Understanding Stigma; How Community Members and College Students View and Respond to People Experiencing Homelessness

The purpose of this study is to better understand how perceptions of bias and discrimination regarding race and gender influence responses to people experiencing homelessness (PEH). Prior research has examined the understanding of the effects of race and gender biases regarding the perceptions of PEH (Markowitz & Syverson, 2021). Results from the initial study revealed that the materials may not have been salient enough to identify differences in perceptions of PEH (Graves, Gray, & Ruppel, 2024). The current study uses AI generated pictures to manipulate race and gender in a more meaningful way. We measured bias around avoidance, dangerousness, pity, and help constructs (Snow-Hill, 2019) by using a community and college sample. Due to the increasing number of PEH, and the lack of federal and state resources available to PEH, we hope to better understand how the local community will perceive and interact with PEH (Budescu et al., 2021).