Living with a concealable stigmatized identity: The impact of anticipated stigma, centrality, salience, and cultural stigma on psychological distress and health

Anticipated stigma, identity centrality, salience and cultural stigma predicted distress among people with concealable identities.

Quinn, D. M. & Chaudoir, S. R. (2009). Living with a concealable stigmatized identity: The impact of anticipated stigma, centrality, salience, and cultural stigma on psychological distress and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(4), 634–651.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.1037/a0015815

Checked

Against the abstract, 16 September 2026

Why it is on the list

Three hundred people holding thirteen different concealable stigmatised identities, and then a second sample of 235. Four things predicted psychological distress: how much stigma a person anticipated, how central the identity was to their sense of themselves, how salient it was day to day, and how strongly the thing is culturally devalued. In the second study, anticipated stigma and cultural stigma were related directly to self-reported health outcomes.

Anticipated stigma means what you expect would happen if people knew. It is distinct from the effort of concealment or whether you have disclosed. Students keeping the same thing to themselves can anticipate different reactions from the people around them.

Week 10 uses anticipated stigma when considering the costs of both disclosure and concealment. The study does not establish how much distress would change if a person disclosed instead of keeping something private. The lecture’s ledger separates predicted consequences from costs already experienced. For institutions, it prompts a question: what makes students expect disclosure to be costly, and what can the institution change?