Gender Differences of Smoking Stigma on Gender and Smoking Self-identification in Korean Smokers

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the gender difference in Korean smokers’ smoking stigma and the degree of self-identification of their smoking status. Two Implicit Association Tests (IATs) were conducted to provide empirical evidence and compare the smoking stigma and self-identification of male and female smokers. Smoking stigma was measured to evaluate the attitude on smokers’ own gender and the self-identification as a smoker was measured as a perception of their smoking status as a stigmatized feature. As a result, it was found that Korean female smokers tended to attribute smokers with the same gender less favorably than male smokers and identify themselves as smokers more than males do. Additional correlation analysis on each subgroup found that the public stigma of Korean female smokers was correlated to their smoking self-identification, unlike male smokers, suggesting that female smokers were more vulnerable to higher smoking stigma by recognizing their self-identity as a smoker. In accordance with the model of stigma-induced identity threat, the result showed that gender differences in smokers’ stigma might be a risk factor in some cultural contexts which warrants further research in substance dependence.