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Longevity increased by positive self-perceptions of aging.

This research found that older individuals with more positive self-perceptions of aging, measured up to 23 years earlier, lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive self-perceptions of aging. This advantage remained after age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness, and functional health were included as covariates. It was also found that this effect is partially mediated by will to live. The sample consisted of 660 individuals aged 50 and older who participated in a community-based survey, the Ohio Longitudinal Study of Aging and Retirement (OLSAR). By matching the OLSAR to mortality data recently obtained from the National Death Index, the authors were able to conduct survival analyses. The findings suggest that the self-perceptions of stigmatized groups can influence longevity.

Aged↗

Construing action abstractly and blurring social distinctions: implications for perceiving homogeneity among, but also empathizing with and helping, others.

Most people's actions serve goals that, defined abstractly enough, are quite similar to one another. The authors thus proposed, and found, that construing action in abstract (vs. concrete) terms relates to perceiving greater similarity among persons both within and across different social groups (Studies 1-3). By fostering perspective taking, viewing action abstractly also related to empathizing with and expressing willingness to help nonstigmatized and stigmatized others (e.g., AIDS patients; Studies 3-5) and to donating money to help those in need (Study 6). These findings held when controlling for ideological, motivational, and broad personality variables. Abstract action construals, then, appear to blur social distinctions, fostering perspective taking and empathy on the one hand but also perceptions of group homogeneity on the other.

Adolescent↗

Optimism in children's judgments of health and environmental risks.

Although optimistic bias has been well documented for adults, little is known about how children view their own risks vis-à-vis those of their peers. Two studies of 6th graders examined optimism and the degree of differentiation in perceived risks across diverse health, lifestyle, and environmental problems. The findings revealed perceptions of relative invulnerability and highly differentiated risk assessments. The strongest levels of optimism emerged for controllable and stigmatizing events such as illicit drugs, smoking, and AIDS. The effects of gender, assessment context, and methodological variations were minimal. Discussion focused on the implications for health-promoting interventions with school-age children, the need for developmental information about risk perception processes, and the difficulty of distinguishing realistic from biased optimism.

Adolescent↗

Interpersonal concerns and psychological difficulties of psoriasis patients: effects of disease severity and fear of negative evaluation.

Psoriasis creates interpersonal difficulties for many sufferers, but little research has examined factors that contribute to the degree of social and psychological disability that a particular person experiences. In all, 318 psoriasis patients completed measures of psychological and social well-being, the severity of their psoriasis, and their dispositional level of fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Analyses showed that disease severity and FNE significantly predicted perceptions of being stigmatized, interpersonal discomfort, stress over others' reactions, distress regarding the observable symptoms of the disease, the degree to which psoriasis interfered with the patients' lives, and patients' quality of life. Furthermore, FNE exerted a particularly strong influence for patients who had severe cases of psoriasis.

Adolescent↗

Trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology: patterns among American Indian adolescents in substance abuse treatment.

In this study the authors examined the prevalence and correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma symptomatology among a sample of 89 American Indian adolescents in a residential substance abuse treatment program. These youths reported an average of 4.1 lifetime traumas, with threat of injury and witnessing injury being most common; molestation, rape, and sexual attack were least common. Approximately 10% of participants met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for full PTSD, and about 14% met the criteria for subthreshold PTSD. Molestation (including rape and sexual attack), experiencing 6 or more traumas, and a diagnosis of abuse of or dependence on stimulants were significantly associated with PTSD. Findings indicated that trauma was a pervasive phenomenon among this population, with sexual traumas being particularly stigmatizing, resulting in high rates of posttraumatic symptomatology, specifically PTSD.

Adolescent↗

An implicit test of the associations between children and sex in pedophiles.

Pedophiles are motivated to disguise their thoughts and feelings about their sexual beliefs and attraction toward children. New developments using implicit measures of associations have been successful in accessing socially stigmatic beliefs, even in cases in which the participant is resistant to this disclosure. Using an implicit measure, the authors show that pedophiles have an association between children and sex, whereas nonpedophilic offenders have an association between adults and sex. The task can therefore identify a core cognitive abnormality that may underpin some pedophilic deviant sexual behavior.

