Stigma and Social Identity Study Notes

Contents

  • Preface
  • 1. Stigma and Social Identity
    • Preliminary Conceptions
    • The Own and the Wise
    • Moral Career
  • 2. Information Control and Personal Identity
    • The Discredited and the Discreditable
    • Social Information
    • Visibility
    • Personal Identity
    • Biography
    • Biographical Others
    • Passing
    • Techniques of Information Control
    • Covering
  • 3. Group Alignment and Ego Identity
    • Ambivalence
    • Professional Presentations
    • In-Group Alignments
    • Out-Group Alignments
    • The Politics of Identity
  • 4. The Self and Its Other
    • Deviations and Norms
    • The Normal Deviant
    • Stigma and Reality
  • 5. Deviations and Deviance

Preface

  • Discussion of the concept of stigma in social psychology over the past decade.
  • Exploration of clinical studies and the application of stigma across various categories of people.
  • Purpose of the essay is to review stigma research specifically for sociology, including definitions and context.

1. Stigma and Social Identity

  • Origin of the Term Stigma:

    • Greeks used "stigma" to denote bodily signs indicating moral or social disgrace (e.g. markings for slaves, criminals, or traitors).
    • Christian era added metaphors of holiness and medical implications, changing its connotations over time.
    • Current usage focuses on the disgrace itself rather than the physical manifestation.

  • Preliminary Conceptions:

    • Society categorizes individuals and prescribes attributes expected of these categories, influencing social identity.
    • Social Identity: Combination of personal attributes and structural roles (e.g., honesty, occupation).
    • Normative expectations arise and become apparent when they are challenged by someone's actual attributes, leading to the concept of actual social identity versus virtual social identity:
    • Actual Social Identity: What an individual can prove they have.
    • Virtual Social Identity: Assumptions made by strangeness based on first impressions.

  • Stigma Definition:

    • An attribute reducing a person from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one.
    • Types of Stigma:
    • Abomination of the body: Physical deformities.
    • Blemishes of individual character: Attributes like mental disorder or homosexuality.
    • Tribal stigma: Racial, national, or religious stigmas passed through lineages.

  • Consequences of Stigma:

    • Distinction between the discredited (those whose