Goffman Stigma (1963)

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Erving Goffman's Stigma Student Presentations

SOC260 Deviance // Occidental College

Chapter 1

Stigmata

Stigmata: Bodily Signs

Stigmata

Virtual v Actual Identity

Stigmata

Character

Physical

Tribal

Stigmata

The "Normals"

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Stigmata

... and the Stigmatized

Stigmata

Mixed Contacts

Stigma Attribute that is deeply discrediting

Special relationship between attribute and stereotype

STIGMA Chapter 2 GROUP: Beyonce on a Leash

The Discredited and the Discreditable Discredited: obvious discrepancy between individual’s actual social identity and virtual one is.Ex: Amputee

Discreditable: differentness not immediately apparent.Ex: Ex-Convict, sexuality

Social Information Social information: characteristics conveyed by a person, through bodily expression, may confirm what other signs tell us about the individual. Symbols: signs that convey social information.Ex: club membership buttons. Status symbol: establishes claim to desirable class position, honor.Ex: Owning a Ferrari

Stigma symbol: draw attention to a debasing identity discrepancy, leads to reduction of individual’s value. Ex: an educated middle class person repeatedly mispronouncing a word.

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Social Information Disidentifiers: breaks up a positive coherent presentation of person.Ex: eloquent speech of a prison inmate. Possible for signs to mean different things to different groups. Ex: tattoos; “cool” for youth, parents may think otherwise.

Venous stigmata: can create unjustified suspicions. Ex: distended capillaries on cheek and nose, can indicate alcoholism BUT those who do not drink can exhibit these for other physiological reasons.

Social identify of who an individual is “with” can inform others’ opinion of his social identity. Ex: If a person spends time with “jocks,” they may be seen as an athlete as well.

Visibility

How stigma is adapted to show, or not show, that the individual possesses it. Ex: ex-mental patients do not have visible stigma; the blind are easily visible.Three notions that are often confused with concept of visibility:

1.  must be distinguished from its “known-about-ness”

2.  must be distinguished from obtrusiveness; how much does stigma interfere with fluidity of interaction?

3.  visibility of stigma (as well as obtrusiveness) must be disentangled from certain possibilities of “perceived focus”

Ex: ugliness (stigma focused on social situations) vs. diabetes (no initial effect on face-to-face interaction qualifications).

Personal Identity Stigma management does not simply pertain to interactions with strangers, or public life.

Breaking through: individual with stigma attempts to reach personal level where stigma is not a crucial factor, hopefully develop normalization contact with normals.Ex: my sister’s visible physical disability becomes normalized to her classmates as the school year progresses.

Familiarity may not reduce contempt. Ex: white people living in the presence of people of color may maintain their racial prejudices.

Historical and societal expectations and standardizations come into play. Individual’s intimates may also be “put off” by stigma. Ex: homosexuals concealing their sexuality from their families.

Some stigmas only effect intimates because it can hide from strangers and acquaintances. Ex: having an STD is not apparent to the public, but one’s sexual partner has to know.

Personal Identity Uniqueness: each member in a small, long-standing social circle has unique/defining characteristics.

Individual can be differentiated from all others, single continuous record of social facts can be attached.

Personal identity Aspects:

1.  Positive marks/identity pegs.

2.  Unique combination of life history attempts that are attached to individual

Can also acquire a personal identity not their “own.” Ex: scarring fingertips, re-naming

Name is common, but not reliable, way of fixing identity. Documentation: allow no error or ambiguity, safeguard against potential misrepresentation of social identity.

Discussion Questions •  How do you believe the notions of “discredited” and

“discreditable” have changed with the increasingly popularity of the internet and online communities?

•  Do you think it would be easier to live with a “discredited” or “discreditable” stigma?

Chapter 2

Information Control and Personal Identity - "Passing": (pp. 73-91)

Group: Oprah Winfrey Does Porn

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Double Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qLe9OKCxTQ

Secret Alcoholism http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/health/your_health&id=8547183

Discussion

-What types of deviance are most relevant to Goffman’s ideas on “passing”? For what types of deviance is “passing” as normal not an option?