Adult↗

A diagnostic-ratio approach to measuring beliefs about the leadership abilities of male and female managers.

This study departed from previous research on gender stereotyping in the leadership domain by adopting a more comprehensive view of leadership and using a diagnostic-ratio measurement strategy. One hundred and fifty-one managers (95 men and 56 women) judged the leadership effectiveness of male and female middle managers by providing likelihood ratings for 14 categories of leader behavior. As expected, the likelihood ratings for some leader behaviors were greater for male managers, whereas for other leader behaviors, the likelihood ratings were greater for female managers or were no different. Leadership ratings revealed some evidence of a same-gender bias. Providing explicit verification of managerial success had only a modest effect on gender stereotyping. The merits of adopting a probabilistic approach in examining the perception and treatment of stigmatized groups are discussed.

Adult↗

Childhood and adolescent sexual abuse of community women: mediated effects on psychological distress and social relationships.

Possible mediators of sexual abuse severity were tested on the basis of D. Finkelhor and A. Browne's (1985) traumagenic dynamics model with 178 low-income African American, European American, and Mexican American community women interviewed for Project HOW: Health Outcomes of Women. This subsample reported contact sexual abuse before the age of 18 years. Severity was level of force, number of perpetrators, relationship to perpetrator, and age at first assault. As expected, structural equation modeling showed powerlessness, and stigmatization largely mediated the effects of sexual abuse severity on women's psychological distress in adulthood. Powerlessness also mediated the effects of severity on maladaptive social relationships. The expected path from betrayal to relationships was nonsignificant. Overall, the results support extension of D. Finkelhor and A. Browne's model. Possible interventions are addressed.

Adolescent↗

Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity.

Although research has shown that priming negative stereotypes leads to lower performance among stigmatized individuals, little is understood about the cognitive mechanism that accounts for these effects. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that stereotype threat interferes with test performance because it reduces individuals' working memory capacity. Results show that priming self-relevant negative stereotypes reduces women's (Experiment 1) and Latinos' (Experiment 2) working memory capacity. The final study revealed that a reduction in working memory capacity mediates the effect of stereotype threat on women's math performance (Experiment 3). Implications for future research on stereotype threat and working memory are discussed.

Adult↗

Clearing the air: identity safety moderates the effects of stereotype threat on women's leadership aspirations.

Exposing participants to gender-stereotypic TV commercials designed to elicit the female stereotype, the present research explored whether vulnerability to stereotype threat could persuade women to avoid leadership roles in favor of nonthreatening subordinate roles. Study 1 confirmed that exposure to the stereotypic commercials undermined women's aspirations on a subsequent leadership task. Study 2 established that varying the identity safety of the leadership task moderated whether activation of the female stereotype mediated the effect of the commercials on women's aspirations. Creating an identity-safe environment eliminated vulnerability to stereotype threat despite exposure to threatening situational cues that primed stigmatized social identities and their corresponding stereotypes.

Adult↗

On the categorization of admired and disliked exemplars of admired and disliked racial groups.

The present work examined the influence of affective fit in the racial categorization process. Study 1 tested whether famous exemplars of stigmatized and nonstigmatized racial groups are categorized by race at differential rates, depending on whether they are admired or disliked. Using an inverted-face paradigm, Study 2 examined whether racial categorization accuracy differs for admired and disliked exemplars of these groups. Study 3 examined the influence of collective self-esteem on Whites' tendency to differentially categorize admired and disliked Black and White exemplars. Last, Study 4 replicated the pattern of results found in the previous studies for White participants, making use of unknown exemplars about whom participants learned either positive or negative information prior to categorizing them. Taken together, the results suggested that phenotypically irrelevant affective information regarding exemplars and their social group memberships influences the racial categorization process. Implications for prejudice and stereotyping are discussed.

Ethnicity↗

Role rigidity: a problem of identity misclassification?

When nonstigmatized individuals enact certain role-violating behaviors, they risk becoming "falsely accused deviants" (H. S. Becker, 1963, p. 20). For instance, when heterosexual men perform stereotypically feminine behaviors, they are liable to get misclassified as homosexual. Findings presented here reveal that expectations of identity misclassification fuel nonstigmatized individuals' negative reactions to role violations (Studies 1-2) and that using a disclaimer--that is, informing their audience of their nonstigmatized identity--assuages people's discomfort during a role-violating behavior (Studies 3-4). Moreover, when not concerned about being misclassified, nonstigmatized individuals benefit psychologically from the enactment of a challenging role violation (Study 4). Discussion considers the nature of the threat that misclassified role violators face and compares the plight of the falsely accused deviant to that of the truly stigmatized individual.

