The purpose of this study was to determine the presence of the social stigma of loneliness and how it presents itself in different races, which in this case included both White and Hispanic. This study used the two independent variables of race and loneliness state in order to create several characters, which were then presented to the participant. Race was operationalized by changing the name of the character to represent either a White or Hispanic person. Some examples of the names used include John and Ryan for the White characters and Miguel and Juan for the Hispanic characters. Loneliness state was operationalized by either scenario that depicted the target character as either enjoying to socialize and having many friends or depicted the target character as disliking interaction and having few friends. The dependent variable in this study was the interpersonal attraction rating, which served as a measurement of the stigma; this was done by calculating the number of positive responses to four questions to determine the level of interpersonal attraction between the participant and the target character.
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Interpersonal attraction results from the set of characteristics between two people that is responsible for how likeable people are perceived and for the formation of relationships. The researchers coded each response onto a ratio scale where a score of 4 means that every unique aspect of likeability was met, and a score of 0 indicates that there is no likeability expressed. The distance between each of the unique aspects was meaningful in that each was in their own domain within interpersonal attraction. Additionally, because a score of 0 would suggest that the character was completely unlikeable, it can be said that the scale also had a meaningful 0 point, thus qualifying it as a ratio scale. The four domains of interpersonal attraction were adjustment, achievement, competence, and general likeability. This was a 2(race) x 2(loneliness state) design based on the work of Lau and Gruen (1992) who conducted research that examined and supported the social stigma of loneliness. Their study included the effect of gender, of both the perceiver and the target, on the stigma. Lau and Gruen’s (1992) assessed the stigma with two dependent variables. The first was the level of interpersonal attraction between the perceiver and the target. The second was a measurement of three psychological attributes. Likert scales were used to measure both interpersonal attraction and psychological attributes. Lau and Gruen (1992) found that there was a significant social stigma associated with loneliness and that women were more likely to make those associations. In addition to that, the researchers found that target individuals that were women were also judged more harshly. This simplified version of Lau and Gruen’s (1992) design that substituted race for gender asked participants to answer questions regarding the likeability of specific characters; these characters will each fall under a specific condition which may either be lonely Hispanic, nonlonely Hispanic, lonely White, or nonlonely White. The null hypotheses of this study, H0: 휇lonelyHispanic = 휇nonlonelyHispanic = 휇lonelyWhite = 휇nonlonelyWhite , stated that the means for the interpersonal attraction of lonely Hispanic, nonlonely Hispanic, lonely White, and nonlonely White would be equal to each other. Four alternate hypotheses were made. The first, H1 = 휇lonely< 휇nonlonely, predicted that the mean for lonely characters would be lower than
Interpersonal attraction results from the set of characteristics between two people that is responsible for how likeable people are perceived and for the formation of relationships. The researchers coded each response onto a ratio scale where a score of 4 means that every unique aspect of likeability was met, and a score of 0 indicates that there is no likeability expressed. The distance between each of the unique aspects was meaningful in that each was in their own domain within interpersonal attraction. Additionally, because a score of 0 would suggest that the character was completely unlikeable, it can be said that the scale also had a meaningful 0 point, thus qualifying it as a ratio scale. The four domains of interpersonal attraction were adjustment, achievement, competence, and general likeability. This was a 2(race) x 2(loneliness state) design based on the work of Lau and Gruen (1992) who conducted research that examined and supported the social stigma of loneliness. Their study included the effect of gender, of both the perceiver and the target, on the stigma. Lau and Gruen’s (1992) assessed the stigma with two dependent variables. The first was the level of interpersonal attraction between the perceiver and the target. The second was a measurement of three psychological attributes. Likert scales were used to measure both interpersonal attraction and psychological attributes. Lau and Gruen (1992) found that there was a significant social stigma associated with loneliness and that women were more likely to make those associations. In addition to that, the researchers found that target individuals that were women were also judged more harshly. This simplified version of Lau and Gruen’s (1992) design that substituted race for gender asked participants to answer questions regarding the likeability of specific characters; these characters will each fall under a specific condition which may either be lonely Hispanic, nonlonely Hispanic, lonely White, or nonlonely White. The null hypotheses of this study, H0: 휇lonelyHispanic = 휇nonlonelyHispanic = 휇lonelyWhite = 휇nonlonelyWhite , stated that the means for the interpersonal attraction of lonely Hispanic, nonlonely Hispanic, lonely White, and nonlonely White would be equal to each other. Four alternate hypotheses were made. The first, H1 = 휇lonely< 휇nonlonely, predicted that the mean for lonely characters would be lower than