Prof. P. Marina
Social Deviance: Week Ten
Week Ten Assignment:
You have an interesting assignment this week. Go out in public with a discrediting stigma and report how
others respond to you. You decide how to “wear” your stigma. A plethora of examples exist but may
include (making yourself appear obese with a pillow under your shirt, makeup that distorts your face or
“over-the-top” makeup, crutches, appearing handicap, talking loudly to yourself, gospel preaching,
appearing homeless, using constant distorted facial expressions like a huge unceasing grin, wearing alien
antennas or foil to prevent aliens from intercepting your thoughts, etcetera). Do not do anything that
threatens your safety. Do not do anything illegal or may result in arrest. Use common sense and bring
this assignment and your student ID with you.
Week Ten Readings:
Clarke: Deviant Behavior: Part III Becoming Deviant
Private Domains, Information Control, and Accommodation
Information control and Personal Identity the Discredited and the Discreditable, Erving
Goffman
Conceptualizing Stigma, Bruce G. Link, Jo C. Phelan
Select Weekly Notes:
Part I: Information control and Personal Identity the Discredited and the Discreditable , Erving Goffman
Etymology of the word stigma
Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a kind of tattoo mark that was cut or burned into
the skin of criminals, slaves, or traitors in order to visibly identify them as blemished or morally polluted
persons. These individuals were to be avoided or shunned, particularly in public places (Healthline
Network Inc., 2007).
Modern American usage of the words "stigma" and "stigmatization" refers to an invisible sign of
disapproval which permits "insiders" to draw a line around the "outsiders" in order to demarcate the
limits of inclusion in any group. The demarcation permits "insiders to know who is "in" and who is "out"
and allows the group to maintain its solidarity by demonstrating what happen to those who deviate from
accepted norms of conduct (Falk, 2001). Stigmatization is an issue of disempowerment and social
injustice (Scheyett, 2005).
Erving Goffman's theory of social stigma
A stigma is an attribute, behavior, or reputation which is socially discrediting in a particular way: it
causes an individual to be mentally classified by others in an undesirable, rejected stereotype rather
than in an accepted, normal one. Goffman, a noted sociologist, defined stigma as a special kind of gap
between virtual social identity and actual social identity:
Society establishes the means of categorizing persons and the complement of attributes felt to
be ordinary and natural for members of each of these categories. ... When a stranger comes into
our presence, then, first appearances are likely to enable us to anticipate his category and
attributes, his "social identity" ... We lean on these anticipations that we have, transforming
them into normative expectations, into righteously presented demands. ... It is [when an active
question arises as to whether these demands will be filled] that we are likely to realize that all
along we had been making certain assumptions as to what the individual before us ought to be.
[These assumed demands and the character we impute to the individual will be called] virtual
social identity. The category and attributes he could in fact be proved to possess will be called
his actual social identity.
While a stranger is present before us, evidence can arise of his possessing an attribute that
makes him different from others in the category of persons available for him to be, and of a less
desirable kind--in the extreme, a person who is quite thoroughly bad, or dangerous, or weak. He
is thus reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one. Such
an attribute is a stigma, especially when its discrediting effect is very extensive ... It constitutes
a special discrepancy between virtual and actual social identity. Note that there are other types
of [such] discrepancy ... for example the kind that causes us to reclassify an individual from one
socially anticipated category to a different but equally well-anticipated one, and the kind that
causes us to alter our estimation of the individual upward.
I. Overview. Erving Goffman's 1963 book, Stigma, examined the lives of the disabled and the
handicapped and others that possessed "stigma".
A. Used case studies of the blind, the lame, the deaf, and the disfigured. Includes a wide variety of
stigma, but all have in common the fact that the stigmatized individual possesses an "undesired
differentness" and is therefore "disqualified from full social acceptance."
B. Illustrated two central concerns:
1. the strained nature of the interactions between the stigmatized and the unstigmatized
2. the burdens born by the stigmatized in terms of the management of these interactions and the
selective disclosure about the nature of their stigma.
