Stigmatization of personality in psychology, psychiatry, what is it, theory

A person's life in society is impossible without assessing his behavior, character traits and appearance. This specificity of human interaction with society is closely related with such a concept as stigmatization.

This term in psychology literally means the process of applying a "label" or "stigma", a kind of generalization based on the most characteristic features. More often, stigma is given to people who, in moral, physical or other ways, differ from the majority. Sometimes the process of stigmatization is not an individual, but a whole group of people, which has a number of characteristics.

Stigma theory, what is it, definition

The concept of "stigma" was first introduced into scientific use by Irving Hoffman (American sociologist) in 1963. It was understood as certain characteristics of a person (physical, religious, psychological) that cause stigmatization - stigma, identification by signs.

In addition to Hoffmann, the study of stigma in the first half of the twentieth century. such well-known sociologists as Kai Erickson, Howard Becker, Edwin Lemert studied. According to their theories, stigma appears as a result of conflicts between people, which differ from each other in various ways. At the same time, the majority of people establish and define generally accepted norms or rules, and those who do not comply with them are given a label (stigma).

Erving Hoffmann also believed that initially, by their nature, there are no negative actions, since a negative value judgment depends only on those norms that are accepted in society. This is especially clearly seen in the example of the difference in cultures among different peoples and nationalities.

For example, in a number of underdeveloped countries (mainly in Africa), the norm is decorating her body with piercings, and in Muslim countries, a woman has few rights, she more often it is forbidden to work and devote oneself to anything other than family, while for the modern world (Europe, America) such values ​​and foundations seem wildness.

The basic basis of the theory of stigmatization is the key idea of ​​conflictology, according to which bad relations between subjects arise due to the difference in their views and interests. At the same time, people with a certain position in society, endowed with power and wealth have the privileged right to formulate their principles and norms institutionally (in the form of laws that must be observed) and in various ways influence the violators of these norms.

Briefly, the theory of stigmatization can be formulated as follows: an individual who is a deviant (a person who demonstrates a deviant behavior), society endows stigma (label, stigma) if there are distinctive (deviant) peculiarities.

Stigmatizing society

The stigmatization of society is usually based on one indicative quality, which will be the main criterion for the formation value judgments of others about the behavior of the individual, as well as a number of additional characteristics accompanying the presence of this main indicative criterion.

For ease of understanding, examples of the stigmatization of society can be given:

There is a long-held belief that women are not good at driving.	This stigma is associated with gender discrimination. In fact, in most cases, women drive a car more accurately than men and generally approach the very organization of the driving process more responsibly (in percentage the proportion of men who get drunk is more than women, and the stronger sex is more likely to have problems with documents and technical equipment car).
There is a popular myth that Russian people (meaning nationality) drink a lot	In fact, not only representatives of the Russian nationality like to drink, but because of the peculiar behavior of some representatives of the Russian diaspora who may behave inappropriately after drinking heavily, many make incorrect judgments about the nation generally.
For a long time, German nationality was associated with fascism	The sad events of the Second World War for a long time glued such stigma to people with German roots. However, it is not entirely correct to transfer such judgments to all people living in Germany at the moment (other Germans abroad), who did not take part in the hostilities of those years and were born much later period.

Almost any society is saturated with stigma, and often social stigmatization leads to discrimination. The described examples of stigmatization clearly demonstrate how certain strata or categories of the population are assigned a number of qualities that, in fact, are not always characteristic of them.

Sometimes social stigma labels can take on an ironic-positive form, which will be very offensive. So, for example, there is a deep-rooted opinion in society that athletes are not distinguished by high intellectual abilities and therefore praise for unusually sound thoughts expressed by such individuals can be very offensive and have a pronounced negative focus. At the same time, other offensive or ironic statements should be distinguished from stigmas that any person can hear addressed to him in a queue or on public transport.

Stigma in sociology

Initially, the term "stigma" originated in Ancient Greece and meant tattoos that were applied to the body of a person whose position was dependent or socially disapproved of behavior. At that time, stigma acted as a conditional indicator of a person's social position in society and most often indicated the low status of a person or a group of persons.

