A comparison of three strategies for reducing the public stigma associated with stuttering

Publication Year
2016

Type

Journal Article
Abstract

Purpose

The effects of three anti-stigma strategies for stuttering—contact (hearing personal stories from an individual who stutters), education (replacing myths about stuttering with facts), and protest (condemning negative attitudes toward people who stutter)—were examined on attitudes, emotions, and behavioral intentions toward people who stutter.

Method

Two hundred and twelve adults recruited from a nationwide survey in the United States were randomly assigned to one of the three anti-stigma conditions or a control condition. Participants completed questionnaires about stereotypes, negative emotional reactions, social distance, discriminatory intentions, and empowerment regarding people who stutter prior to and after watching a video for the assigned condition, and reported their attitude changes about people who stutter. Some participants completed follow-up questionnaires on the same measures one week later.

Results

All three anti-stigma strategies were more effective than the control condition for reducing stereotypes, negative emotions, and discriminatory intentions from pretest to posttest. Education and protest effects for reducing negative stereotypes were maintained at one-week follow-up. Contact had the most positive effect for increasing affirming attitudes about people who stutter from pretest to posttest and pretest to follow-up. Participants in the contact and education groups, but not protest, self-reported significantly more positive attitude change about people who stutter as a result of watching the video compared to the control group.

Conclusion

Advocates in the field of stuttering can use education and protest strategies to reduce negative attitudes about people who stutter, and people who stutter can increase affirming attitudes through interpersonal contact with others.

Journal
Journal of Fluency Disorders
Volume
50
Pages
44–58
Type of Article
Journal Article
Full text

The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library.

Methods

Participants [...]. This resulted in a total of 212 participants who completed the original survey in its entirety. Out of the original 212 person sample, 132 of those participants completed a follow-up survey approximately about one week later.

Stimuli The authors developed four videos specifically for this study, representing anti-stigma programs of protest, education, and contact, and one control video. [...].

Contact The contact video featured a PWS (the first author) discussing his personal story, including how stuttering affected his quality of life, everyday challenges encountered due to stuttering, and accomplishments in work, education, and personal life. [...] The speech sample in this presentation was analyzed to determine the severity of speech disruption of the presenter. [...].

Education The education video presented myths about stuttering contrasted with factual information. [...].

Protest The protest video aimed to present morally unjustifiable positions regarding PWS [...]. The protest video described and condemned instances of stuttering stereotypes perpetuated in the media (television and movies) as well as in the general public (e.g., by politicians and comedians). [...].

Control condition The control video presented information about famous artists of the 20th century and discussed no information related to stuttering or any other communication disorder. [...].

Dependent measures Because public stigma involves cognitive (stereotypes), affective (prejudiced emotional reactions), and behavioral (discrimination or marginalization) components, the dependent variables employed in this study attempted to evaluate these constructs. [...].

Stereotypes Three items were used to assess the extent to which participants agreed or disagreed that PWS have discernable undesirable personality characteristics (e.g., “I think that he/she is likely to have an anxious personality”). [...]. Response options were on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Scores were summed to yield an overall stereotype score. [...].

Negative emotional reactions Seven items were used to assess possible negative emotional reactions that participants might have regarding PWS. [...]. Response options were on a five-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 5 = completely). Scores were summed to yield an overall negative emotions score. [...].

Social distance The Social Distance Scale [...] was used to gauge how willing participants were to accept a PWS in various social relationships. [...] Response options were on a four-point scale (1 = definitely willing, 2 = probably willing, 3 = probably unwilling, 4 = definitely unwilling) and item scores are summed to yield an overall social distance score. [...].

Discriminatory intentions Three items were used to tap into the domain of discriminatory intentions that participants had toward PWS. Participants were asked the extent to which they agreed with several statements related to avoidance and discrimination against PWS. [...]. Response options were on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree), with items summed to yield an overall score. [...].

Empowerment Three items were used to gauge participants’ views about empowerment regarding PWS. [...]. Response options were on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree), and scores were summed to produce an overall empowerment score. [...].

Items measuring perceptions of videos and retrospective pre-test These items directly asked participants what their perceptions were of the videos presented. [...].

Procedure [...]. Participants completed a series of pre-test questions that tapped into the domains mentioned in the previous section. Then, participants were randomly assigned to watch one of four videos [...]. After watching the video, the post-test items were completed which were identical to the pre-test items. After completing those items, participants answered other questions that referred directly to the video (understanding of stuttering, enjoyment of watching the video, and attitude change about PWS from before to after the video), followed by demographic items. One week after posttest measures were completed, participants were invited to respond to a set of questions identical to the pretest questions. [...].

Type of Prejudice/Bias
Country
Setting