Adolescent↗

"I am us": negative stereotypes as collective threats.

Collective threat is the fear that an in-group member's behavior might reinforce a negative stereotype of one's group. In a field study, self-reported collective threat was higher in stereotyped minorities than in Whites and was linked to lower self-esteem in both groups. In 3 experimental studies, a potentially poor performance by an in-group member on a stereotype-relevant task proved threatening, as evidenced by lower self-esteem among minority students in 2 experiments and women in a 3rd experiment. The latter study demonstrated the generality of collective threat. Collective threat also undermined academic performance and affected self-stereotyping, stereotype activation, and physical distancing from the in-group member. Results further suggest that group identification plays a role in whether people use an avoidance or challenge strategy in coping with collective threat. Implications for theories of social identity and stigmatization are discussed.

Achievement↗

Contingencies of self-worth.

Research on self-esteem has focused almost exclusively on level of trait self-esteem to the neglect of other potentially more important aspects such as the contingencies on which self-esteem is based. Over a century ago, W. James (1890) argued that self-esteem rises and falls around its typical level in response to successes and failures in domains on which one has staked self-worth. We present a model of global self-esteem that builds on James' insights and emphasizes contingencies of self-worth. This model can help to (a) point the way to understanding how self-esteem is implicated in affect, cognition, and self-regulation of behavior; (b) suggest how and when self-esteem is implicated in social problems; (c) resolve debates about the nature and functioning of self-esteem; (d) resolve paradoxes in related literatures, such as why people who are stigmatized do not necessarily have low self-esteem and why self-esteem does not decline with age; and (e) suggest how self-esteem is causally related to depression. In addition, this perspective raises questions about how contingencies of self-worth are acquired and how they change, whether they are primarily a resource or a vulnerability, and whether some people have noncontingent self-esteem.

Humans↗

In their own words: trauma and substance abuse in the lives of formerly homeless women with serious mental illness.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 formerly homeless mentally ill women to capture their individual life trajectories of mental illness, substance abuse, and trauma in their own words. Cross-case analyses produced 5 themes: (a) betrayals of trust, (b) graphic or gratuitous nature of traumatic events, (c) anxiety about leaving their immediate surroundings (including attending group treatment programs), (d) desire for one's own space, and (e) gender-related status loss and stigmatization. Findings suggest formerly homeless mentally ill women need (and want) autonomy, protection from further victimization, and assistance in restoring status and devalued identity. Avenues for intervention include enhanced provider training, addressing experiences of betrayal and trauma, and more focused attention to current symptoms rather than previous diagnoses.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Adoption and mental health: a theoretical critique of the psychopathological model.

The extant research on adoption and mental health is reviewed, and an alternative interactionist perspective is offered that acknowledges the social embeddedness of experiences of adoption and infertility. While cultural factors enter into the etiology and medical definition of all mental health problems, the particular importance of considering cultural components when addressing the needs of individuals who hold a stigmatized social status is emphasized.

Adoption↗

The national lesbian family study: 1. interviews with prospective mothers.

This first report from a longitudinal study of 84 lesbian families, 70 of which include a co-mother as well as a birthmother whose child was conceived by donor insemination, presents interview data on parental relationships, social supports, pregnancy motives and preferences, stigmatization concerns, and coping strategies. Methodological limitations of studying this special population are noted, and plans for follow-up interviews over the course of 25 years are outlined.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

The enemy within: a commentary on the demonization of difference.

Ways in which the poor and the powerless, women in particular, have been made the focus of rhetoric aimed at the undoing of the federal welfare system are described. The stigmatizing of poor, single mothers as a means of diverting attention from recent substantial shifts in wealth in the U.S. is examined, and it is suggested that the essential problem is not the character and habits of poor women but the persistence of poverty as a fundamental structure of the society.

Aid to Families with Dependent Children↗