Stereotype

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An 18th-century Dutch engraving of the peoples of the world, depicting the inhabitants of Asia, the Americas and Africa in their typical dress. Shown below are an Englishman, a Dutchman, a German and a Frenchman.

 

Police officers buying doughnuts and coffee, an example of perceived stereotypical behavior in North America.

 

In social psychology, a stereotype is an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. Stereotypes are generalized because one assumes that the stereotype is true for each individual person in the category. While such generalizations may be useful when making quick decisions, they may be erroneous when applied to particular individuals. Stereotypes encourage prejudice and may arise for a number of reasons.

Explicit stereotypes

Explicit stereotypes are those people who are willing to verbalize and admit to other individuals. It also refers to stereotypes that one is aware that one holds, and is aware that one is using to judge people. People can attempt to consciously control the use of explicit stereotypes, even though their attempt to control may not be fully effective.

Implicit stereotypes

"Only males play video games" is a common stereotype. In fact, almost half of all gamers are female.

 

Implicit stereotypes are those that lay on individuals' subconsciousness, that they have no control or awareness of.

In social psychology, a stereotype is any thought widely adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of behaving intended to represent the entire group of those individuals or behaviors as a whole. These thoughts or beliefs may or may not accurately reflect reality, but given the nature of stereotypes themselves, they often do. Within psychology and across other disciplines, different conceptualizations and theories of stereotyping exist, at times sharing commonalities, as well as containing contradictory elements.

Etymology

The term stereotype comes from the French adjective stéréotype and derives from the Greek words στερεός (stereos), "firm, solid" and τύπος (typos), impression, hence "solid impression on one or more idea/theory." 

The term comes from the printing trade and was first adopted in 1798 by Firmin Didot to describe a printing plate that duplicated any typography. The duplicate printing plate, or the stereotype, is used for printing instead of the original. 

Outside of printing, the first reference to "stereotype" was in 1850, as a noun that meant image perpetuated without change. However, it was not until 1922 that "stereotype" was first used in the modern psychological sense by American journalist Walter Lippmann in his work Public Opinion.

Relationship with other types of intergroup attitudes

Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are understood as related but different concepts. Stereotypes are regarded as the most cognitive component and often occurs without conscious awareness, whereas prejudice is the affective component of stereotyping and discrimination is one of the behavioral components of prejudicial reactions. In this tripartite view of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes reflect expectations and beliefs about the characteristics of members of groups perceived as different from one's own, prejudice represents the emotional response, and discrimination refers to actions.

Although related, the three concepts can exist independently of each other. According to Daniel Katz and Kenneth Braly, stereotyping leads to racial prejudice when people emotionally react to the name of a group, ascribe characteristics to members of that group, and then evaluate those characteristics.

Possible prejudicial effects of stereotypes are:

• Justification of ill-founded prejudices or ignorance
• Unwillingness to rethink one's attitudes and behavior
• Preventing some people of stereotyped groups from entering or succeeding in activities or fields

Content

Stereotype content model, adapted from Fiske et al. (2002): Four types of stereotypes resulting from combinations of perceived warmth and competence.

 

Stereotype content refers to the attributes that people think characterize a group. Studies of stereotype content examine what people think of others, rather than the reasons and mechanisms involved in stereotyping.

Early theories of stereotype content proposed by social psychologists such as Gordon Allport assumed that stereotypes of outgroups reflected uniform antipathy. For instance, Katz and Braly argued in their classic 1933 study that ethnic stereotypes were uniformly negative.

By contrast, a newer model of stereotype content theorizes that stereotypes are frequently ambivalent and vary along two dimensions: warmth and competence. Warmth and competence are respectively predicted by lack of competition and status. Groups that do not compete with the in-group for the same resources (e.g., college space) are perceived as warm, whereas high-status (e.g., economically or educationally successful) groups are considered competent. The groups within each of the four combinations of high and low levels of warmth and competence elicit distinct emotions. The model explains the phenomenon that some out-groups are admired but disliked, whereas others are liked but disrespected. This model was empirically tested on a variety of national and international samples and was found to reliably predict stereotype content.

Functions

Early studies suggested that stereotypes were only used by rigid, repressed, and authoritarian people. This idea has been refuted by contemporary studies that suggest the ubiquity of stereotypes and it was suggested to regard stereotypes as collective group beliefs, meaning that people who belong to the same social group share the same set of stereotypes. Modern research asserts that full understanding of stereotypes requires considering them from two complementary perspectives: as shared within a particular culture/subculture and as formed in the mind of an individual person.

Relationship between cognitive and social functions

Stereotyping can serve cognitive functions on an interpersonal level, and social functions on an intergroup level. For stereotyping to function on an intergroup level (see social identity approaches: social identity theory and self-categorization theory), an individual must see themselves as part of a group and being part of that group must also be salient for the individual.

Craig McGarty, Russell Spears, and Vincent Y. Yzerbyt (2002) argued that the cognitive functions of stereotyping are best understood in relation to its social functions, and vice versa.

Cognitive functions

Stereotypes can help make sense of the world. They are a form of categorization that helps to simplify and systematize information. Thus, information is more easily identified, recalled, predicted, and reacted to. Stereotypes are categories of objects or people. Between stereotypes, objects or people are as different from each other as possible. Within stereotypes, objects or people are as similar to each other as possible.

Gordon Allport has suggested possible answers to why people find it easier to understand categorized information. First, people can consult a category to identify response patterns. Second, categorized information is more specific than non-categorized information, as categorization accentuates properties that are shared by all members of a group. Third, people can readily describe objects in a category because objects in the same category have distinct characteristics. Finally, people can take for granted the characteristics of a particular category because the category itself may be an arbitrary grouping. 

A complementary perspective theorizes how stereotypes function as time- and energy-savers that allow people to act more efficiently. Yet another perspective suggests that stereotypes are people's biased perceptions of their social contexts. In this view, people use stereotypes as shortcuts to make sense of their social contexts, and this makes a person's task of understanding his or her world less cognitively demanding.

Social functions: social categorization

In the following situations, the overarching purpose of stereotyping is for people to put their collective self (their in-group membership) in a positive light:

• when stereotypes are used for explaining social events
• when stereotypes are used for justifying activities of one's own group (ingroup) to another group (outgroup)
• when stereotypes are used for differentiating the ingroup as positively distinct from outgroups

Explanation purposes

An anti-semitic 1873 caricature depicting the stereotypical physical features of a Jewish male.

