Does the label really matter when it comes to judgments of people who commit sexual offenses?

Negative social attitudes to people with sexual convictions have been cited as key barriers to the effective treatment and reintegration of those who have committed crimes of a sexual nature. As such, there have been moves to reduce stigmatizing language and use more person-first labels. Although this approach seems to be effective in adjusting broad public attitudes and policy support in the desired (i.e., less punitive) direction, there has been no work exploring how such labeling affects judgments of specific individuals with this offending history. In two well-powered experimental studies (Study 1 N = 522; Study 2 N = 470), we find less negative attitudes when this population is labeled using person-first language in a broad psychometric attitudinal measure. However, there were no notable differences in the levels of expressed negativity toward, and desired social distance from, people who have committed sexual offenses based on the label used to describe them. We discuss the utility of using person-first labels in light of these data, and encourage more nuance when discussing the potential effects of person-first language use.