II. Types of stigma
A. Discredited vs. discreditable. Goffman distinguishes the discredited from the discreditable. "Does the
stigmatized individual assume his differentness is known about already or is evident on the spot, or does
he assume it is neither known about by those present nor immediately perceivable by them? In the first
case one deals with the plight of the discredited, in the second with that of the discreditable.
1. Discredited stigma include deformities, gross physical handicaps, and other manifest disabilities.
Discredited individuals are forced to deal with their stigma in virtually all interactions.
2. Discreditable stigma include criminal history, sexual deviance, epilepsy, homosexuality, and other
invisible conditions. Their interaction management strategies are more complex. They may decide to
inform no one about their stigma; they may decide to reveal it to selected individuals or only late in a
relationship; or they may make the non-obvious stigma a matter of public knowledge.
EX: For most epileptics the strategy of selective concealment is pursued in preference to total secrecy.
One function of disclosure is therapeutic: the individual can overcome some of his/her feeling of
isolation by sharing information. Can also do "preventive telling" - telling makes it possible for intimates
to recognize a seizure and not be shocked by it. Can also tell friends how to respond to the seizure (e.g.
do not send for an ambulance). Can also use telling to test the strength of a developing relationship - "If
they are going to leave, better it be sooner than later."
B. Another way of categorizing stigma:
1. Abominations of the body - physical deformities, scars, conspicuous disabilities. These usually make
their possessor discredited, though some can be concealed.
2. Blemishes of individual character - alcoholism, homosexuality, unemployment, addiction, record of
imprisonment. These tend to be discreditable.
3. Tribal stigma - race, nation, religion - tend to contaminate all members of a family. These may or may
not be conspicuous.
C. Variable Stigma Effects. Because of these different types of stigma, the effects of stigma on the lives
of their possessor's is highly variable. Ex-prisoners, homosexuals, some amputees, and others may be
able to "pass" - i.e. to interact as if they did not possess these forms of stigma.
III. Consequences of stigma.
A. Any stigma can become a master status and provide the basis for a number of irrational global
attributions. Goffman says we tend to impute a wide range of imperfections on the basis of the original
one. For example, people shout at the blind as if they were deaf or speak slowly to stutterers as if they
had trouble comprehending. Some stigmas, like obesity, are used to make attributions about the
personality, character, and general competence of the stigmatized individual.
B. Interactions between the stigmatized and unstigmatized are strained. The unstigmatized impute
unhumanness to the handicapped.
1. Most unstigmatized individuals respond to stigma with strong affects: aversion, anxiety, fear, loathing,
panic, flight. Most of the emotional reactions that stigma produces in unstigmatized individuals are
negative.
2. Even nominally positive reactions like sympathy or charity may be experienced by the stigmatized as
negative, condescending, and patronizing since they imply that the individual merits pity or requires
assistance.
3. The handicapped also feel strained in their interactions with the un-handicapped. Will engage in
longer interactions with members of their own kind.
C. When one's stigma is known, a wide range of behaviors are regarded as symptomatic and attributed
to it. Ex-mental patients are afraid to engage in vigorous arguments with their intimates or co-workers
for fear that any strong affect will be seen as a symptom. Similarly, when the mentally retarded
experience any problem, this problem is likely to be explained in terms of their intellectual competence even if this problem occurs commonly among the unstigmatized.
D. The stigmatized person has less privacy and can be approached, touched, interrogated, or invaded at
will. The physically handicapped are routinely stared at. They are often offered assistance, when such
assistance is unnecessary or embarrassing. They may be asked about their lives by complete strangers "Do you have a gland problem? How did you lose your legs?"
E. Because they themselves have extensive practice at concealment, the stigmatized are better than
normals at detecting the discreditable. The deaf may be better at identifying other deaf people. Some
stigmas may be recognizable because they produce consistent coping strategies - e.g. the illiterate may
ask others to read things for them by explaining that they forgot their glasses.
F. Discreditable individuals may use an unwritten code to recognize one another. Since discreditable
stigma is, by definition, closeted, it may pose for the possessor the problem of how to meet similar
others. Unidentified male homosexuals, for example, may identify and communicate by means of
nonverbal communication - e.g. mutual eye contact, which is different from the momentary glances
permissible between heterosexual men.
