Working papers

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• French Validation of Pinel’s Stigma Consciousness Questionnaire Among Unemployed People: Links with Well-Being, Motivation, objective Job Search Behavior, and Access to Employment

  Charly Marie, Charlotte Rauscher, Morgane Hoffmann, Pierre Bouchat, David Bourguignon

  Abstract

  Previous studies have shown that unemployed people carry a highly negative stigma. We examined whether their anticipation of being stigmatized, measured as stigma consciousness, predicted core psychological processes, objective job search behavior, and access to employment both after three months. We first translated the Stigma Consciousness Questionnaire (Pinel, 1999), which was originally designed for women, gay and Black people, into French, and adapted it to a population of jobseekers. We then sent a survey to a large and representative sample of unemployed people (N = 30,000; nrespondents = 2,055). Responses were linked to administrative databases of the French Public Employment Service to assess if stigma consciousness predicted objective job search behavior and access to employment. The scale showed good psychometric properties. Controlling for important confounders, stigma consciousness negatively predicted well-being, reported health, and life satisfaction, and positively predicted social and identified-regulated motivation to (re)work. Three months post-survey, stigma consciousness predicted increased job search efforts among jobseekers who had been unemployed for at least one year. However, this more intensive job search did not result in increased reemployment after three or five months. Our results depict active long-term jobseekers trying to manage their stigma by pursuing an individual mobility strategy, which did not lead to regaining employment. This could potentially increase their stigma consciousness, further deteriorating their well-being, health, and life satisfaction, in turn negatively affecting their ability to work, suggesting a detrimental cycle where stigma consciousness is a crucial factor.

  Hypotheses and methods have been preregistered. The R script and the available data have been published at the OSF repository.

  Keywords: Unemployment, Social stigma, Stigma consciousness, Health, Job search behavior

  Last draft

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• What the Press Reveals About “The Unemployed”: A Lexicometric Analysis of 12,996 Articles from French Written Newspapers from 2005 to 2022

  Charly Marie, David Bourguignon

  Abstract

  Unemployed people carry a stigma that leads to negative consequences. Little is known about this stigma’s origins, content, evolution, and transmission channels. Combining insights from social psychology and communication studies, we used lexicometric methods to analyze 12,996 articles on “the unemployed” published in the French written press between 2005 and 2022. We found that unemployed people were largely invisible in the media, that they were mostly represented as dehumanizing accounting, political, or welfare program issues rather than as individuals, and that unemployment was mostly framed as an individual concern. When they were visible, which was rare, they were mostly portrayed as perseverant and willing poor men with a strong social norm to work, who took personal responsibility for their situation, saw their unemployment and job search as an individual concern, and tried to find a job by doing (almost) anything possible. In addition, we showed that frames about unemployed people could emerge from both political party leaders in a top-down approach and from mostly liberal and local newspapers in an opposing bottom-up view that reports on the lives of unemployed people. Our findings contribute to the understanding of unemployment stigma and offer opportunities for further research on its consequences.

  Research material is the property of Europresse® and cannot be shared. The results of the lexicometric analyses and the r code to reproduce the figures and analyses are available from OSF repository.

  This work was presented at the 21st congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) in 2023.

  Keywords: Unemployed; Stigma; Social Representation; Stereotype; Framing; Unemployment; Lexicometry.

  Last draft

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• An Adaptive Experiment to Boost Online Skill Signaling and Visibility

  Morgane Hoffmann, Bertille Picard, Charly Marie, Guillaume Bied

  Last version: November 2023

  Abstract

  Digital matching platforms promise to reduce frictions on the labor market by providing low-cost information on available positions and candidates. As such, they may form a welcome addition to the toolbox available to Public Employment Services to bridge labor supply and demand. However, there are certain challenges associated with their adoption. For instance, vulnerable populations may face difficulties in utilizing digital tools effectively. In this study, we evaluate the impact of a communication campaign by email designed to encourage the use of an online matching platform maintained by the French Public Employment Service, Pôle emploi. We designed several email templates that combined information, support, or motivational content to encourage jobseekers to engage with their profiles on the platform. In order to discover email effectiveness, we implement an adaptive experiment (contextual bandit) where the goal is to use past jobseekers’ take-up responses and characteristics to determine email allocation in the future, reducing gradually the allocation of less promising templates. Additionally, we built an optimal personalization allocation strategy based on collected data and test its effectiveness. Emails had a positive impact on the usage of the platform, as measured by a wide range of outcomes. However, attempts at learning a personalized emailing strategy did not manage to significantly improve on a random allocation of email templates.

  The pre-registration can be found at the American Economic Association’s registry for randomized controlled trials. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Paris School of Economics under the reference 2022 - 019.

  This work was presented at the Machine Learning in Program Evaluation, High-Dimensionality and Visualization Techniques conference of the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) in 2023; at the 13th International Conference of the French Association of Experimental Economics (ASFEE), Montpellier, in 2023; at the 4th Behavioural Transformations Congress of the London School of Economics, in 2024.

  Keywords: Online Job Platforms, Contextual bandits, Behavioral science

  Last draft

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• From Hidden Skills to Opportunities : The Impact of Job Portals use on Labor Market Outcomes

  Morgane Hoffmann, Bertille Picard, Guillaume Bied, Charly Marie

  Abstract

  Temporary abstract: In this paper, we propose to investigate the benefits of the use of digital matching platform. In partnership with the French Public Employment Service, France travail, we encourage randomly selected registered jobseekers to fill-in and publish their profile on the PES platform to make them more visible to recruiters. We then track the effects of the intervention on a large variety of outcomes, including employment, using rich administrative data and web logs provided by the French Employment Service.

