Hidden in plain sight: Ho negative meta-stereotypes affect an invisible minority

People with learning disorders are seldom the subject of research in social psychology. Moreover, their minority status is not clearly visible as it is for other groups, such as people with physical disability or some ethnic groups. Indeed, usually what is noticed are the consequences of the disorder (i.e., poor school performance), more than the disorder itself. A few studies have focused on the stereotypes towards this group and even less is known about how negative meta-stereotypes affect people with learning disorders. The present study is a first attempt to fill this gap. We recruited 63 university students with a specific learning disability certificate and asked them to fill in a questionnaire including measures of positive and negative meta-stereotypes, recall of discrimination, social anxiety, and self-esteem. Regression models showed that recall of discrimination and social anxiety mediated the effects of negative (but not of positive) meta-stereotypes. Implications of results will be discussed.