Stigmatized people compensate for devalued attributes by overperforming elsewhere

Evidence

Research on compensation illustrates the use of this strategy. For example, one study found that when overweight women believed their stigma might have a negative impact on an interaction, they compensated for their obesity (and accompanying negative stereotypes) by bolstering their social skills (Miller, Rothblum, Felicio, & Brand, 1995). Further, selfaffirmation research (Steele, 1988) illustrates that when threatened in one domain, people often defend their self-esteem by bolstering themselves in another domain. For example, members of low-status groups often acknowledge their group’s inferiority on status-relevant dimensions like competence and intelligence, but compensate for it by expressing ingroup favoritism on other, status-irrelevant dimensions, such as warmth and friendliness (Ellemers & Van Rijswijk, 1997). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 964

Categorization

• CANDY: Overweight women compensating socially, and low-status groups admitting inferior competence while claiming warmth — a compact, memorable psychology fact for a cocktail conversation.
• XREF: connects to: When glory-based pride fails, high identifiers shift to humanitarian self-stereotypes — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 838