Modern researchers - sociologists became interested in stigmatization in the 60s. last century. From this period until the mid-90s. they created various works and scientific research that touched on a wide range of deviant (deviant) behavior of individuals in society. For the most part, they considered norm and deviation not separately, as independent phenomena, but as a whole.

Based on this approach, the main question becomes who stigmatizes and defines the framework of normal behavior, and the question of who is stigmatized and why fades into the background. However, in fact, the main problem of stigmatization lies in the consequences of stigma, since the social allocation of the individual (s) on certain grounds leads to the opposition of him (them) to all other members of society, which negatively affects his (their) life (lives).

Stigma in Psychology and Psychiatry

Stigmas in psychology and psychiatry are considered as certain stereotypes that have developed in society towards the mentally ill people, as well as those whose behavior is very different from the generally accepted (for example, people with non-traditional orientation). Today, society demonstrates extreme intolerance not only towards patients with serious mental illness, but also towards people with mild forms of such deviations.

Many consider various kinds of psychological problems to be simple indulgence of their own whims, and serious mental diagnoses do very much complicate normal social life in society and the realization of the rights guaranteed law.

According to the WHO, people with mental disabilities in most countries of the world are stigmatized, discriminated against, and regularly face cruel and neglectful treatment.

Often, society is tolerant of people who may be more likely to pose a threat to society than to mentally ill individuals. For example, many are inclined to believe that alcoholics are less dangerous and more harmless than people with mental retardation, schizophrenia, or unconventional orientation.

Causes of stigma

Stigmatization in psychology is the formation in society of a peculiar perception of individual members of society in due to the fact that the latter in some way (behavior, physiology, lifestyle) differ from majority.

The emergence of such a phenomenon in society is associated with a number of reasons:

• low educational and cultural level of people - most often, labeling occurs in social groups with less education and well-being. This explains the bullying (bullying) at school, in boarding schools, orphanages, a kind of hierarchy of relations in places that are not so remote. In educational and foster care settings, children are labeled because their characters are just being formed. In prisons, this happens because of the low social status of convicts. Stigmatization in institutions of this kind is becoming the norm and is the basis of the perception of the world;
• generally accepted stereotypes - at the everyday level, many are accustomed to perceiving this or that stratum of society through the prism of the most characteristic features. These stigmas include the belief that all officials are bribe-takers, bankers and businessmen are thieves, women must get married and give birth to a child up to a certain age, and it is shameful for men to do household chores labor;
• insufficient information about something - most often in this situation we are talking about a poor understanding of any diseases. Often people prefer not to notice (sometimes offend) people with disabilities, mentally ill, with contempt for people with "shameful" diseases, such like AIDS, HIV, hepatitis C, believing that they acquired such diseases through their own fault, leading an immoral lifestyle, which does not always correspond reality. As a result, it becomes the norm to apply phrases like “alcoholic”, “drug addict”, “person with low social responsibility” to all such patients;
• cultural characteristics of the perception of certain events, state - so it has long been customary to identify mental disorders with a certain obsession, demoniacal and explained the public fear of people with mental illness, prone to hysteria, asceticism.

How does it manifest?

Stigmatization manifests itself in disrespect from family members, acquaintances, friends, just others, neighbors, medical staff, work colleagues.

This can be expressed in:

• dismissive attitude;
• ridicule, caustic jokes, remarks;
• disrespectful attitude, excessive formalism, demonstrative condescension;
• addressing "you", despite age;
• excessive control from loved ones.

Most often, people feel this attitude towards themselves when seeking medical help, on the street, among strangers.

The main types of stigma, examples

Stigmatization in psychology is the identification by the surrounding people of certain members of society with something wrong and beyond the normal because of their dissimilarity to others. The development of the process of stigmatization is associated with national and cultural characteristics, the socio-political system, as well as the personal psychological complexes of individuals.

