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Responses to the Stigmatized: Disjunctions in Affect, Cognitions, and Behavior
Author(s) -
Bromgard Gregg,
Stephan Walter G.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00111.x
Subject(s) - conversation , psychology , affect (linguistics) , ambivalence , social psychology , cognition , developmental psychology , communication , neuroscience
This study examined affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to members of a stigmatized group – homosexual men. Male participants were placed in a situation in which they anticipated interacting with a gray or a non‐stigmatized conversation partner. The topic of the impending conversation was either potentially threatening or non‐threatening. Participants in the gay conversation partner condition sat either farther away from the conversation partner (in the threat condition) or closer to the conversation partner (in the no‐threat condition) than they did from non‐stigmatized conversation partners. There were no differences in attitudes toward the conversation partner as a function of experimental condition. The results were interpreted in terms of predictions based on ambivalence‐amplification theory, aversive racism theory, and the integrated threat theory.