As mentioned previously, stereotypes can be used to explain social events. Henri Tajfel described his observations of how some people found that the anti-Semitic contents of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion only made sense if Jews have certain characteristics. Therefore, according to Tajfel, Jews were stereotyped as being evil and yearning for world domination to match the anti-Semitic ‘facts’ as presented in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Justification purposes

People create stereotypes of an outgroup to justify the actions that their in-group has committed (or plans to commit) towards that outgroup. For example, according to Tajfel, Europeans stereotyped Turkish, Indian, and Chinese people as being incapable of achieving financial advances without European help. This stereotype was used to justify European colonialism in Turkey, India, and China.

Intergroup differentiation

An assumption is that people want their ingroup to have a positive image relative to outgroups, and so people want to differentiate their ingroup from relevant outgroups in a desirable way. If an outgroup does not affect the ingroup’s image, then from an image preservation point of view, there is no point for the ingroup to be positively distinct from that outgroup.

People can actively create certain images for relevant outgroups by stereotyping. People do so when they see that their ingroup is no longer as clearly and/or as positively differentiated from relevant outgroups, and they want to restore the intergroup differentiation to a state that favours the ingroup.

Social functions: self-categorization

Stereotypes can emphasize a person’s group membership in two steps: Stereotypes emphasize the person’s similarities with ingroup members on relevant dimensions, and also the person’s differences from outgroup members on relevant dimensions. People change the stereotype of their ingroups and outgroups to suit context. Once an outgroup treats an ingroup member badly, they are more drawn to the members of their own group. This can be seen as members with in a group are able to relate to each other though a stereotype because of identical situations. A person can embrace a stereotype to avoid humiliation such as failing a task and blaming it on a stereotype.

Social functions: social influence and consensus

Stereotypes are an indicator of ingroup consensus. When there are intragroup disagreements over stereotypes of the ingroup and/or outgroups, ingroup members take collective action to prevent other ingroup members from diverging from each other.

John C. Turner proposed in 1987 that if ingroup members disagree on an outgroup stereotype, then one of three possible collective actions follow: First, ingroup members may negotiate with each other and conclude that they have different outgroup stereotypes because they are stereotyping different subgroups of an outgroup (e.g., Russian gymnasts versus Russian boxers). Second, ingroup members may negotiate with each other, but conclude that they are disagreeing because of categorical differences amongst themselves. Accordingly, in this context, it is better to categorise ingroup members under different categories (e.g., Democrats versus Republican) than under a shared category (e.g., American). Finally, ingroup members may influence each other to arrive at a common outgroup stereotype.

Formation

Different disciplines give different accounts of how stereotypes develop: Psychologists may focus on an individual's experience with groups, patterns of communication about those groups, and intergroup conflict. As for sociologists, they may focus on the relations among different groups in a social structure. They suggest that stereotypes are the result of conflict, poor parenting, and inadequate mental and emotional development. Once stereotypes have formed, there are two main factors that explain their persistence. First, the cognitive effects of schematic processing (see schema) make it so that when a member of a group behaves as we expect, the behavior confirms and even strengthens existing stereotypes. Second, the affective or emotional aspects of prejudice render logical arguments against stereotypes ineffective in countering the power of emotional responses.

Correspondence bias

Correspondence bias refers to the tendency to ascribe a person's behavior to disposition or personality, and to underestimate the extent to which situational factors elicited the behavior. Correspondence bias can play an important role in stereotype formation.

For example, in a study by Roguer and Yzerbyt (1999) participants watched a video showing students who were randomly instructed to find arguments either for or against euthanasia. The students that argued in favor of euthanasia came from the same law department or from different departments. Results showed that participants attributed the students' responses to their attitudes although it had been made clear in the video that students had no choice about their position. Participants reported that group membership, i.e., the department that the students belonged to, affected the students' opinions about euthanasia. Law students were perceived to be more in favor of euthanasia than students from different departments despite the fact that a pretest had revealed that subjects had no preexisting expectations about attitudes toward euthanasia and the department that students belong to. The attribution error created the new stereotype that law students are more likely to support euthanasia.

Nier et al. (2012) found that people who tend to draw dispositional inferences from behavior and ignore situational constraints are more likely to stereotype low-status groups as incompetent and high-status groups as competent. Participants listened to descriptions of two fictitious groups of Pacific Islanders, one of which was described as being higher in status than the other. In a second study, subjects rated actual groups – the poor and wealthy, women and men – in the United States in terms of their competence. Subjects who scored high on the measure of correspondence bias stereotyped the poor, women, and the fictitious lower-status Pacific Islanders as incompetent whereas they stereotyped the wealthy, men, and the high-status Pacific Islanders as competent. The correspondence bias was a significant predictor of stereotyping even after controlling for other measures that have been linked to beliefs about low status groups, the just-world hypothesis and social dominance orientation.

Illusory correlation

Research has shown that stereotypes can develop based on a cognitive mechanism known as illusory correlation – an erroneous inference about the relationship between two events. If two statistically infrequent events co-occur, observers overestimate the frequency of co-occurrence of these events. The underlying reason is that rare, infrequent events are distinctive and salient and, when paired, become even more so. The heightened salience results in more attention and more effective encoding, which strengthens the belief that the events are correlated.

In the intergroup context, illusory correlations lead people to misattribute rare behaviors or traits at higher rates to minority group members than to majority groups, even when both display the same proportion of the behaviors or traits. Black people, for instance, are a minority group in the United States and interaction with blacks is a relatively infrequent event for an average white American. Similarly, undesirable behavior (e.g. crime) is statistically less frequent than desirable behavior. Since both events "blackness" and "undesirable behavior" are distinctive in the sense that they are infrequent, the combination of the two leads observers to overestimate the rate of co-occurrence. Similarly, in workplaces where women are underrepresented and negative behaviors such as errors occur less frequently than positive behaviors, women become more strongly associated with mistakes than men.

In a landmark study, David Hamilton and Richard Gifford (1976) examined the role of illusory correlation in stereotype formation. Subjects were instructed to read descriptions of behaviors performed by members of groups A and B. Negative behaviors outnumbered positive actions and group B was smaller than group A, making negative behaviors and membership in group B relatively infrequent and distinctive. Participants were then asked who had performed a set of actions: a person of group A or group B. Results showed that subjects overestimated the frequency with which both distinctive events, membership in group B and negative behavior, co-occurred, and evaluated group B more negatively. This despite the fact the proportion of positive to negative behaviors was equivalent for both groups and that there was no actual correlation between group membership and behaviors. Although Hamilton and Gifford found a similar effect for positive behaviors as the infrequent events, a meta-analytic review of studies showed that illusory correlation effects are stronger when the infrequent, distinctive information is negative.

