Stigma salience and paranoid social cognition: Understanding variability in metaperceptions among individuals with recently-acquired stigma

The present study examined the role of situational stigma salience on the cognitive processing of stigma-bearing targets and their resulting impressions of others during social interaction. Specifically, this study considered the impact of a just-acquired, concealable stigma and the extent to which the stigma is apparent to others during social interaction on metaperception and self-conscious concern. In two experiments, women role-played a lesbian sexual identity and evidenced reliably greater paranoid social cognition in the form of increased self-conscious concern, sinister attributions, and negative attitudinal metaperceptions. Experiment I showed that bearing a concealable stigma increased self-conscious concern and negative attitudinal metaperceptions. Experiment 2 replicated and extended the findings of Experiment 1, yielding evidence that self-conscious concern, negative attitudinal metaperceptions, and sinister attributions increased most when the stigma was disclosed during the social interaction, compared to when it remained concealed. Implications of these findings for the understanding of the stigmatization experience, as well as for future research on individuals with long-term stigmas are discussed.