-Do you think "passing" is something we all do to some extent?

Chapter 2: Information Control & Personal Identity

(pp. 95-104)

The Screaming O’s (Group 3)

Informational Control & Covering

Information Control

•  Conceal stigma markers

•  http://www.everydayhealth.com/skin-and-beauty/how-to-hide-a-tattoo.aspx

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Information Control

•  Disidentifiers

Information Control

•  Passing on associated services

Information Control

•  Presenting stigma identifiers as less discredited stigma

Information Control

•  Division of social contacts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LOzMtI6RCM

Information Control •  Keeping distance and control of

contact with stigmatized group

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiZ75B3uFxM

Information Control •  Voluntary disclosure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ27LeAZOus

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Covering

•  Reducing effect of one’s stigma •  Covering uses many of the same tactics

as informational control

Covering

•  Concern over stigma markers

[same as informational control]

Covering

•  Hiding and overcoming typical failings associated with the stigma

Covering

•  Formation of social institutions

Discuss...

Why cover, as opposed to pass?

Can you think of instances when a stigmatized individual feels above passing because he/she feels their self-acceptance & self-respect negate the need to conceal their failing?

Stigma: Chapter 3

Group Alignment & Ego Identity

By: The San Fernando Valley All-Stars

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Identity: Social, Personal, & Ego •  Social and personal

identity are made up by other people's concerns and definitions

•  Personal identity can begin to be constructed before an individual is born and even after that person is buried

•  Ego identity must be felt by the individual whose identity is at question

•  Those stigmatized feel a tendency to stratify their "own" according to the degree to which their stigma is apparent

•  More identity ambivalence when own kind is behaving in a stereotyped way

Ambivalence

•  Concern with in-group purification: efforts of stigmatized people to not only "normify" their own conduct, but that of others in the group too.

•  Nearing: When an individual comes close to an undesirable instance of his own kind while with a normal

- There exists a self-contradiction of individuals who think they aren't any different from everyone else, while they and others realize that they are somehow different.

- Deviants are warned against passing completely, but also warned against fully accepting their own negative attitudes toward them.

Professional Presentations

- Deviants are warned against minstrelization, "acting out before normals, the full dance of bad qualities"

Minstrelization

http://youtu.be/nBmNcy4zZNU

- Deviants are also warned against normification/deminstrelization, "acting overly normal in from of normals, so that they are perceived as nice people, despite their deviance"

Normification/De-minstrelizaton

1. It can cause those who are deviant to become overly conscious of social situations, so they are observers, not participants.

2. This type of advice deals candidly with very private matters, as acts of deviance tend to be personal.

2 Implications of these "codes"

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•  The spokesman for the group of like-minded individuals says that this is the individuals only “true” group •  This group is comprised of individuals who have experienced the same type of stigma •  If the individual turns to his group he is characterized as loyal and authentic •  If the individual turns away from the group he is a fool and a traitor •  One consequence of having an in-group standpoint is the rise of militant ideology •  The militant individual will give praise to his groups special and often stereotypical attributes while favoring a secessionist ideology from the normals

In-Group Alignments In-Group Alignment Example

•Stigmatized individuals vs. the “normal” population –Stigmatized individual should see himself as a complete human being, with the ability to fulfill “ordinary standards”

•The stigmatized individual should not feel resentful towards themselves or the normal population

Out-Group Alignment •Focus on a balance of downplaying one’s stigma,

while giving it enough validity so normal people don’t feel uncomfortable about it

•Good Adjustment – Requires that the stigmatized individual cheerfully and unselfconsciously accept himself as essentially the same as normals, while at the same time he voluntarily withholds himself from those situations in which normals would find it difficult to give lip service to their similar acceptance of him.” - 121

Out-Group Alignment Cont…

•  As a result of the misalignment between the in-group and the out-group the stigmatized views himself as "different" even when he is a member of the wider group.

