ABSTRACT
A dominant theme in the previous chapters is the interpersonal and intrapersonal cost-benefit trade off targets face when considering possible coping responses to actual or anticipated discrimination. For instance, after identifying an incident as discriminatory to the self, one specific way of responding to discrimination is to identify the discrimination to others by way of confronting a perpetrator. If this identification challenges an audience’s (e.g., a perpetrator’s or an observer’s) ideology, the audience will feel distress and may cope by derogating the confronter (Kaiser, chap. 3, this volume). However, if the target of the discrimination feels committed to challenging discrimination but does not challenge the discrimination, perhaps to avoid derogation, the stigmatized individual will feel worse about her or himself than if they had confronted, and have intrusive thoughts due to discrepancies between her or his actual and ought self (Shelton, Richeson, Salvatore, & Hill, chap. 4, this volume). Cost-benefit considerations also occur when considering the coping response of hiding a stigma. Hiding a stigma to avoid discrimination can result in intrusive thoughts regarding the stigma and long-term negative health effects, but revealing it can result in stereotype-threat responses (Quinn, chap. 5, this volume).
