Psychology Commons^™

The Impact Of Imagined Reactions On Feelings About Disclosing Stigmatized Vs. Non-Stigmatized Beliefs, David Briley

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Past research has shown that people tend to conceal some aspects of their status (e.g., HIV positive diagnosis, homosexual orientation) because they fear that they will be stigmatized (Chaudoir, 2009), however little to no research exists regarding the divulgence of beliefs that may be stigmatized (e.g., belief in Bigfoot, ghosts, unconventional religious beliefs). My thesis extends research on concealable stigmatized status to research on stigmatized beliefs, by examining the degree to which people’s feelings about disclosure of stigmatized beliefs are impacted by anticipated responses from other people. I investigated this issue by asking participants to write about either a conventional …