Results of a preliminary vignette study on abortion stigma: Interdisciplinary development of the vignettes and suitability based on droupout rates and careless responding behavior

Abortion stigma is a complex phenomenon that can have serious consequences for those affected. Because women's experiences with abortion are highly heterogeneous, research methods are needed that can capture this complexity in a realistic and differentiated manner. Vignette studies offer a promising approach by depicting diverse life situations more comprehensively than conventional questionnaire items. In this paper, we present our seven-step, interdisciplinary process to create a vignette template that covers eight dimensions of women with unwanted pregnancies, such as relationship status, biographical reasons, material worries, and the total number of abortions. This template can be used to create 1152 combinations of vignettes. We tested the suitability of 150 vignettes in 15 sets on a sample of n = 498 and analyzed dropouts as well as careless responding behavior such as speeding and straightlining. N = 166 participants (33.3%) dropped out, but only 12,0% dropped out during the vignettes. Participants who positioned themselves politically in the center or on the right were particularly likely to drop out. Speeding and straightlining occurred in only 4.7%. We observed that speeding does not necessarily indicate poor data quality. We assume that some people have such strong opinions about abortion that they are not influenced by the vignettes. This may be an important finding in terms of attitude resistance. Overall, the vignettes proved to be suitable and can be used in a variety of studies, for example, for experimental studies, validations, or theory formation about complex relationships between stigma and life situations.