Still, additional methodological work in this area is needed. In particular, the two constituents of the PDD - “perceived devaluation” (i.e., expectation of loss of status) and “perceived discrimination” (i.e., expectation of being kept at a social distance – or denied certain social opportunities, e.g., job, partner) – have not been systematically evaluated as distinct dimensions. Some have argued, that discrimination should be operationalized as a completely separate construct from stigma (Deacon 2006; Sayce 1998). However, the distinction between the two dimensions in the PDD has been obscured in some research, where a single score has been created from all items (Keyes et al 2010), or two dimensions are assumed via creation of two subscales (Smith 2010) but not psychometrically evaluated. Further, evidence from exploratory factor analysis has been presented that suggest that the positively- and negatively-worded items may induce separate latent factors that reflect “perceived acceptance and non-negative evaluation” and “perceived discrimination and negative evaluation”, respectively (Interian et al. 2010). To our knowledge, there are no confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) studies that have described the factor structure of the PDD.
