Our Key Objectives
The Martin-Storey Lab aims to better understand how stigma shapes individual outcomes, in adolescence and across the lifecourse.
More specifically, we aim to:
We chose the burdock burr as our lab symbol because it captures a central feature of stigma: its stickiness. Like sticky burrs that attach and travel, stigma-based experiences can cling to people, persisting beyond the moment they occur.
[1]
Identify stigma-associated risk and protective factors
Identify the risk and protective factors that explain variation in the consequences of stigma across at-risk adolescent populations, focusing particularly on outcomes among sexual minority youth.
[2]
Understand socioeconomic stigma
Better understand the role of class in shaping perceived stigma within adolescent populations by testing a measure assessing how youth understand stigma associated with perceived socioeconomic status, and how this stigma is associated with their outcomes.
[3]
Explore how stigma shapes the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth
Explore the impact of stigma on daily functioning by assessing how stigmatized identities shape time use and service usage across the lifecourse.
Meet the Lab Director
Alexa Martin-Storey, Chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Stigma and Psychosocial Development and Professor in the department of Psychoéducation at the Université de Sherbrooke
« I want to understand why and how stigma-based experiences matter differently for young people »
I am a full professor and Canada Research Chair in Stigma and and psychosocial development at the Université de Sherbrooke. My research takes a developmental psychopathology-informed approach to understand how stigma related experiences shape youth outcomes. In particular, I am motivated to understand the process by which gender and sexual minority youth survive and thrive in the face of consistent discrimination and violence.
Our Mission
The Principles That Guide Our Work
The CRC on Stigma and psychosocial development situates stigma within a developmental context and combines theoretical approaches from psychology, sociology and public health to better understand how stigma and stigma-based experiences shape adolescent and young adult outcomes. By taking this innovative interdisciplinary and developmental approach, the Chair brings together several fields of existing scholarship, and to develop a complex and multi-level understanding of when and how broader societal constructs associated with stigma influence day-to-day outcomes.
The Chair`s work occurs in partnership with numerous partner organizations and collaborators. Partner organizations include the GRISE, CRIPCAS, CRUJeF, the CRLM, and PREVNet.
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Equity and social justice
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Rigour and methodological innovation
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Knowledge mobilization and community impact
Our Interdisciplinary Approach
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Our Research Measures
The Martin-Storey Lab has elaborated a set of validated instruments developed to study key psychosocial processes related to identity, social relations, and stigma. These measures are designed for use in empirical research and aim to improve the understanding of complex experiences such as interpersonal harm, social exclusion, and identity-based discrimination.
The available instruments include scales assessing slut-shaming, continuity of self, violence among friends, socioeconomic stigma, and harassment linked to sexual identity and gender non-conformity.
To explore the full set of instruments, please visit the dedicated Measures page.