Part II: Conceptualizing Stigma, Link and Phelan
Stigma exists when the following interrelated components converge:
Component 1: Distinguishing and Labeling Differences (people identify and label human differences)
A. The vast majority of human differences are ignored and therefore socially irrelevant.
Examples: The size of one’s feet, the color of one’s car, or the month of one’s birth.
B. Highly salient differences: skin color, IQ, sexual preferences or gender
Once differences have been identified and labeled, they are typically taken for granted as being just the
way things are: there are black people and white people, deaf people and hearing people, people who are
handicapped and people who are not.
Substantial simplification that is required to create such groups. No clear demarcation between black
/white, gay/straight, blind/sighted/, handicap/not handicap.
Component 2: Linking Human Differences with Negative Attributes (dominant cultural beliefs link
labeled individuals to undesirable characteristics -- to negative stereotypes)
Example: Mental patients as dangerous
Component 3: Separating "Us" from "Them" (labeled persons are placed in distinct categories)
Example:
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the
white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes,
nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to
this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever
forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they
cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I
as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say
upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the
negro should be denied everything. -Abraham Lincoln
Component 4: Status Loss and Discrimination (labeled persons experience status loss and discrimination
that lead to unequal outcomes)
When people are labeled, set apart and linked to undesirable characteristics, a rationale is constructed
for devaluing, rejecting, and excluding them. Thus people are stigmatized when the fact that they are
labeled, set apart and linked to undesirable characteristics leads them to experience status loss and
discrimination.
Component 5: The Dependence of Stigma on Power (stigmatization is wholly contingent on access to
social, economic and political power that allows the identification of differentness, the construction of
stereotypes, the separation of labeled persons into distinct categories and the full execution of
disapproval, rejection, exclusion and discrimination)
Point: The essential role of power can be illustrated by considering the ability of low-power groups to
stigmatize others.
Thus they apply the term stigma when elements of labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss and
discrimination co-occur in a power situation that allows them to unfold.
Weekly Questions:
Part I:
One. In your experiences, when encountering a stigmatized person, did you pretend not to notice the
stigma or gave it careful dis-attention.
Two. Did the stigmatized person pretend with you or act as if the stigma was irrelevant
Three: Have you ever had a “real” stigma? (pimple example) How did you respond when coming into
contact with a normal?
Four: How would you respond if faced with a discredited stigma? How would you expect others to
respond? Give some life examples.
Five. Explain the difference between a dis-creditable and a discredited person. This quote provides an
example.
“However, when his differentness is not immediately apparent, and is not known beforehand (or at least
known by him to be known to the others), when in fact he is a dis-creditable, not a discredited, person,
then the second main possibility in his life is to be found.”
Six. Goffman goes on to say the following:
The issue (for the dis-creditable person) is not that of managing tension generated
during social contacts, but rather that of managing information about his failing. To
display or not to display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to
lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where.
What does he mean by managing information? Give examples. If possible, draw from examples in your
everyday experiences.
Seven: Explain the following quote:
For the ex-mental patient … it is not that he must face prejudice against himself; but
rather that he must face unwitting acceptance of himself by individuals who are prejudiced
against persons of the kind he can be revealed to be. Wherever he goes his behavior will
falsely confirm for the other that they are in the company of what in effect they demand
but may discover they haven't obtained, namely, a mentally untainted person like
themselves.
Eight: Drawing from your personal experiences, or others of closeness, have you ever managed
undisclosed discrediting information about yourself? How did you manage this? Did you reveal or keep it
hidden?
Nine: Have you ever experienced a person who had undisclosed discrediting information which you were
unaware? How was it later revealed to you? How did you react? Did your perceptions of the individual
change? Was this change permanent?
Ten: Provide examples of signs that give off social information. What signs do you wear in the job or
everyday life that can be used as social information that others can read and, as a result, learn about
you? Explain.
