Two studies of comparative stigma: employer attitudes and practices toward rehabilitated convicts, mental and tuberculosis patients.

Two studies compared the effects of stigmatization on two questionnaire measures of social distance and on offers of employment in retail sales. Employers' questionnaire responses revealed less social distance only with tuberculosis patients, compared to exconvicts, exmental patients or marginally adjusted individuals, all of whom did not differ among themselves. There were no differences in the number or conditions of retail sales job offers obtained by six competent experimenters role playing each of three stigmatizing conditions. The results of the studies are seen as reducing concern over the recent changes in California mental health laws which make involuntary commitment in mental hospitals more difficult and may increase the number of convicts who would otherwise become mental patients. Satisfactory employment, often related to low prisoner and mental patient recidivism rates, may be equally accessible to competent exmental patients and felons.