Psychologists and sociologists identify several types of stigmatization:

• physical;
• psychological;
• ethnic;
• social.

Physical

Physical stigma is expressed in stigmatization of persons with any physiological handicaps or defects. This can also include an unfriendly attitude towards people with mental illness, since due to of such diagnoses, a person is often considered flawed, even if his appearance does not differ from those around him.

Physical disabilities can be both congenital and acquired, for example, after an industrial accident, car accident. At the same time, stigmas can be expressed in completely different ways and may not always be associated with a person's immediate illness. So, for example, when communicating with a blind person, people can speak louder, automatically perceiving him as completely different from healthy people, although he will have everything in order with his hearing.

Labeling mentally unhealthy people is one of the biggest problems, as it greatly complicates their social interaction. Even in the presence of small mental deviations, individuals are faced with the fact that they are rejected by the collective, they cannot find a partner and just friends. In this case, patients suffer more from stigmatization than from manifestations of their disease.

People suffering from some incurable diseases - AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis - are also subjected to physical stigmatization. Such subjects are very quickly labeled as "drug addict", "alcoholic", which, of course, reduces their ability to interact normally with society.

Psychological

With psychological stigmatization, the individual drives himself into a certain framework, because of which he misses many opportunities and limits his social circle. This usually happens due to self-dislike, complexes and is due to the fact that a not very significant problem is seen by a person as insoluble.

For example, a girl may avoid relationships with guys, believing that no one will look at her, since she is "fat, and no one likes such." However, even if there is actually excess weight, this is not at all a reason to drive yourself even more with such self-flagellation, hide and blame everyone for your misfortunes. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and getting angry, you can try to change what you can do.

In a situation where in fact there is a serious physical disability (disability), you should use the opportunity to pass social rehabilitation, mastering a new profession, trying to find people with similar problems who have successfully integrated into the public a life.

Social

In this case, a brand or label is assigned to a person in accordance with his position in society. The most obvious example of social stigmatization is discrimination against former convicts.

After serving their sentence, they are looked upon with apprehension and distrust, they are called "criminals" and they believe that such people are hopeless and will never be corrected. This is based on the fact that this is partly what happens, however, not all former prisoners commit serious and especially serious crimes and they should not be given a chance to reform.

Sometimes, having committed a petty crime (theft, hooliganism), a person cannot return to normal life due to the rejection of him by members of society, although he initially strove for this. As a result, social stigmatization turns into psychological. The same difficulties with life adaptation are experienced by orphans, the attitude towards which in the public is also initially negative, since they are considered “poor”, “unlucky”, “future criminals ".

Some gender postulates, which are actively broadcast, can also be attributed to social stigmas. young girls - it is necessary to get married and have children, and preferably up to a certain age.

Representatives of sexual minorities strongly feel the social pressure. Often they prefer not to talk about their orientation even to those closest to them at all and try to leave to live where they are normally treated. Another example of social stigma is associated with urbanization, which has resulted in several the offensive idea that people living in villages and towns are "backward", "narrow-minded", "Under-educated".

Cultural

Cultural stigmatization is widely represented in the national-ethnic context.

For example:

• "Russians are drunkards and fools";
• “Belarusians are overly patient”;
• "Americans are fat";
• “Ukrainians are greedy and cunning”;
• “Jews are calculating, selfish, cunning”;
• "Negroes are drug addicts."

On the basis of such ideas about nationalities, anecdotes, satirical stories are born, in them one or another feature of the mentality of the people is noticed, or, in other words, stigma.

Cultural stigma breeds racial discrimination and conflict. The history of mankind knows many examples of how, because of such ideas, entire nations were destroyed, bloody wars were kindled (crusades, fascism).

Why is stigma dangerous?

Stigmatization in psychology is the assignment of unflattering social, psychological, moral characteristics (labels) to individuals that differ in some way from the accepted stereotypes. Stigmatization is negative in nature and has a negative impact on both the repressed object and the subject of such relations that condemns differences.

