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Responses to Physical Stigma

It has been documented that the presence of physical stigma leads to a decrease in helping (1) and a decrease in eye contact ( 3 ) . One explanation for this lies in the fact that, while facial attractiveness elicits helping, facially disfigured people appear less attractive and so elicit less helping. In previous scudies, however, it has been unclear whether reduced eye contact results from avoidance of gaze or whether subjects avoid looking at the disfigurement. The present study assessed the effect of a non-facial physical stigma upon helping behaviour (assessed by duration of interaction) and eye contact in a natural setting. Subjects, 16 males and 16 females aged 20 to 60 yr. and selected nonsysternatically, were approached in a coastal town and asked the time of day by a female confederate. For half the subjects a natural red birthmark on the confederate's arm was clearly visible while for the remaining subjects it was concealed. Means and standard deviations for duration of interaction were 4.5 and 1.2 when birthmark was visible and 5.5 and 1.5 when birthmark was concealed. For percentage frequency of eye contact means and SDs were 28.3 and 12.1 with birthmark visible and 36.1 and 9.0 with birthmark concealed. A 2 x 2 analysis of variance (sex X visibility of birthmark) was computed for each variable under investigation. There was a main effect of visibility of birthmark on both the length of interaction ( P I I S = 4.56, P < 0.05) and amount of eye contact (PIIS = 4.23, P < 0.05) but no significant sex differences or interactions. The present study supports the hypothesis that physical stigma leads to a decrease in helping and eye contact. While six of the subjects glanced briefly at the confederate's birthmark. this on its own does not account for the decrease in eve contact. Also. as the same confederate without a facial disfigurement was used in both conditions, facial attractiveness was a constant factor in the present study. One possible alternative is that disfigurement elicits embarrassment in the person approached who is then too flustered to help. As Edelmann and Hampson ( 2 ) point out, a decrease in eye contact is, in some circumstances, one of the nonverbal signs of embarrassment.