Hamilton and Gifford's distinctiveness-based explanation of stereotype formation was subsequently extended. A 1994 study by McConnell, Sherman, and Hamilton found that people formed stereotypes based on information that was not distinctive at the time of presentation, but was considered distinctive at the time of judgement. Once a person judges non-distinctive information in memory to be distinctive, that information is re-encoded and re-represented as if it had been distinctive when it was first processed.

Common environment

One explanation for why stereotypes are shared is that they are the result of a common environment that stimulates people to react in the same way.

The problem with the ‘common environment’ is that explanation in general is that it does not explain how shared stereotypes can occur without direct stimuli. Research since the 1930s suggested that people are highly similar with each other in how they describe different racial and national groups, although those people have no personal experience with the groups they are describing.

Socialization and upbringing

Another explanation says that people are socialised to adopt the same stereotypes. Some psychologists believe that although stereotypes can be absorbed at any age, stereotypes are usually acquired in early childhood under the influence of parents, teachers, peers, and the media. 

If stereotypes are defined by social values, then stereotypes only change as per changes in social values. The suggestion that stereotype content depend on social values reflects Walter Lippman's argument in his 1922 publication that stereotypes are rigid because they cannot be changed at will.

Studies emerging since the 1940s refuted the suggestion that stereotype contents cannot be changed at will. Those studies suggested that one group’s stereotype of another group would become more or less positive depending on whether their intergroup relationship had improved or degraded. Intergroup events (e.g., World War Two, Persian Gulf conflict) often changed intergroup relationships. For example, after WWII, Black American students held a more negative stereotype of people from countries that were the United States’s WWII enemies. If there are no changes to an intergroup relationship, then relevant stereotypes do not change.

Intergroup relations

According to a third explanation, shared stereotypes are neither caused by the coincidence of common stimuli, nor by socialisation. This explanation posits that stereotypes are shared because group members are motivated to behave in certain ways, and stereotypes reflect those behaviours. It is important to note from this explanation that stereotypes are the consequence, not the cause, of intergroup relations. This explanation assumes that when it is important for people to acknowledge both their ingroup and outgroup, they will emphasise their difference from outgroup members, and their similarity to ingroup members.

Activation

The dual-process model of cognitive processing of stereotypes asserts that automatic activation of stereotypes is followed by a controlled processing stage, during which an individual may choose to disregard or ignore the stereotyped information that has been brought to mind.

A number of studies have found that stereotypes are activated automatically. Patricia Devine (1989), for example, suggested that stereotypes are automatically activated in the presence of a member (or some symbolic equivalent) of a stereotyped group and that the unintentional activation of the stereotype is equally strong for high- and low-prejudice persons. Words related to the cultural stereotype of blacks were presented subliminally. During an ostensibly unrelated impression-formation task, subjects read a paragraph describing a race-unspecified target person's behaviors and rated the target person on several trait scales. Results showed that participants who received a high proportion of racial words rated the target person in the story as significantly more hostile than participants who were presented with a lower proportion of words related to the stereotype. This effect held true for both high- and low-prejudice subjects (as measured by the Modern Racism Scale). Thus, the racial stereotype was activated even for low-prejudice individuals who did not personally endorse it. Studies using alternative priming methods have shown that the activation of gender and age stereotypes can also be automatic.

Subsequent research suggested that the relation between category activation and stereotype activation was more complex. Lepore and Brown (1997), for instance, noted that the words used in Devine's study were both neutral category labels (e.g., "Blacks") and stereotypic attributes (e.g., "lazy"). They argued that if only the neutral category labels were presented, people high and low in prejudice would respond differently. In a design similar to Devine's, Lepore and Brown primed the category of African-Americans using labels such as "blacks" and "West Indians" and then assessed the differential activation of the associated stereotype in the subsequent impression-formation task. They found that high-prejudice participants increased their ratings of the target person on the negative stereotypic dimensions and decreased them on the positive dimension whereas low-prejudice subjects tended in the opposite direction. The results suggest that the level of prejudice and stereotype endorsement affects people's judgements when the category – and not the stereotype per se – is primed.

Research has shown that people can be trained to activate counterstereotypic information and thereby reduce the automatic activation of negative stereotypes. In a study by Kawakami et al. (2000), for example, participants were presented with a category label and taught to respond "No" to stereotypic traits and "Yes" to nonstereotypic traits. After this training period, subjects showed reduced stereotype activation. This effect is based on the learning of new and more positive stereotypes rather than the negation of already existing ones.

Automatic behavioral outcomes

Empirical evidence suggests that stereotype activation can automatically influence social behavior. For example, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) activated the stereotype of the elderly among half of their participants by administering a scrambled-sentence test where participants saw words related to age stereotypes. Subjects primed with the stereotype walked significantly more slowly than the control group (although the test did not include any words specifically referring to slowness), thus acting in a way that the stereotype suggests that elderly people will act. In another experiment, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows also found that because the stereotype about blacks includes the notion of aggression, subliminal exposure to black faces increased the likelihood that randomly selected white college students reacted with more aggression and hostility than participants who subconsciously viewed a white face. Similarly, Correll et al. (2002) showed that activated stereotypes about blacks can influence people's behavior. In a series of experiments, black and white participants played a video game, in which a black or white person was shown holding a gun or a harmless object (e.g., a mobile phone). Participants had to decide as quickly as possible whether to shoot the target. When the target person was armed, both black and white participants were faster in deciding to shoot the target when he was black than when he was white. When the target was unarmed, the participants avoided shooting him more quickly when he was white. Time pressure made the shooter bias even more pronounced.

Accuracy

A magazine feature from Beauty Parade from March 1952 stereotyping women drivers. It features Bettie Page as the model.

 

Stereotypes can be efficient shortcuts and sense-making tools. They can, however, keep people from processing new or unexpected information about each individual, thus biasing the impression formation process. Early researchers believed that stereotypes were inaccurate representations of reality. A series of pioneering studies in the 1930s found no empirical support for widely held racial stereotypes. By the mid-1950s, Gordon Allport wrote that, "It is possible for a stereotype to grow in defiance of all evidence."

