The thesis project (in progress) consists of two experiments that address the effects of a concealable stigma on individuals who bear stigma. This study considers the social-cognitive impact in terms of paranoid social cognition. The experiments involve role-playing in a simulated interview between a participant and experimental confederate (alleged other participant). Experiment 1 predicts that stigmatized individuals will show increased levels of paranoid social cognition. Experiment 2 predicts that the increased paranoid social cognition among stigmatized individuals will have a negative effect on task performance, particularly on more difficult tasks. Both experiments predict that the disclosure of the concealable stigma during social interaction, thus making the stigma more apparent to others, will increase paranoid social cognition and decrease task performance more than among individuals who keep the stigma concealed throughout social interaction. The study of the effects of disclosure of stigmatizing information has important implications for impression management strategies that span all social contexts from casual social interaction settings to more rigorous work domains that emphasize task performance outcomes.
