Premium
Stereotypes of Sex Offenders’ Romantic Partners Predict Intent to Discriminate
Author(s) -
Plogher Tyler J.,
Stevenson Margaret C.,
McCracken Evan W.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/asap.12126
Subject(s) - psychology , social psychology , scrutiny , romance , harassment , ostracism , developmental psychology , political science , psychoanalysis , law
Registered sex offenders’ family members perceive themselves to be the direct targets of public scrutiny, ostracism, harassment, and employment discrimination. Study 1 offers a preliminary exploration of the stereotypes of registered sex offenders’ romantic partners. Participants’ open‐ended responses were coded and subjected to inter‐rater reliability, using a coding scheme that was both exploratory in nature, while also informed by theory and research. Partially supporting our hypotheses, participants primarily perceived sex offenders’ romantic partners as fearful, vulnerable, deviant, and mentally ill, but also as good, forgiving people who want to help reform the offender. In Study 2, we developed an attitudes toward sex offenders’ partners scale, designed to measure participants’ endorsement of stereotypes about offenders’ partners. As predicted, endorsement of negative stereotypes about offenders’ romantic partners (i.e., that they are deviant and predatory, as well as fearful and vulnerable) predicted greater support for sex offender legislation and less support for hiring offenders’ partners across a variety of employment contexts. Moreover, political conservatives were more likely than liberals to discriminate against offenders’ partners in job hiring contexts—an effect statistically explained by conservatives’ endorsement of negative stereotypes about offenders’ partners.