Social psychologists have long been interested in understanding the causes and consequences of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination. In documenting the causes of intergroup conflict, researchers have also identified strategies for reducing prejudiced attitudes, negative stereotypes and discrimination by perceivers when they interact with stigmatized individuals. Previous research on prejudice reduction has only examined the effectiveness of a given strategy when implemented through a controlled manipulation of the social context by a third party. Consequently, we know very little about how to reduce prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination in the absence of these situational antecedents. This project focuses on prejudice reduction processes, and specifically seeks to answer the question: What can a stigmatized individual do to reduce a perceiver's prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination during a one-on-one interaction? The goal of the proposed research is to test a new theory called the Target Empowerment Model (TEM) that describes the nature of prejudice reduction when stigmatized targets take an active role as influence agents attempting to change bias against them and their group. The TEM combines literatures on prejudice reduction and persuasion to test three hypotheses which include the following: (1) Stigmatized individuals can use subtle "passive" prejudice reduction strategies as effectively as non-stigmatized sources to reduce bias, and these effects are mediated by decreased accessibility of negative attitudes, lower feelings of threat, and more objective elaboration of the target; (2) Stigmatized targets will be less effective than non-stigmatized sources at using explicit, "active" strategies for reducing bias; (3) Active strategies can be used effectively by stigmatized targets to change bias when they are preceded by the early use of a passive strategy such as an "icebreaker". Eight experiments will be conducted over three years to investigate when and how stigmatized targets (e.g., gay males) can use passive and active influence strategies to reduce prejudice against themselves and against their group. The proposed research aims to explain how members of stigmatized groups can employ strategies to minimize the impact of others' prejudices against them individually as well as to change others' beliefs about their stigmatized groups.
