Conceptualizing Stigma

TLDR

Stigma research has expanded rapidly, yet the concept remains criticized for vagueness and individual focus, and its relevance to life‑chance disparities motivates further study. The authors seek to clarify stigma by defining it as the co‑occurrence of labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, discrimination, and the exercise of power. They operationalize stigma by specifying these components and the necessity of power for stigmatization. The defined stigma concept informs core research issues, explaining persistent stigma and its broad impact on life chances such as earnings, housing, criminal involvement, health, and overall life.

Abstract

Social science research on stigma has grown dramatically over the past two decades, particularly in social psychology, where researchers have elucidated the ways in which people construct cognitive categories and link those categories to stereotyped beliefs. In the midst of this growth, the stigma concept has been criticized as being too vaguely defined and individually focused. In response to these criticisms, we define stigma as the co-occurrence of its components–labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination–and further indicate that for stigmatization to occur, power must be exercised. The stigma concept we construct has implications for understanding several core issues in stigma research, ranging from the definition of the concept to the reasons stigma sometimes represents a very persistent predicament in the lives of persons affected by it. Finally, because there are so many stigmatized circumstances and because stigmatizing processes can affect multiple domains of people's lives, stigmatization probably has a dramatic bearing on the distribution of life chances in such areas as earnings, housing, criminal involvement, health, and life itself. It follows that social scientists who are interested in understanding the distribution of such life chances should also be interested in stigma.