Concealment stigma: The social costs of concealing

Abstract

People with concealable stigmatized identities often conceal to avoid facing prejudice and discrimination. Yet, this strategy carries risk; concealment may engender social costs. Across five studies in which participants (total n = 1992) were recruited from an online pool (Prolific) and an institutional undergraduate pool, we found that people who conceal, relative to people who disclose, were viewed as less moral and sociable (Studies 1-2B) regardless of the identity being concealed (Studies 2A-2B), and that these effects were moderated by whether or not an outgroup identity was claimed in the course of concealment (Study 2C) and the motivation for concealment (Study 3). Results suggest that concealment is strongly stigmatized, a fact which places members of already-stigmatized groups in a challenging situation wherein they must risk either the stigma of their identity or that of concealment. Pre-registrations, materials, code, and data for all studies are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/g7zjw/.