  The pre-registration can be found at the American Economic Association’s registry for randomized controlled trials and the study was approved by the Paris School of Economics’ Institutional Review Board under the reference 2022 - 019.

  Keywords:

  Last draft

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Works in progress

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• Barometer of the stigma of unemployment and the stigmatization of the unemployed

  Charly Marie, Emma de Araujo, Morgane Hoffmann, David Bourguignon

  Abstract

  Previous studies have shown that unemployed people are negatively stereotyped and stigmatized, but few have taken their perspective, and no victimization survey has ever been conducted. We survey a large and representative sample of unemployed people in France to investigate their experiences of stigma on a daily or acute basis; their anticipation of being the target of stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination; and their internalization of the stigma of unemployment. The responses, which are still being analyzed, mostly report high levels of acute and daily experiences of stigma; high levels of stigma consciousness and moderate levels of anticipation of stigmatization; and moderate to low levels of internalization of the stigma of unemployment.

  This is a re analysis of data collected with Emma de Araujo for the work A focus on the interplay of socio-emotional skills, beliefs and stigma to predict job-search behaviors among the unemployed. Available data can be found at the same OSF repository. The first study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Paris Cité University under the reference 00012023-140.

  Keywords: Stigma, Unemployment, Panel, Barometer

  Draft not yet available

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• French translation and validation of the Job search self-efficacy scale (Saks & al., 2015)

  Charlotte Rauscher, Charly Marie, Morgane Hoffmann

  Abstract

  Coming soon :)

  Hypotheses and methods have been preregistered. The R script and the available data will be published at the OSF repository.

  Keywords: Job search, Self-efficacy, Unemployment

  Draft not yet available

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• A focus on the interplay of socio-emotional skills, beliefs and stigma to predict job-search behaviors among the unemployed

  Emma de Araujo, Charly Marie (both first authors), Morgane Hoffmann, David Bourguignon, Grégoire Borst

  Abstract

  Temporary abstract: Research has identified psychological predictors of job search behavior, but much of it has been conducted in separate streams of research and often studied in isolation from one another. As a result, it is unclear which psychological factors are relatively more influential in the job search process. We conceptualize job search as a goal-directed, self-regulatory process that involves core psychological processes to initiate and maintain job search behavior. We draw on cognitive and social-cognitive psychology to integrate three complementary levels of analysis related to self-regulatory mechanisms: the personal-cognitive level, with social-emotional and cognitive skills; the personal-self level, with beliefs about one’s own skills and abilities; the interpersonal and intergroup level, with stigmatization. The results will allow (1) to map the relative importance of key self-regulatory mechanisms at complementary levels of analysis; and (2) to test psychological notions that have never been evaluated and that may play a role in the job search process.

  Hypotheses and methods have been preregistered. The R script and the available data will be published at the OSF repository. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Paris Cité University under the reference 00012023-140.

  Keywords: Job search, Self-control, Fluid intelligence, Self-efficacy, Mindsets, Locus of control, Anticipated stigma, Experienced stigma, Internalized stigma

  Draft not yet available

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• “You’re a nobody when you’re unemployed”: Unemployed’s label, through a social cognition perspective

  Charly Marie, Pierre Bouchat, David Bourguignon

  Abstract

  Coming soon :)

  The R script and data will be published soon.

  This work was presented at the 21st congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) in 2023; and as a poster at the 19th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) in 2023.

  Keywords:

  Draft not yet available

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Book chapter

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• Le chômage et la stigmatisation à l’oeuvre [Unemployment and stigma in action]

  in Psychologie de la discrimination et des préjugés: De la théorie à la pratique [Psychology of discrimination and prejudice: From theory to practice]

  David Bourguignon, Selma Seghouat, Charly Marie, Ginette Herman

  2022

  Abstract

  Les effets délétères de la privation d’emploi sur la santé mentale sont largement étayés dans la littérature scientifique. En psychologie, la plupart des travaux ont expliqué ces effets au travers d’une perspective individuelle, laissant dans l’ombre la dimension intergroupe. Pourtant, de la situation de chômage émergent deux groupes, celui des travailleur⸱euses et celui des chômeur⸱euses. Alors que le premier est en adéquation avec une norme sociale valorisée « celle de travailler », le second, par déviance à cette norme, est la cible de préjugés véhiculés par la société. Confronté à la dévalorisation, le groupe des chômeurs et des chômeuses développe une identité sociale négative nuisant à la santé mentale et l’insertion sociale et professionnelle. Cette configuration est la voie principale conduisant au processus de stigmatisation. Quelles sont les stratégies de défense de soi que les chômeur·euses mettent en oeuvre pour le contrer ? Les travaux que nous avons réalisés montrent que, contrairement à de nombreux groupes qui parviennent à protéger leur santé mentale en s’identifiant davantage à leur groupe d’appartenance (par ex., les femmes), les personnes sans emploi ne bénéficient pas des effets positifs d’une telle stratégie, que du contraire. Toutefois, lorsque les chômeur⸱euses contestent le bien-fondé de la dévalorisation qui s’exerce à l’égard de leur groupe, leur identité acquiert une valeur protectrice. Nous développerons cette dimension dans le chapitre, qui se conclut par une réflexion sur les liens entre la stigmatisation, les stratégies de défense de soi et les questions d’intégration au sein du marché de l’emploi.

  Keywords: Chômage, Stigmatisation, Coping

  Proprietary chapter, which cannot be shared.

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