Perhaps, our findings may offer insight into debates regarding whether discrimination should be distinct from a stigma construct that includes only negative social evaluations. Some have argued that such a separation would promote research studying their interplay (Deacon 2006). Our findings suggest that at least for perceived stigma, the overlap in constructs is so high that few unique properties may be identified. Our results are consistent with a prior study of racial/ethnic differences in PAS using the NESARC data in which separate scales were used for discrimination and devaluation, which found the same associations for both scales in all but one instance (Smith et al 2010). However, cross-sectional studies can inflate correlations between causally related variables, and thus to disentangle potential differences between the constructs, it may be that prospective studies that separately assess perceptions and actual experiences of devaluation and discrimination are needed.