Eleven: Give some examples of a status symbol, or, as Goffman prefers, a prestige symbol. What status
symbols do you display to others, thus revealing something about yourself? Do you do this on purpose?
Why?
Twelve: In contrast to prestige symbols, what are stigma symbols? Give some examples. Do you possess
any stigma symbols (material or non-material)? How do you deal with them? How do others receive you?
Do you become perceived negatively? What are the consequences of this?
Thirteen: In addition to prestige and stigma symbols, Goffman discusses disidentifiers. What are they?
Give examples in you discussion. Here is one of Goffman's examples:
A New York specialist in the arts of vagrancy provides still another illustration :
After seven-thirty in the evening, in order to read a book in Grand Central or Penn
Station, a person either has to wear horn-rimmed glasses or look exceptionally prosperous.
Anyone else is apt to come under surveillance. On the other hand, newspaper readers
never seem to attract attention and even the seediest vagrant can sit in Grand Central all
night without being molested if he continues to read a paper.
Fourteen: All of the above mentioned symbols must be distinguished from what Goffman calls fugitive
signs. In your discussion include what Goffman calls “points” and “slips.” Explain the points and slips
you have possessed in your life or that of another you are close to. What were the social consequences
to these points and slips? Explain.
Fifteen: Explain how the following quote is a good example of a slip.
Outside [the prison where she now is] I'd be in the soup with it. Well, you know how it is:
the
law sees a chick with a shiner figures she's up to something. Bull figures maybe in the life.
Next thing trails her around. Then maybe bang! busted.
Sixteen: Do you have signs that are designed solely for informational purposes to convey information?
What are they? Why do you adorn these signs?
Seventeen: Have you ever taken an apparent non-informational sign and used it to display social
information (Goffman uses the example of a purposely planned and self-inflicted scar)? Why did you do
this and was it effective?
Eighteen: Give examples of the following signs:
a. congenital:
b. permanent:
c. nether congenital or permanent:
Nineteen: Have you ever had a sign that conveys social information placed on you against your will? Did
you consider this a stigma?
Twenty: Give examples of signs that might mean one thing to one group and something quite different to
another group. In other words, the sign has the same category but different characterization. Explain.
Here are Goffman's examples: shoulder patches for prisoners who have escaped, the uniform of a cop,
school cap and uniform, the Chinese pigtail.
Twenty-one: Have you ever carried an unreliable symbol that conveyed incorrect stigmatizing
information? Have you experienced others who have? What were the consequences of this? Explain.
Twenty-two: Have you ever been in the same place with others that resulted in direct consequences
against your social identity? Goffman calls this “The informing character of the 'with' relationship in our
society.”
Part II: Conceptualizing Stigma, Link and Phelan
One: Link and Phelan's conceptualize stigma as the converging of the following interrelated components.
Explain each using examples.
Component 1: Distinguishing and Labeling Differences
Component 2: Linking Human Differences with Negative Attributes
Component 3: Separating "Us" from "Them"
Component 4: Status Loss and Discrimination
Component 5: The Dependence of Stigma on Power
Two: Have you ever felt distinguished and labeled negatively due to skin color, IQ, sexual
preferences or gender?
Three: Growing up, have you ever associated certain attributes (skin color, IQ, sexual preferences,
gender, diseases, etcetera) with negative stereotypes? Explain. Have your views changed over time?
Four: Link and Phelan argue that there exists no clear cut categories between the dichotomies humans
create (black/white, gay/straight). Do you agree? Explain.
Five: In the following quote, how does link create an “us” versus “them?” Explain.
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the
white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes,
nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to
this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever
forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they
cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I
as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say
upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the
negro should be denied everything. -Abraham Lincoln
Six: Have you ever experienced status loss or discrimination due to a stigma that is associated with a
negative stereotype? Have you, consciously or not, perceived someone with less status due to the
person having a label associated with negative stereotypes? Explain.
Seven: Have you ever found yourself in a powerful position to stigmatize negatively label others?
Explain. Have you ever been subject to such negative labeling?
Eight: Link and Phelan argue that stigma depends on power. Do you agree with this assertion? Explain.