Understanding stigma: Dimensions of deviance and coping

Abstract

The present paper deals with stigma and its effects on social interaction. The major thesis is that stigma is a form of deviance that leads others to judge individuals as illegitimate for participation in an interaction, because they are incompetent, unpredictable, inconsistent, or a threat to the interaction. Illegitimacy places the stigmatized beyond the protection of a number of implicit social norms that govern any interaction. The disruptive impact of stigma depends on its classification along several dimensions: visibility, pervasiveness, clarity, centrality, relevance, salience, responsibility for acquisition, and removability. Strategies used to cope with stigma can be understood with reference to their focus (biographical identity, situated identity, or performance), target (stigmatized or normals), impact on the social‐psychological distance between normals and the stigmatized (assimilative or contrastive), and purpose (concealment, reduction of salience, or redefinition of the situation).