Abstract

The purpose of this study was, based on the examination of the general public's stereotype toward social stigmatized group, to consider the degree and effect of stereotypes for social stigmatized groups, from the perspective of both the lay person and the stigmatizers. The data were collected from 352 university students, 255 lay person, 22 crippled, 16 prostitutes. In this study, an attempt was made to examine one's subjective social distance toward members of diverse stigmatized social groups. The social distance scale consisted of interpersonal physical distance and interpersonal social distance. The results indicated that drug addicts, prostitutes, ex-convicts, among people included in this study as stigmatized individuals were least acceptable. This study examined subject's preferences in two different dimensions: visibility and controllability. The result shows that subject most hate people who belong nonvisible and controllable stigmatized types. This suggests that subjects most hate people in stigmatized group who are responsible for their stigmas. But prostitutes are found to be different in recognizing the sense of social distance. The responses show that they regard alcoholics, visual and listening disabled, and mentally disabled as less close than the other socially stigmatized groups. This suggests that there are different in self defence mechanism for self-respect and social comparison process between lay person and people with social stigma.