Stigma Cues Increase Self-Conscious Emotions and Decrease Likelihood of Attention to Information about Preventing Stigmatized Health Issues

Abstract

Health communications are only effective if target audiences actually receive the messages. One potential barrier to effective health communication is the potential stigma of attending to health information, particularly for stigmatizing health issues. The purpose of the present paper was to examine when participants report self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame, embarrassment) in response to health communications, as well as likelihood of reading health information associated with these emotions. Across three studies, participants read information about preventing diseases that are either highly stigmatized or non-stigmatized. Increased accessibility of stigma cues by (a) manipulating the perceived absence vs. presence of others, or (b) measuring lower vs. higher rejection sensitivity resulted in increased self-conscious emotions in response to information about stigmatized health issues. In addition, stigma cues decreased the likelihood of reading information about stigmatized (but not non-stigmatized) health information. Implications for health outcomes and intervention design are discussed.

Keywords: Attention to Health Information; Emotional Response to Health Information; Self-conscious Emotions; Stigma Cues.

Figure 1

Self-reported self-conscious emotions following brochure titles about either stigmatizing or control health issues that either indicated the presence or absence of other people. Standard errors are represented in the figure by the error bars attached to each column.

Figure 2

Self-reported self-conscious emotions following scenarios about preventing either stigmatizing or control health issues that either indicated the presence or absence of other people, split for people who have high/low chronic sensitivity to stigma cues. For illustrative purposes, means on chronic sensitivity to stigma cues are plotted for participants who are one standard deviation above and below the mean. Standard errors are represented in the figure by the error bars attached to each column.

Figure 3

Self-reported self-consciousness (Panel A) and likelihood of attending to information (Panel B) in response to brochures about either stigmatizing or control health issues presented in either a public waiting room or a private exam room. Standard errors are represented in the figure by the error bars attached to each column.