Social stigma

Stigma, originally referring to the visible marking of people considered inferior, has evolved to mean a negative perception or sense of disapproval that a society places on a group or individual based on certain group characteristics such as their socioeconomic status, gender, race, religion, appearance, upbringing, origin, or health status. Social stigma can take different forms and depends on the specific time and place in which it arises, and the existence or assigning of such stigma is stigmatization. Once a person is stigmatized, they are often associated with stereotypes that lead to discrimination, marginalization, and psychological problems.
This process of stigmatization not only affects the social status and behavior of stigmatized persons, but also shapes their own self-perception, which can lead to psychological problems such as depression and low self-esteem. Stigmatized people are often aware that they are perceived and treated differently, which can start at an early age. Research shows that children are aware of cultural stereotypes at an early age, which affects their perception of their own identity and their interactions with the world around them.

Description

Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or the tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin of people with criminal records, slaves, or those seen as traitors in order to visibly identify them as supposedly blemished or morally polluted persons. These individuals were to be avoided particularly in public places.
Stigma may also be described as a label that associates a person to a set of unwanted characteristics that form a stereotype. It is also affixed.
Stigma may affect the behavior of those who are stigmatized. Those who are stereotyped often start to act in ways that their stigmatizers expect of them. It not only changes their behavior, but it also shapes their emotions and beliefs. Members of stigmatized social groups often face prejudice that causes depression.
Members of stigmatized groups start to become aware that they are not being treated the same way and know they are likely being discriminated against. Studies have shown that "by 10 years of age, most children are aware of cultural stereotypes of different groups in society, and children who are members of stigmatized groups are aware of cultural types at an even younger age."

Main theories and contributions

Émile Durkheim

French sociologist Émile Durkheim was the first to explore stigma as a social phenomenon in 1895. He wrote:

Erving Goffman

described stigma as a phenomenon whereby an individual with an attribute which is deeply discredited by their society is rejected as a result of the attribute. Goffman saw stigma as a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity.
More specifically, he explained that what constituted this attribute would change over time. "It should be seen that a language of relationships, not attributes, is really needed. An attribute that stigmatizes one type of possessor can confirm the usualness of another, and therefore is neither credible nor discreditable as a thing in itself."
In 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 defined stigma as a special kind of gap between virtual social identity and actual social identity:

The stigmatized, the normal, and the wise

Goffman divides the individual's relation to a stigma into three categories:

the stigmatized being those who bear the stigma;
the normals being those who do not bear the stigma; and
the wise being those among the normals who are accepted by the stigmatized as understanding and accepting of their condition.

The wise normals are not merely those who are in some sense accepting of the stigma; they are, rather, "those whose special situation has made them intimately privy to the secret life of the stigmatized individual and sympathetic with it, and who find themselves accorded a measure of acceptance, a measure of courtesy membership in the clan." That is, they are accepted by the stigmatized as "honorary members" of the stigmatized group. "Wise persons are the marginal men before whom the individual with a fault need feel no shame nor exert self-control, knowing that in spite of his failing he will be seen as an ordinary other," Goffman notes that the wise may in certain social situations also bear the stigma with respect to other normals: that is, they may also be stigmatized for being wise. An example is a parent of a homosexual; another is a white woman who is seen socializing with a black man.
A 2012 study showed empirical support for the existence of the own, the wise, and normals as separate groups; but the wise appeared in two forms: active wise and passive wise. The active wise encouraged challenging stigmatization and educating stigmatizers, but the passive wise did not.

Ethical considerations

Individuals actively cope with stigma in ways that vary across stigmatized groups, across individuals within stigmatized groups, and within individuals across time and situations.

The stigmatized

The stigmatized are ostracized, devalued, scorned, shunned and ignored. They experience discrimination in the realms of employment and housing. Perceived prejudice and discrimination is also associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes. Young people who experience stigma associated with mental health difficulties may face negative reactions from their peer group. Those who perceive themselves to be members of a stigmatized group, whether it is obvious to those around them or not, often experience psychological distress and many view themselves contemptuously.
Although the experience of being stigmatized may take a toll on self-esteem, academic achievement, and other outcomes, many people with stigmatized attributes have high self-esteem, perform at high levels, are happy and appear to be quite resilient to their negative experiences.

The stigmatizer

From the perspective of the stigmatizer, stigmatization involves threat, aversion and sometimes the depersonalization of others into stereotypic caricatures. Stigmatizing others can serve several functions for an individual, including self-esteem enhancement, control enhancement, and anxiety buffering, through downward-comparison—comparing oneself to less fortunate others can increase one's own subjective sense of well-being and therefore boost one's self-esteem.
21st-century social psychologists consider stigmatizing and stereotyping to be a normal consequence of people's cognitive abilities and limitations, and of the social information and experiences to which they are exposed.

Current views of stigma, from the perspectives of both the stigmatizer and the stigmatized person, consider the process of stigma to be highly situationally specific, dynamic, complex and nonpathological.

Gerhard Falk

German-born sociologist and historian Gerhard Falk wrote: "All societies will always stigmatize some conditions and some behaviors because doing so provides for group solidarity by delineating 'outsiders' from 'insiders'."
Falk describes stigma based on two categories, existential stigma and achieved stigma. He defines existential stigma as "stigma deriving from a condition which the target of the stigma either did not cause or over which he has little control." He defines Achieved Stigma as "stigma that is earned because of conduct and/or because they contributed heavily to attaining the stigma in question."
Falk concludes that "we and all societies will always stigmatize some condition and some behavior because doing so provides for group solidarity by delineating 'outsiders' from 'insiders. Stigmatization, at its essence, is a challenge to one's humanity- for both the stigmatized person and the stigmatizer. The majority of stigma researchers have found the process of stigmatization has a long history and is cross-culturally ubiquitous.

Link and Phelan stigmatization model

and Jo Phelan propose that stigma exists when four specific components converge:

Individuals differentiate and label human variations.
Prevailing cultural beliefs tie those labeled to adverse attributes.
Labeled individuals are placed in distinguished groups that serve to establish a sense of disconnection between "us" and "them".
Labeled individuals experience "status loss and discrimination" that leads to unequal circumstances.

In this model stigmatization is also contingent on "access to social, economic, and political power that allows the identification of differences, construction of stereotypes, the separation of labeled persons into distinct groups, and the full execution of disapproval, rejection, exclusion, and discrimination." Subsequently, in this model, the term stigma is applied when labeling, stereotyping, disconnection, status loss, and discrimination all exist within a power situation that facilitates stigma to occur.

Disadvantage

The fourth component of stigmatization in this model includes "status loss and discrimination". Many definitions of stigma do not include this aspect, however, these authors believe that this loss occurs inherently as individuals are "labeled, set apart, and linked to undesirable characteristics." The members of the labeled groups are subsequently disadvantaged in the most common group of life chances including income, education, mental well-being, housing status, health, and medical treatment.
Thus, stigmatization by the majorities, the powerful, or the "superior" leads to the Othering of the minorities, the powerless, and the "inferior". Whereby the stigmatized individuals become disadvantaged due to the ideology created by "the self," which is the opposing force to "the Other." As a result, the others become socially excluded and those in power reason the exclusion based on the original characteristics that led to the stigma.