Research on the role of illusory correlations in the formation of stereotypes suggests that stereotypes can develop because of incorrect inferences about the relationship between two events (e.g., membership in a social group and bad or good attributes). This means that at least some stereotypes are inaccurate.

Empirical social science research shows that stereotypes are often accurate. Jussim et al. reviewed four studies concerning racial and seven studies that examined gender stereotypes about demographic characteristics, academic achievement, personality and behavior. Based on that, the authors argued that some aspects of ethnic and gender stereotypes are accurate while stereotypes concerning political affiliation and nationality are much less accurate. A study by Terracciano et al. also found that stereotypic beliefs about nationality do not reflect the actual personality traits of people from different cultures.

Effects

Attributional ambiguity

Attributive ambiguity refers to the uncertainty that members of stereotyped groups experience in interpreting the causes of others' behavior toward them. Stereotyped individuals who receive negative feedback can attribute it either to personal shortcomings, such as lack of ability or poor effort, or the evaluator's stereotypes and prejudice toward their social group. Alternatively, positive feedback can either be attributed to personal merit or discounted as a form of sympathy or pity.

Crocker et al. (1991) showed that when black participants were evaluated by a white person who was aware of their race, black subjects mistrusted the feedback, attributing negative feedback to the evaluator's stereotypes and positive feedback to the evaluator's desire to appear unbiased. When the black participants' race was unknown to the evaluator, they were more accepting of the feedback.

Attributional ambiguity has been shown to affect a person's self-esteem. When they receive positive evaluations, stereotyped individuals are uncertain of whether they really deserved their success and, consequently, they find it difficult to take credit for their achievements. In the case of negative feedback, ambiguity has been shown to have a protective effect on self-esteem as it allows people to assign blame to external causes. Some studies, however, have found that this effect only holds when stereotyped individuals can be absolutely certain that their negative outcomes are due to the evaluators's prejudice. If any room for uncertainty remains, stereotyped individuals tend to blame themselves.

Attributional ambiguity can also make it difficult to assess one's skills because performance-related evaluations are mistrusted or discounted. Moreover, it can lead to the belief that one's efforts are not directly linked to the outcomes, thereby depressing one's motivation to succeed.

Stereotype threat

The effect of stereotype threat (ST) on math test scores for girls and boys. Data from Osborne (2007).

Stereotype threat occurs when people are aware of a negative stereotype about their social group and experience anxiety or concern that they might confirm the stereotype. Stereotype threat has been shown to undermine performance in a variety of domains.

Claude M. Steele and Joshua Aronson conducted the first experiments showing that stereotype threat can depress intellectual performance on standardized tests. In one study, they found that black college students performed worse than white students on a verbal test when the task was framed as a measure of intelligence. When it was not presented in that manner, the performance gap narrowed. Subsequent experiments showed that framing the test as diagnostic of intellectual ability made black students more aware of negative stereotypes about their group, which in turn impaired their performance. Stereotype threat effects have been demonstrated for an array of social groups in many different arenas, including not only academics but also sports, chess, and business.

Not only has stereotype threat been widely criticized by on a theoretical basis, but has failed several attempts to replicate it's experimental evidence. The findings in support of the concept have been suggested by multiple methodological reviews to be the product of publication bias.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Stereotypes lead people to expect certain actions from members of social groups. These stereotype-based expectations may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, in which one's inaccurate expectations about a person's behavior, through social interaction, prompt that person to act in stereotype-consistent ways, thus confirming one's erroneous expectations and validating the stereotype.

Word, Zanna, and Cooper (1974) demonstrated the effects of stereotypes in the context of a job interview. White participants interviewed black and white subjects who, prior to the experiments, had been trained to act in a standardized manner. Analysis of the videotaped interviews showed that black job applicants were treated differently: They received shorter amounts of interview time and less eye contact; interviewers made more speech errors (e.g., stutters, sentence incompletions, incoherent sounds) and physically distanced themselves from black applicants. In a second experiment, trained interviewers were instructed to treat applicants, all of whom were white, like the whites or blacks had been treated in the first experiment. As a result, applicants treated like the blacks of the first experiment behaved in a more nervous manner and received more negative performance ratings than interviewees receiving the treatment previously afforded to whites.

A 1977 study by Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid found a similar pattern in social interactions between men and women. Male undergraduate students were asked to talk to female undergraduates, whom they believed to be physically attractive or unattractive, on the phone. The conversations were taped and analysis showed that men who thought that they were talking to an attractive woman communicated in a more positive and friendlier manner than men who believed that they were talking to unattractive women. This altered the women's behavior: Female subjects who, unknowingly to them, were perceived to be physically attractive behaved in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with subjects who were regarded as unattractive.

A 2005 study by J. Thomas Kellow and Brett D. Jones looked at the effects of self-fulfilling prophecy on African American and Caucasian high school freshman students. Both white and black students were informed that their test performance would be predictive of their performance on a statewide, high stakes standardized test. They were also told that historically, white students had outperformed black students on the test. This knowledge created a self-fulfilling prophecy in both the white and black students, where the white students scored statistically significantly higher than the African American students on the test. The stereotype threat of underperforming on standardized tests effected the African American students in this study.

Discrimination

Because stereotypes simplify and justify social reality, they have potentially powerful effects on how people perceive and treat one another. As a result, stereotypes can lead to discrimination in labor markets and other domains. For example, Tilcsik (2011) has found that employers who seek job applicants with stereotypically male heterosexual traits are particularly likely to engage in discrimination against gay men, suggesting that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is partly rooted in specific stereotypes and that these stereotypes loom large in many labor markets. Agerström and Rooth (2011) showed that automatic obesity stereotypes captured by the Implicit Association Test can predict real hiring discrimination against the obese. Similarly, experiments suggest that gender stereotypes play an important role in judgments that affect hiring decisions.

Self-stereotyping

Stereotypes can affect self-evaluations and lead to self-stereotyping. For instance, Correll (2001, 2004) found that specific stereotypes (e.g., the stereotype that women have lower mathematical ability) affect women's and men's evaluations of their abilities (e.g., in math and science), such that men assess their own task ability higher than women performing at the same level. Similarly, a study by Sinclair et al. (2006) has shown that Asian American women rated their math ability more favorably when their ethnicity and the relevant stereotype that Asian Americans excel in math was made salient. In contrast, they rated their math ability less favorably when their gender and the corresponding stereotype of women's inferior math skills was made salient. Sinclair et al. found, however, that the effect of stereotypes on self-evaluations is mediated by the degree to which close people in someone's life endorse these stereotypes. People's self-stereotyping can increase or decrease depending on whether close others view them in stereotype-consistent or inconsistent manner.

