Legal Commentary

Tommy Crocker's very interesting post last month questioned folks' eagerness to associate Barack Obama with the views of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.  The Washington Post's Shankar Vedantam recently ran a related -- and equally interesting -- analysis that describes social and cognitive psychology research confirming that onlookers frequently denigrate an individual simply because of his or her social relationship with someone perceived as stigmatized. 

As Vedantam's article explained, a number of studies have shown that friends, relatives, and roommates of stigmatized persons are more likely to experience social rejection themselves as the result of their relationship with those persons.  For example, When We Observe Stigmatized and "Normal" Individuals Interacting: Stigma by Association found that straight male targets were more likely to be denigrated by observers when they were seen talking with a gay male friend than with a straight male friend.   

Indeed, observers often form negative impressions of an individual who is simply seen in the presence of a person perceived as stigmatized.   For example, The Weight of Obesity in Evaluating Others: A Mere Proximity Effect found that observers rated job applicants who were viewed while seated next to an overweight person more negatively than those viewed while seated next to a person of average size.  In other words, physical proximity alone was sufficient to create negative associations, as negative perceptions retained their hold even when the observers were instructed that the individuals seated next to each other did not know each other.   

These findings confirm what many already intuit:  associating with stigmatized persons may well lead others to view you negatively.  Sadly, the authors found that such negative associations were not easily undermined and offered no antidote to stigma by association.  Destigmatization is no easy task, as Barack Obama has found.  But, as our parents told us, who cares what other people think?