of word pairs in which sexuality and dominance terms were paired equally often with each other and with neutral control words. High-LSH subjects were more confident in their recognition of the sexuality-dominance pairs and estimated having seen them more frequently than low-LSH subjects. Cognitive and behavioral implications of a sexuality/dominance knowledge structure are discussed.

Stigma, Secrecy, and Discrimination: Ethnic/Racial Differences in the Concerns of People Living with HIV/AIDS

The HIV Stigma Scale is a measure that assesses stigmatization perceived and experienced by people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Using Item Response Theory (IRT) methodologies, the present study examined HIV Stigma Scale responses from 224 Black and 317 White PLWHA to determine whether cross-cultural differences exist in responses to items of the scale. IRT analysis revealed that eleven out of forty items functioned differently across groups. Black respondents had a higher probability of indicating greater stigmatization on items that described situations in which others discriminated against them, and White respondents had a higher probability of indicating greater stigmatization on items that described a resolve to keep their status a secret and fears of interpersonal rejection. These differences suggest that PLWHA have different experiences of stigma based on their ethnic/racial background, either because of cultural differences or the ways in which the participants interpreted items of the HIV Stigma Scale.

The Cognitive Organization of Social Information: A Converging Operations Approach.

Abstract : A neglected topic in social perception deals with how people organize the flow of information about the many individuals in their social environment. This flow of social information typically involves several items of information about each of several persons. The items about different persons are often arbitrarily intermixed in their temporal order of appearance. This paper questions the assumption that social information is automatically organized on a person-by-person basis, that the information items about each person are cognitively grouped into one person category that is separate from the other person categories. The notion that familiarity mediates this cognitive organization of person information was examined using a converging operations approach. Three distinct methodologies were used to study the relationship between familiarity and person organization: (1) a speeded sorting task; (2) a recognition reaction time task; and (3) a free recall task. Each of the three experiments demonstrated that this tendency to organize social information on a person-by-person basis was greater for familiar than for unfamiliar persons. Two of the three tasks provided evidence that social information is not organized by person when the stimulus persons are completely unfamiliar. (Author)