The Burden of Suspicion: A Grounded Theory Study on the Psychological and Interpersonal Consequences of Criminalizing Stereotypes
Abstract
This purpose of this study was to understand the immediate and cumulative impact of experiencing a form of stereotyping, which characterizes an individual as suspicious - dangerous, aggressive, criminal, or otherwise threatening. Stereotypes are cognitive schema that contains the perceiver's beliefs and expectations about a particular group (Niemann, Jennings, Rozelle, Baxter, & Sullivan, 1994). While the specific stereotype content may vary across groups, criminal stereotypes affect multiple marginalized communities and play a central role in the historical oppression and disenfranchisement of people of color, immigrants, LGBT people, and poor people, among others, in the United States. While much is known about the social and political consequences of criminalization, less is known about the psychological and interpersonal consequences. Racial, class, and sexual and other disparities permeate many institutions in the United States, but perhaps nowhere is it more glaring and more destructive than within the criminal legal system. Racial disparities in incarceration rates, length of sentencing, profiling, police brutality, and penalty enhancements, are just some of the macro and measurable consequences of criminalizing stereotypes. This study specifically sought to explore the consequences on the individual and interpersonal levels. Interviews with nineteen participants and grounded theory data analysis reveal six core themes that emerged that appear to present across all…
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.