On the Quantitative Study of Multiple Marginalization: Paradox and Potential Solution

Abstract

Many people possess multiple stigmatized statuses. To date, however, the quantitative study of the health of people who possess multiple stigma statuses has typically only examined two or three candidate stigmata. The current study examined a comprehensive array of 93 stigmatized statuses, their natural co-occurrence within persons, and their simultaneous associations with mental health outcomes. In doing so, we first illustrate a key paradox of applying quantitative methods to the study of multiple stigmatization. For instance, in the present sample of United States adults (N = 1,123), the average participant endorsed possessing nearly six stigmatized statuses (M = 6.08, SD = 4.58). The impossibility of meaningfully attending to all possible stigma combinations is illustrated by the existence of 2,354 unique pairs across the 93 stigmatized statuses examined in this study. As a potential solution, we examined the association between a rank-ordered list of the subjective importance that each participant assigned to each of their stigmatized statuses, and poor mental health outcomes. Using an objective index of stigma directed toward each of the 93 statuses, we find that only the stigma directed toward each participant’s self-rated most important stigmatized status (rather than their second-, third-, fourth-, and so on, most important statuses) was significantly associated with poor mental health. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future quantitative approaches to multiple stigmatization and health.