Stereotyping can also play a central role in depression, when people have negative self-stereotypes about themselves, according to Cox, Abramson, Devine, and Hollon (2012). This depression that is caused by prejudice (i.e., "deprejudice") can be related to a group membership (e.g., Me–Gay–Bad) or not (e.g., Me–Bad). If someone holds prejudicial beliefs about a stigmatized group and then becomes a member of that group, they may internalize their prejudice and develop depression. People may also show prejudice internalization through self-stereotyping because of negative childhood experiences such as verbal and physical abuse.

Substitute for observations

Stereotypes are traditional and familiar symbol clusters, expressing a more or less complex idea in a convenient way. They are often simplistic pronouncements about gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds and they can become a source of misinformation and delusion. For example, in a school when students are confronted with the task of writing a theme, they think in terms of literary associations, often using stereotypes picked up from books, films, and magazines that they have read or viewed. 

The danger in stereotyping lies not in its existence, but in the fact that it can become a substitute for observation and a misinterpretation of a cultural identity. Promoting information literacy is a pedagogical approach that can effectively combat the entrenchment of stereotypes. The necessity for using information literacy to separate multicultural "fact from fiction" is well illustrated with examples from literature and media.

Role in art and culture

American political cartoon titled The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things, depicting a drunken Irishman lighting a powder keg and swinging a bottle. Published in Harper's Weekly, 1871.

 

Stereotypes are common in various cultural media, where they take the form of dramatic stock characters. The instantly recognizable nature of stereotypes mean that they are effective in advertising and situation comedy. Alexander Fedorov (2015) proposed a concept of media stereotypes analysis. This concept refers to identification and analysis of stereotypical images of people, ideas, events, stories, themes and etc. in media context.

The characters that do appear in movies greatly effect how people worldwide perceive gender relations, race, and cultural communities. Because approximately 85% of worldwide ticket sales are directed toward Hollywood movies, the American movie industry has been greatly responsible for portraying characters of different cultures and diversity to fit into stereotypical categories. This has led to the spread and persistence of gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural stereotypes seen in the movies.

For example, portrayals of Latin Americans in film and print media are restricted to a narrow set of characters. Latin Americans are largely depicted as sexualized figures such as the Latino macho or the Latina vixen, gang members, (illegal) immigrants, or entertainers. By comparison, they are rarely portrayed as working professionals, business leaders or politicians.

In Hollywood films, there are several Latin American stereotypes that have historically been used. Some examples are El Bandido, the Halfbreed Harlot, The Male Buffoon, The Female Clown, The Latin Lover, The Dark Lady, The Wise Old Man, and The Poor Peon. Many hispanic characters in hollywood films consists of one or more of these basic stereotypes, but it has been rare to view Latin American actors representing characters outside of this stereotypical criteria.

Media stereotypes of women first emerged in the early 20th century. Various stereotypic depictions or "types" of women appeared in magazines, including Victorian ideals of femininity, the New Woman, the Gibson Girl, the Femme fatale, and the Flapper.

Stereotypes are also common in video games, with women being portrayed as stereotypes such as the "damsel in distress" or as sexual objects (see Gender representation in video games). Studies show that minorities are portrayed most often in stereotypical roles such as athletes and gangsters (see Racial representations in video games).

In literature and art, stereotypes are clichéd or predictable characters or situations. Throughout history, storytellers have drawn from stereotypical characters and situations to immediately connect the audience with new tales.

Social stigma

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, a person based on perceivable social characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, race, and health.

Description

Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin of criminals, slaves, or traitors in order to visibly identify them as blemished or morally polluted persons. These individuals were to be avoided particularly in public places.

Social stigmas can occur in many different forms. The most common deal with culture, gender, race, illness and disease. Individuals who are stigmatized usually feel different and devalued by others.

Stigma may also be described as a label that associates a person to a set of unwanted characteristics that form a stereotype. It is also affixed. Once people identify and label your differences others will assume that is just how things are and the person will remain stigmatized until the stigmatizing attribute is undetectable. A considerable amount of generalization is required to create groups, meaning that you put someone in a general group regardless of how well they actually fit into that group. However, the attributes that society selects differ according to time and place. What is considered out of place in one society could be the norm in another. When society categorizes individuals into certain groups the labeled person is subjected to status loss and discrimination. Society will start to form expectations about those groups once the cultural stereotype is secured.

Stigma may affect the behavior of those who are stigmatized. Those who are stereotyped often start to act in ways that their stigmatizers expect of them. It not only changes their behavior, but it also shapes their emotions and beliefs. Members of stigmatized social groups often face prejudice that causes depression (i.e. deprejudice). These stigmas put a person's social identity in threatening situations, like low self-esteem. Because of this, identity theories have become highly researched. Identity threat theories can go hand-in-hand with labeling theory. 

Members of stigmatized groups start to become aware that they aren't being treated the same way and know they are probably being discriminated against. Studies have shown that "by 10 years of age, most children are aware of cultural stereotypes of different groups in society, and children who are members of stigmatized groups are aware of cultural types at an even younger age."

Main theories and contributions

Émile Durkheim

French sociologist Émile Durkheim was the first to explore stigma as a social phenomenon in 1895. He wrote:

Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals. Crimes or deviance, properly so-called, will there be unknown; but faults, which appear venial to the layman, will there create the same scandal that the ordinary offense does in ordinary consciousnesses. If then, this society has the power to judge and punish, it will define these acts as criminal (or deviant) and will treat them as such.

Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman was one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. He described stigma as a phenomenon whereby an individual with an attribute which is deeply discredited by his/her society is rejected as a result of the attribute. Goffman saw stigma as a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity.

More specifically, he explained that what constituted this attribute would change over time. "It should be seen that a language of relationships, not attributes, is really needed. An attribute that stigmatizes one type of possessor can confirm the usualness of another, and therefore is neither creditable nor discreditable as a thing in itself."

