title: Influence of the social context on use of surgical-lengthening and group-empowering coping strategies among people with dwarfism.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the role that social contextual factors exert on the way people with disproportionate short stature (dwarfism) cope with the negative consequences of discrimination.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we compare the coping process of people with dwarfism from Spain (N = 63) and the USA (N = 145), two countries that differ in the role played by organizations offering support to people with dwarfism.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In Spain, where organizational support is recent, a coping approach aimed at achieving integration with the majority group through limb-lengthening surgery prevails; in the USA, where the long-standing organization of people with dwarfism encourages pride in being a "little person" and positive intragroup contact, a coping strategy based on empowering the minority group dominates.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Both strategies, each in its own context, are effective at protecting psychological well-being from the negative consequences of stigmatization; however, they exert their positive effects through different processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain. saulo@psi.uned.es
authors.forename: Saulo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fernández
authors.forename: Nyla R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Branscombe
authors.forename: Angel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.forename: J Francisco
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Morales
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001852:Bone Lengthening / Q000523:psychology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003657:Decision Making; D004392:Dwarfism / Q000523:psychology* / Q000601:surgery*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011209:Power, Psychological; D063508:Social Discrimination / Q000523:psychology*; D012933:Social Identification; D012944:Social Support; D013030:Spain; D014481:United States