•  This leads to a state of semi-acceptance within the social group which adds confusion to one's ego identity.

The Politics of Identity

•  What is the difference between "In-Group" and "Out-Group" Alignment?

•  What do you think are some good examples of "Good Adjustment?"

Discussion Questions

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XOXO, JAVIER SLAMM AND THE PEENYWHACKERS

Stigma by Erving Goffman

Chapter 4: The Self and Its Other

Deviations and Norms

•  Stigmatized vs. normal: everyone is at once stigmatized and normal from different/various perspectives (ex: Miley Cyrus smoking legal drug salvia, friends find it normal, stigmatized by public)

•  Failure/Success of achieving/maintaining norms of identity has a huge impact on individuals' psychological well-being (ex:person has physical disorder out of their control...can make them depressed, they cannot control it so they feel helpless)


•  Identity norms breed both deviations and conformity (ex: appropriate party attire…most people dress up a little or a lot -conformists- but some wear sloppy or revealing clothes and are stigmatized -deviants-)

•  Focus on ordinary deviations from the common, not uncommon deviations from the ordinary


•  Cooperation between deviants and normals: normals ignore, respect, or pass over deviant behaviors/traits, and deviants don't push the boundaries of acceptance from normals (most people do anything to avoid awkward situations)

•  Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2JBjEtNSSc


•  Impression management: individual controls image that he/she portrays to others or wants others to see

•  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOoCwZQvMg

•  Also "passing" and "covering"

The Normal Deviant

•  Stigma management occurs wherever there are identity norms.

•  Even when an individual is deviant, he or she often has normal concerns about it.

•  Individual employs normal strategies in attempting to conceal it.

•  e.g. Someone likes to sleep naked, doesn't tell friends, wears pj's during sleepovers

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The Normal Deviant

•  Deviant leaders act respective to their environments. •  e.g. Performance.

Stigma and Reality

•  Stigmatized and normal are a part of each other… they aren’t people, they are perspectives generated in social situations

•  The stigmatized can: •  Pass for fun •  Play games •  Give brief responses •  A cold stare

•  Every individual participates in both roles (normal and stigmatized)

Stigma and Reality

•  Different types of stigma have different functions •  Stigmatization of those with bad moral record serves as a

means of formal social control •  Stigmatization of certain racial, religious and ethnic groups

functions as a means of removing these minorities from various avenues of competition

Discussion Question

•  What is more important to focus on, the norms themselves or the deviations from those norms?

Chapter 5 and Conclusion

Deviations Deviants

Uses of Goffman’s Work

Stigma paved way for studies on: 1. Groups of stigmatized populations 2. Groups categorized by symbols of stigma 3. “Minor” bodily stigmas

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Reactions / Criticisms

“So inclusive as to be uninformative” (Cahill & Eggleston, 1995)


• How do you believe the notions of “discredited” and “discreditable” have changed with the increasingly popularity of the internet and online communities?

• Do you think it would be easier to live with a “discredited” or “discreditable” stigma?

• Why cover, as opposed to pass?


• Can you think of instances when a stigmatized individual feels above passing because he/she feels their self-acceptance & self-respect negate the need to conceal their failing?

• What is the difference between "In-Group" and "Out-Group" Alignment?

• What do you think are some good examples of "Good Adjustment?”


• What is more important to focus on, the norms themselves or the deviations from those norms?

• Must individuals always manage their stigma?

• What about stigmas that are “minor” or only known or imagined to individual?


• Rather focus on stigmatized individuals, should we address “normals” in order to reduce stigma?

• How can we challenge institutionalization and criminalization of stigmatized identities and experiences?

Thank You!

• Student Presentations

• Spring 2012

• SOC260 Deviance

• Occidental College

• Professor Danielle Dirks

• http://deviance.iheartsociology.com

Goffman Stigma (1963)

Education

Transcript of Goffman Stigma (1963)