In Goffman's theory of social stigma, a stigma is an attribute, behavior, or reputation which is socially discrediting in a particular way: it causes an individual to be mentally classified by others in an undesirable, rejected stereotype rather than in an accepted, normal one. Goffman, a noted sociologist, defined stigma as a special kind of gap between virtual social identity and actual social identity:

Society establishes the means of categorizing persons and the complement of attributes felt to be ordinary and natural for members of each of these categories. [...] When a stranger comes into our presence, then, first appearances are likely to enable us to anticipate his category and attributes, his "social identity" [...] We lean on these anticipations that we have, transforming them into normative expectations, into righteously presented demands. [...] It is [when an active question arises as to whether these demands will be filled] that we are likely to realize that all along we had been making certain assumptions as to what the individual before us ought to be. [These assumed demands and the character we impute to the individual will be called] virtual social identity. The category and attributes he could in fact be proved to possess will be called his actual social identity. (Goffman 1963:2).

While a stranger is present before us, evidence can arise of his possessing an attribute that makes him different from others in the category of persons available for him to be, and of a less desirable kind--in the extreme, a person who is quite thoroughly bad, or dangerous, or weak. He is thus reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one. Such an attribute is a stigma, especially when its discrediting effect is very extensive [...] It constitutes a special discrepancy between virtual and actual social identity. Note that there are other types of [such] discrepancy [...] for example the kind that causes us to reclassify an individual from one socially anticipated category to a different but equally well-anticipated one, and the kind that causes us to alter our estimation of the individual upward. (Goffman 1963:3).

The stigmatized, the normal, and the wise

Goffman divides the individual's relation to a stigma into three categories:

1. the stigmatized are those who bear the stigma;
2. the normals are those who do not bear the stigma; and
3. the wise are those among the normals who are accepted by the stigmatized as "wise" to their condition (borrowing the term from the homosexual community).

The wise normals are not merely those who are in some sense accepting of the stigma; they are, rather, "those whose special situation has made them intimately privy to the secret life of the stigmatized individual and sympathetic with it, and who find themselves accorded a measure of acceptance, a measure of courtesy membership in the clan." That is, they are accepted by the stigmatized as "honorary members" of the stigmatized group. "Wise persons are the marginal men before whom the individual with a fault need feel no shame nor exert self-control, knowing that in spite of his failing he will be seen as an ordinary other." Goffman notes that the wise may in certain social situations also bear the stigma with respect to other normals: that is, they may also be stigmatized for being wise. An example is a parent of a homosexual; another is a white woman who is seen socializing with a black man. (Limiting ourselves, of course, to social milieus in which homosexuals and blacks are stigmatized). 

Until recently, this typology has been used without being empirically tested. A 2012 study showed empirical support for the existence of the own, the wise, and normals as separate groups; but, the wise appeared in two forms: active wise and passive wise. Active wise encouraged challenging stigmatization and educating stigmatizers, but passive wise did not.

Ethical considerations

Goffman emphasizes that the stigma relationship is one between an individual and a social setting with a given set of expectations; thus, everyone at different times will play both roles of stigmatized and stigmatizer (or, as he puts it, "normal"). Goffman gives the example that "some jobs in America cause holders without the expected college education to conceal this fact; other jobs, however, can lead to the few of their holders who have a higher education to keep this a secret, lest they be marked as failures and outsiders. Similarly, a middle class boy may feel no compunction in being seen going to the library; a professional criminal, however, writes [about keeping his library visits secret]." He also gives the example of blacks being stigmatized among whites, and whites being stigmatized among blacks.

Individuals actively cope with stigma in ways that vary across stigmatized groups, across individuals within stigmatized groups, and within individuals across time and situations.

The stigmatized

The stigmatized are ostracized, devalued, scorned, shunned and ignored. They experience discrimination in the realms of employment and housing. Perceived prejudice and discrimination is also associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes. Young people who experience stigma associated with mental health difficulties may face negative reactions from their peer group. Those who perceive themselves to be members of a stigmatized group, whether it is obvious to those around them or not, often experience psychological distress and many view themselves contemptuously.

Although the experience of being stigmatized may take a toll on self-esteem, academic achievement, and other outcomes, many people with stigmatized attributes have high self-esteem, perform at high levels, are happy and appear to be quite resilient to their negative experiences.

There are also "positive stigma": it is possible to be too rich, or too smart. This is noted by Goffman (1963:141) in his discussion of leaders, who are subsequently given license to deviate from some behavioral norms, because they have contributed far above the expectations of the group. This can result in social stigma.

The stigmatizer

From the perspective of the stigmatizer, stigmatization involves, threat, aversion and sometimes the depersonalization of others into stereotypic caricatures. Stigmatizing others can serve several functions for an individual, including self-esteem enhancement, control enhancement, and anxiety buffering, through downward-comparison—comparing oneself to less fortunate others can increase one's own subjective sense of well-being and therefore boost one's self-esteem.

21st century social psychologists consider stigmatizing and stereotyping to be a normal consequence of people's cognitive abilities and limitations, and of the social information and experiences to which they are exposed.

Current views of stigma, from the perspectives of both the stigmatizer and the stigmatized person, consider the process of stigma to be highly situationally specific, dynamic, complex and nonpathological.

Gerhard Falk

German born sociologist and historian Gerhard Falk wrote:

All societies will always stigmatize some conditions and some behaviors because doing so provides for group solidarity by delineating "outsiders" from "insiders".

Falk describes stigma based on two categories, existential stigma and achieved stigma. He defines existential stigma as "stigma deriving from a condition which the target of the stigma either did not cause or over which he has little control." He defines Achieved Stigma as "stigma that is earned because of conduct and/or because they contributed heavily to attaining the stigma in question."

Falk concludes that "we and all societies will always stigmatize some condition and some behavior because doing so provides for group solidarity by delineating 'outsiders' from 'insiders'". Stigmatization, at its essence is a challenge to one's humanity- for both the stigmatized person and the stigmatizer. The majority of stigma researchers have found the process of stigmatization has a long history and is cross-culturally ubiquitous.

Link and Phelan stigmatization model

Bruce Link and Jo Phelan propose that stigma exists when four specific components converge:

1. Individuals differentiate and label human variations.
2. Prevailing cultural beliefs tie those labeled to adverse attributes.
3. Labeled individuals are placed in distinguished groups that serve to establish a sense of disconnection between "us" and "them".
4. Labeled individuals experience "status loss and discrimination" that leads to unequal circumstances.

In this model stigmatization is also contingent on "access to social, economic, and political power that allows the identification of differences, construction of stereotypes, the separation of labeled persons into distinct groups, and the full execution of disapproval, rejection, exclusion, and discrimination." Subsequently, in this model the term stigma is applied when labeling, stereotyping, disconnection, status loss, and discrimination all exist within a power situation that facilitates stigma to occur.

