Advice and Competition as Contributors to Stigma: Attitudes Towards Autism Across Cultures

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Goffman (1968) defines a stigma as, “any physical or social attribute or sign that so devalues an actor’s social identity as to disqualify him or her from ‘full social acceptance’.” Public stigma has been attached to mental disorders including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; Link & Phelan, 2001). Previous research has demonstrated cross cultural differences in explicit stigma towards ASD (Obeid et al., 2015), but no studies to date have explored differences across cultures in implicit stigma. In the current study, we investigated the difference in implicit stigma between Ireland and China and explored whether several cultural factors were related to the implicit stigma associated with ASD. The participants included 112 individuals from China and 150 individuals from Ireland who were recruited through Lightspeed GMI.
Participants first completed an Implicit Association Task. This task was created to gauge implicit associations by assessing the reaction times of participants as they perform category pairings (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000). For the Implicit Association Task associated with this study, participants were asked to pair symptoms of ASD (i.e., Repetitive body movements, Lack of interest in others, Limited eye contact, Preference for routines, Intense focus on parts of objects) with good (e.g., love, joy, pleasure, peace, happy) and bad (e.g., terrible, angry, evil, hate, sad) terms. Participants also completed a survey that included the Auckland Individualism Collectivism (AIC) Scale (i.e. a measure of individualism and collectivism), the Autism Awareness Survey (i.e. a measure of knowledge of ASD), and demographic questions, including gender and age.
The improved d score algorithm was used to score the Implicit Association Task, and all 5 subscales of the AIC were created. The AIC scale consists of three scales related to individualism (i.e. competition, uniqueness, and responsibility) and two scales related to collectivism (i.e. advice and harmony).
An independent t test was computed to compare d scores between individuals in China and Ireland. Participants from China (M = -0.15; SD = 0.34) showed significantly more negative associations with ASD than participants from Ireland (M = 0.10; SD = 0.30), t(260) = -6.40, p < .001. Pearson product moment correlations were computed to explore relationships of implicit stigma with knowledge of ASD and the 5 subscales of the AIC scale (Table 1). Participants who scored higher on the advice and competition dimensions of the AIC showed significantly heightened levels of stigma. Whereas knowledge of ASD was significantly correlated with lower levels of stigma. Finally, participant age was associated with more negative attitudes towards ASD. This seems to suggest that cultural ideals may play a part in cultivating both implicit and explicit stigma towards ASD. However, additional longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether these associations remain stable over time.

Authors

• Alexa McAllister, Clemson University
  Presenting Author

• Halle Freedman, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Bailey Grandits, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author