You're Just Saying That Because I'm a Woman: Stigma Consciousness and Attributions to Discrimination

This study adds to tests of the construct validity of stigma consciousness by asking if people high in stigma consciousness demonstrate a greater tendency than people low in stigma consciousness to make attributions to discrimination. In a study that approached this question from both an individual difference and a situational perspective, women high or low in stigma consciousness made attributions for a negative evaluation, ostensibly written by a male peer. Under control conditions, women low in trait stigma consciousness demonstrated less of a tendency to make attributions to discrimination than women high in trait stigma consciousness. When they experienced a situationally induced increase in stigma consciousness, however, participants low in trait stigma consciousness demonstrated just as great a tendency to make attributions to discrimination as their high stigma conscious counterparts. The results provide further validation for the stigma consciousness construct, and raise questions about who benefits from attributions to discrimination.