For those to whom stigmatization is directed, it is dangerous in that it deprives them of social independence, and also further provokes deviant (destructive) behavior. For the majority (a society that hangs labels), stigmatization is also unsafe, as as a result this process, conflicts, disagreements arise, the collective sense of morality and morality.

It often happens that the special “specificity” of an individual (or group) does not pose any real threat to the environment, which, however, does not save him from stigmatization. Glued stigma has a serious impact on people's behavior and can either unjustifiably belittle them (which happens most often), and undeservedly exalt them (which happens less often).

The human impact of stigma

Individuals subjected to stigmatization have approximately the same behavior patterns. Usually they begin to be ashamed of their "imperfection", try to avoid other people. Fearing criticism from the majority, they try to hide their shortcomings so that their image matches the generally accepted idea of ​​normal people as much as possible.

As a result, such individuals develop neuroses, depression, psychosomatic diseases. Under strong stress and pressure from society, some people may even attempt to commit suicide.

Attitude towards a person with stigma

Stigma in psychology is a kind of attitude of the majority of society towards people who are somehow different from the rest.

According to Hoffmann's theory, the attitude towards such people can be:

• quite friendly (however, this is rather rare) - designed to smooth out and leave unnoticed the presence of the individual's distinctive features;
• discriminatory, infringing - when a person is given to understand in every possible way that because of his "peculiarities" he must know his place;
• hostile - quite often others try to justify their unfriendly attitude by saying that an allegedly different person is dangerous to society;
• exaggerating - in this case, the stigma is generalized and other imperfections are attributed to the individual, which, in fact, are not characteristic of him (to for example, as described above, a blind person can be addressed very loudly, believing for some reason that he not only does not see anything, but also does not hears).

Emotions experienced by a mentally unhealthy person

Mentally unhealthy people are more likely than others to experience a particularly biased attitude on the part of society, which does not reflect in the best way on their life and perception of the world:

• they are always ashamed - they literally feel with their skin that they are not like everyone else;
• fear for them is a familiar everyday feeling - they are frightened by the unknown, they always worry about how new people will perceive them, rejected or not;
• they become helpless;
• they are constantly accompanied by a feeling of despair and deprivation;

Difficulties in establishing contacts in society arise not only among people with serious mental disorders. Even a mild form of autism or previous depression can make communication very difficult and can lead to stigma.

Degrees of attitude of others

The people around them treat individuals differently, which they themselves endow with labels (stigma):

• the attitude towards individuals expressing delusional or absurd ideas is rather condescending;
• they are wary of the relatives of mentally ill people, often identifying them with each other (transferring stigma according to the principle that once he is like that, then his relatives are the same);
• the negative in relation to people with non-standard appearance, speech, behavior is quite strongly expressed;
• intolerance to isolated patients increases significantly;
• people in psychiatric hospitals are shunned and feared.

How to Destigmatize?

Destigmatization of society should be aimed at the formation of an adequate perception of people who differ in their behavior, appearance, other features associated with diseases, lifestyle.

In order for society to become more tolerant of such people and the process of destigmatization to be successful, it is necessary:

• convey information through the media (about diseases, pathological conditions, differences in culture, religion);
• teach ethics to healthcare professionals;
• create conditions for a normal life for disabled people (barrier-free environment);
• to enable people who have stumbled to find their place in life;
• to carry out educational and explanatory work among children and adolescents, youth.

All these measures should be taken by institutional state organizations and public associations. At the everyday level, in everyday life, one should not apply stigma when communicating with a person who has any differences. It is necessary to behave tactfully and in no case point out his problem, talk about it only if he himself expresses a desire.

Stigma is at the core of many social stereotypes. Psychologists and sociologists believe that the problem of stigmatization is not in some kind of wrong (deviant) behavior of a person, but in how society evaluates it. Hanging social labels is a big problem, as it provokes the development of conflicts, makes people unhappy and does not allow them to live a full life.

Personal stigma video

Stigma for people with mental disorders: