Concealing to Belong, Revealing to be Known: Classification Expectations and Self-threats Among Persons with Concealable Stigmas

Abstract

Whereas a large body of research examines the interpersonal stressors associated with revealing a stigmatized identity to others, comparatively little work documents the intrapsychic stressors associated with concealing a stigmatized identity from others. In two studies of persons with concealable stigmas (nerds in Study 1, gay men and lesbians in Study 2), we found support for a model in which behaviors that reveal a stigmatized identity to others lead to expectations of accurate classification as stigmatized, and behaviors that conceal a stigmatized identity lead to expectations of misclassification as nonstigmatized. In turn, expectations of accurate classification threaten stigmatized people's need for belonging (positive social connections), and expectations of misclassification threaten their need for coherence (feedback that confirms their stable self-views).

Keywords:

• Stigma
• Social identity
• Self-threats
• Belonging
• Coherence

Notes

1. This analysis also yielded a significant three-way interaction of Participant Sex, Behavior Type, and Threat Type, F(1, 188) = 5.20, p < .03. Inspection of the three-way interaction revealed that the Behavior-by-Threat interaction was significant, and followed the same pattern as described in the text, among both gay men, F(1, 85) = 148.13, p < .001, and lesbians, F(1, 103) = 318.20, p < .001. The three-way interaction seemed to reflect the fact that gay men, as compared to lesbians, reported stronger belonging threats, F(1, 188) = 3.85, p = .05, and stronger coherence threats, F(1, 188) = 23.67, p < .001, during homosexual behaviors.