Development of self-stigma scale for adolescents in conflict with the law and its association with implicit...

Research on self-stigma among justice-involved adolescents is limited by a lack of dedicated instruments and an overreliance on explicit self-reports susceptible to social desirability bias.

Two studies were conducted. Study 1 developed and validated the Self-Stigma Scale for Adolescents in Conflict with the Law (SSS-ACL), confirming a two-factor structure comprising perceived and internalized stigma with sound psychometric properties. Study 2 employed two IRAP protocols based on the DAARRE model to capture spontaneous relational responding for each dimension.

This showed that 81.08% of participants displayed positive implicit perceived stigma (automatic group-negative associations), whereas only 25.68% displayed positive implicit internalized stigma (automatic negative self-linkages); he two implicit indices were uncorrelated. Explicit-implicit correlations were conditional: explicit internalized stigma was unrelated to both IRAP indices, explicit perceived stigma was only marginally associated with its implicit counterpart, and explicit perceived stigma showed a small positive correlation with implicit internalized stigma.

These findings suggest that perceived and internalized stigma are functionally distinct at both reflective and spontaneous levels, and that robust implicit perceived stigma does not automatically translate into internalized self-stigma, consistent with a possible self-protective function. Practically, combining explicit and implicit measures may improve stigma assessment, and interventions should prioritize blocking internalization over merely reducing awareness of public stigma.