Collaborative Research: A Multi-Method Approach to Stigma and Status Processes

地位和污名是影响个人在社会团体中组织方式的基本因素。地位是一个社会过程，在这个过程中，群体中的人将自己和他人置于影响力和声望的等级中。污名是一种过程，社会团体的成员认为某些属性是不可信的，使那些拥有这些属性的人受到社会的排斥和排斥。对群体中的地位过程的研究已经确定了一些作为地位标志的属性，包括性别、种族、年龄和教育程度。对污名过程的研究还发现了一些使人蒙羞的特征，包括精神疾病和身体残疾。近几十年来，关于耻辱和地位的研究文献激增，但它们或多或少是独立运作的。例如，精神疾病和身体残疾没有出现在关于群体地位过程的研究中。反过来，对污名的研究通常不考虑与地位有关的结果，如影响力和绩效评估。研究人员将进行三项研究，以解决群体中身份和污名过程之间的趋同和背离。第一项研究是在马里兰大学完成的一项实验，旨在调查对先前研究中确定为身份标志(教育程度)的属性、被确定为污名化属性(各种精神疾病类别)以及在研究中被确定为身份和污名标志(种族)的属性的反应，以确定对这些属性的反应重叠和背离的方式。第二个项目将在哥伦比亚大学完成，它是关于对精神疾病患者的隐性态度的研究。与需要个人注意和控制的自我报告态度测量不同，内隐态度的表达是自发和无意的。隐性测量的主要优点是，它们有能力克服其他类型态度测量中常见的社会期望偏差。第三个项目是一项审计研究，以测试就业决策中与精神疾病状况和污名相关的结果。这项研究包括将求职申请发送到招聘列表，不同的申请是否说明有精神疾病史。通过使用多种方法以及代表这两种传统的变量和测量，这三项研究有可能显著推动关于地位和耻辱过程的独立研究文献的小组。这些研究也有能力为旨在减少精神疾病耻辱的干预计划提供信息。尽管最近有几次呼吁采取干预措施，以减少精神疾病的耻辱，但大多数干预措施都没有包括研究内容。由于成功可能性最高的干预措施将以基础研究为基础，而且由于基础不良的干预措施可能导致资源浪费和对我们减少污名的能力的悲观情绪，拟议的研究是对更多实用方法的重要补充，以消除精神疾病的污名。

Status and stigma are fundamental factors that influence the ways that individuals organize themselves in social groups. Status is a social process whereby persons in groups locate themselves and others in hierarchies of influence and prestige. Stigma is a process whereby members of social groups identify certain attributes as discrediting, subjecting those who possess them to social rejection and exclusion. Research on status processes in groups has identified a number of attributes that act as status markers, including gender, race, age, and education. Research on stigma processes has also identified a number of attributes that are stigmatizing, including mental illness and physical disability. The research literatures on stigma and status have both proliferated in recent decades, but they have operated more or less independently. Mental illness and physical disability, for example, are absent from research on status processes in groups. Research on stigma, in turn, does not typically attend to status-related outcomes such as influence and performance evaluations. The investigators will carry out three studies that address areas of convergence and departure between status and stigma processes in groups.The first study is an experiment to be completed at the University of Maryland to investigate responses to an attribute identified in prior research as a status marker (educational attainment), attributes identified as stigmatizing (various categories of mental illness), and an attribute identified in research as both a marker of status and stigma (race) in order to determine ways in which reactions to the attributes overlap and diverge. The second project, to be completed at Columbia University, is a study of implicit attitudes toward persons with mental illness. Unlike self-report measures of attitudes that require the attention and control of individuals, the expression of implicit attitudes is spontaneous and unintentional. The major advantage of implicit measures is that they have the capacity to overcome social desirability biases that are common in other types of attitude measures. The third project is an audit study to test for status- and stigma-related outcomes of mental illness in employment decisions. The study involves sending job applications to employment listings, varying whether the applications specify a history of mental illness.By employing multiple methodological approaches as well as variables and measures that represent both traditions, the three studies have the potential to significantly push forward the independent research literatures on both status and stigma processes in groups. The studies also have the capacity to inform intervention programs designed to reduce the stigma of mental illness. Although there have been several recent calls for interventions to reduce the stigma of mental illness, most of these interventions have not included a research component. Because the interventions with the highest likelihood of success will be grounded in basic research, and because poorly grounded interventions may result in wasted resources and pessimism about our ability to reduce stigma, the proposed studies represent an important complement to more applied approaches to eradicate the stigma of mental illness.