Differentiation and labeling

Identifying which human differences are salient, and therefore worthy of labeling, is a social process. There are two primary factors to examine when considering the extent to which this process is a social one. The first issue is that significant oversimplification is needed to create groups. The broad groups of black and white, homosexual and heterosexual, the sane and the mentally ill; and young and old are all examples of this. Secondly, the differences that are socially judged to be relevant differ vastly according to time and place. An example of this is the emphasis that was put on the size of forehead and faces of individuals in the late 19th century—which was believed to be a measure of a person's criminal nature.

Linking to stereotypes

The second component of this model centers on the linking of labeled differences with stereotypes. Goffman's 1963 work made this aspect of stigma prominent and it has remained so ever since. This process of applying certain stereotypes to differentiated groups of individuals has attracted a large amount of attention and research in recent decades.

Us and them

Thirdly, linking negative attributes to groups facilitates separation into "us" and "them". Seeing the labeled group as fundamentally different causes stereotyping with little hesitation. "Us" and "them" implies that the labeled group is slightly less human in nature, and at the extreme not human at all. At this extreme, the most horrific events occur.

Disadvantage

The fourth component of stigmatization in this model includes "status loss and discrimination". Many definitions of stigma do not include this aspect, however these authors believe that this loss occurs inherently as individuals are "labeled, set apart, and linked to undesirable characteristics." The members of the labeled groups are subsequently disadvantaged in the most common group of life chances including income, education, mental well-being, housing status, health, and medical treatment. Thus, stigmatization by the majorities, the powerful, or the "superior" leads to the Othering of the minorities, the powerless, and the "inferior". Where by the stigmatized individuals become disadvantaged due to the ideology created by "the self," which is the opposing force to "the Other." As a result, the others become socially excluded and those in power reason the exclusion based on the original characteristics that led to the stigma.

Necessity of power

The authors also emphasize the role of power (social, economic, and political power) in stigmatization. While the use of power is clear in some situations, in others it can become masked as the power differences are less stark. An extreme example of a situation in which the power role was explicitly clear was the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis. On the other hand, an example of a situation in which individuals of a stigmatized group have "stigma-related processes" occurring would be the inmates of a prison. It is imaginable that each of the steps described above would occur regarding the inmates' thoughts about the guards. However, this situation cannot involve true stigmatization, according to this model, because the prisoners do not have the economic, political, or social power to act on these thoughts with any serious discriminatory consequences.

'Stigma allure' and authenticity

Sociologist Matthew W. Hughey explains that prior research on stigma has emphasized individual and group attempts to reduce stigma by 'passing as normal', by shunning the stigmatized, or through selective disclosure of stigmatized attributes. Yet, some actors may embrace particular markings of stigma (e.g.: social markings like dishonor or select physical dysfunctions and abnormalities) as signs of moral commitment and/or cultural and political authenticity. Hence, Hughey argues that some actors do not simply desire to 'pass into normal' but may actively pursue a stigmatized identity formation process in order to experience themselves as causal agents in their social environment. Hughey calls this phenomenon 'stigma allure'.

The Six Dimensions of Stigma

While often incorrectly attributed to Goffman the "Six Dimensions of Stigma" were not his invention. They were developed to augment Goffman's two levels – the discredited and the discreditable. Goffman considered individuals whose stigmatizing attributes are not immediately evident. In that case, the individual can encounter two distinct social atmospheres. In the first, he is discreditable—his stigma has yet to be revealed, but may be revealed either intentionally by him (in which case he will have some control over how) or by some factor he cannot control. Of course, it also might be successfully concealed; Goffman called this passing. In this situation, the analysis of stigma is concerned only with the behaviors adopted by the stigmatized individual to manage his identity: the concealing and revealing of information. In the second atmosphere, he is discredited—his stigma has been revealed and thus it affects not only his behavior but the behavior of others. Jones et al. (1984) added the "six dimensions" and correlate them to Goffman's two types of stigma, discredited and discreditable. 

There are six dimensions that match these two types of stigma:

1. Concealable – extent to which others can see the stigma
2. Course of the mark – whether the stigma's prominence increases, decreases, or terminated
3. Disruptiveness – the degree to which the stigma and/or others' reaction to it impede social interactions
4. Aesthetics – the subset of others' reactions to the stigma comprising reactions that are positive/approving or negative/disapproving but represent estimations of qualities other than the stigmatized person's inherent worth or dignity
5. Origin – whether others think the stigma is present at birth, accidental, or deliberate
6. Peril – the danger that others perceive (whether accurately or inaccurately) the stigma to pose to them

Types

In Unraveling the contexts of stigma, authors Campbell and Deacon describe Goffman's universal and historical forms of Stigma as the following.

• Overt or external deformities - such as leprosy, clubfoot, cleft lip or palate and muscular dystrophy.
• Known deviations in personal traits - being perceived rightly or wrongly, as weak willed, domineering or having unnatural passions, treacherous or rigid beliefs, and being dishonest, e.g., mental disorders, imprisonment, addiction, homosexuality, unemployment, suicidal attempts and radical political behavior.
• Tribal stigma - affiliation with a specific nationality, religion, or race that constitute a deviation from the normative, i.e. being African American, or being of Arab descent in the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

Deviance

Stigma occurs when an individual is identified as deviant, linked with negative stereotypes that engender prejudiced attitudes, which are acted upon in discriminatory behavior. Goffman illuminated how stigmatized people manage their "Spoiled identity" (meaning the stigma disqualifies the stigmatized individual from full social acceptance) before audiences of normals. He focused on stigma, not as a fixed or inherent attribute of a person, but rather as the experience and meaning of difference.

Gerhard Falk expounds upon Goffman's work by redefining deviant as "others who deviate from the expectations of a group" and by categorizing deviance into two types:

• Societal deviance refers to a condition widely perceived, in advance and in general, as being deviant and hence stigma and stigmatized. "Homosexuality is therefore an example of societal deviance because there is such a high degree of consensus to the effect that homosexuality is different, and a violation of norms or social expectation".
• Situational deviance refers to a deviant act that is labeled as deviant in a specific situation, and may not be labeled deviant by society. Similarly, a socially deviant action might not be considered deviant in specific situations. "A robber or other street criminal is an excellent example. It is the crime which leads to the stigma and stigmatization of the person so affected." The physically disabled, mentally ill, homosexuals, and a host of others who are labeled deviant because they deviate from the expectations of a group, are subject to stigmatization- the social rejection of numerous individuals, and often entire groups of people who have been labeled deviant.

