How do Americans perceive the stigma of leprosy?

ABSTRACT

The stigma of leprosy will have reduced effects if people cannot reliably perceive it. Two factors impact these perceptions: familiarity and entitativity. One hundred and forty-five participants tested this assertion using an online platform to complete measures of stigma about leprosy as well as measures of familiarity and entitativity. The group of 145 completed the same measures of stigma, entitativity, and familiarity 1 week later. Standard deviations of time 1 and time 2 measures of stigma were used as indices of consistent (reliable) perceptions at the individual level. Results showed partial support for familiarity being positively associated with reliable responding. Moreover, high entitativity scores were associated with greater stigma perceptions at time 1 and time 2. Ongoing research on these indicators may be important in crafting future anti-stigma programs for leprosy.

KEYWORDS:

• Stigma
• leprosy
• entitativity
• familiarity

Review board approval

Institutional Review Board approval was obtained at the Illinois Institute of Technology for research involving human subjects (#IRB-2020-34).

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Malia Vallender for helping us format our reference list for this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.