Stigma communication

Communication is involved in creating, maintaining, and diffusing stigmas, and enacting stigmatization. The model of stigma communication explains how and why particular content choices (marks, labels, peril, and responsibility) can create stigmas and encourage their diffusion. A recent experiment using health alerts tested the model of stigma communication, finding that content choices indeed predicted stigma beliefs, intentions to further diffuse these messages, and agreement with regulating infected persons' behaviors.

Challenging

Stigma, though powerful and enduring, is not inevitable, and can be challenged. There are two important aspects to challenging stigma: challenging the stigmatisation on the part of stigmatizers, and challenging the internalized stigma of the stigmatized. To challenge stigmatization, Campbell et al. 2005 summarise three main approaches.

1. There are efforts to educate individuals about the non-stigmatising facts and why they should not stigmatise.
2. There are efforts to legislate against discrimination.
3. There are efforts to mobilize the participation of community members in anti-stigma efforts, to maximize the likelihood that the anti-stigma messages have relevance and effectiveness, according to local contexts.

In relation to challenging the internalized stigma of the stigmatized, Paulo Freire's theory of critical consciousness is particularly suitable. Cornish provides an example of how sex workers in Sonagachi, a red light district in India, have effectively challenged internalized stigma by establishing that they are respectable women, who admirably take care of their families, and who deserve rights like any other worker. This study argues that it is not only the force of rational argument that makes the challenge to the stigma successful, but concrete evidence that sex workers can achieve valued aims, and are respected by others. 

Stigmatized groups often harbor cultural tools to respond to stigma and to create a positive self-perception among their members. For example, advertising professionals have been shown to suffer from negative portrayal and low approval rates. However, the advertising industry collectively maintains narratives describing how advertisement is a positive and socially valuable endeavor, and advertising professionals draw on these narratives to respond to stigma.

Current research

Research undertaken to determine effects of social stigma primarily focuses on disease-associated stigmas. Disabilities, psychiatric disorders, and sexually transmitted diseases are among the diseases currently scrutinized by researchers. In studies involving such diseases, both positive and negative effects of social stigma have been discovered.

Research on self-esteem

Members of stigmatized groups may have lower self-esteem than those of nonstigmatized groups. A test could not be taken on the overall self-esteem of different races. Researchers would have to take into account whether these people are optimistic or pessimistic, whether they are male or female and what kind of place they grew up in. Over the last two decades, many studies have reported that African Americans show higher global self-esteem than whites even though, as a group, African Americans tend to receive poorer outcomes in many areas of life and experience significant discrimination and stigma.

People with mental disorders

Empirical research on stigma associated with mental disorders, pointed to a surprising attitude of the general public. Those who were told that mental disorders had a genetic basis were more prone to increase their social distance from the mentally ill, and also to assume that the ill were dangerous individuals, in contrast with those members of the general public who were told that the illnesses could be explained by social and environment factors. Furthermore, those informed of the genetic basis were also more likely to stigmatize the entire family of the ill. Although the specific social categories that become stigmatized can vary over time and place, the three basic forms of stigma (physical deformity, poor personal traits, and tribal outgroup status) are found in most cultures and eras, leading some researchers to hypothesize that the tendency to stigmatize may have evolutionary roots.

Currently, several researchers believe that mental disorders are caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Therefore, this biological rationale suggests that individuals struggling with a mental illness do not have control over the origin of the disorder. Much like cancer or another type of physical disorder, persons suffering from mental disorders should be supported and encouraged to seek help. Unlike physical disabilities, there is a negative social stigma surrounding mental illness, with those suffering being perceived to have control of their disabilities and being responsible for causing them. "Furthermore, research respondents are less likely to pity persons with mental illness, instead reacting to psychiatric disability with anger and believing that help is not deserved." Although there are effective mental health interventions available across the globe, many persons with mental illnesses do not seek out the help that they need. Only 59.6% of individuals with a mental illness, including conditions such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, reported receiving treatment in 2011. Reducing the negative stigma surrounding mental disorders may increase the probability of afflicted individuals seeking professional help from a psychiatrist or a non-psychiatric physician. How particular mental disorders are represented in the media can vary, as well as the stigma associated with each.

In the music industry, specifically in the genre of hip-hop or rap, those who speak out on mental illness are heavily criticized. However, according to a The Huffington Post article, there's a significant increase in rappers who are breaking their silence on depression and anxiety.

Addiction and substance use disorders

Throughout history, addiction has largely been seen as a moral failing or character flaw, as opposed to an issue of public health. Substance use has been found to be more stigmatized than smoking, obesity, and mental illness. Research has shown stigma to be a barrier to treatment-seeking behaviors among individuals with addiction, creating a "treatment gap". Research shows that the words used to talk about addiction can contribute to stigmatization, and that the commonly used terms of "abuse" & "abuser" actually increase stigma. Behavioral addictions (i.e. gambling, sex, etc.) are found to be more likely to be attributed to character flaws than substance-use addictions. Stigma is reduced when Substance Use Disorders are portrayed as treatable conditions. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been used effectively to help people to reduce shame associated with cultural stigma around substance use treatment.

Mental illness, Taiwan

In Taiwan, strengthening the psychiatric rehabilitation system has been one of the primary goals of the Department of Health since 1985. Unfortunately, this endeavor has not been successful and it is believed that one of the barriers is social stigma towards the mentally ill. Accordingly, a study was conducted to explore the attitudes of the general population towards patients with mental disorders. A survey method was utilized on 1,203 subjects nationally. The results revealed that the general population held high levels of benevolence, tolerance on rehabilitation in the community, and nonsocial restrictiveness. Essentially, benevolent attitudes were favoring the acceptance of rehabilitation in the community. It could then be inferred that the belief (held by the residents of Taiwan) in treating the mentally ill with high regard, somewhat eliminated the stigma.

Epilepsy, Hong Kong

Epilepsy, a common neurological disorder characterised by recurring seizures, is associated with various social stigmas. Chung-yan Gardian Fong and Anchor Hung conducted a study in Hong Kong which documented public attitudes towards individuals with epilepsy. Of the 1,128 subjects interviewed, only 72.5% of them considered epilepsy to be acceptable; 11.2% would not let their children play with others with epilepsy; 32.2% would not allow their children to marry persons with epilepsy; additionally, employers (22.5% of them) would terminate an employment contract after an epileptic seizure occurred in an employee with unreported epilepsy. Suggestions were made that more effort be made to improve public awareness of, attitude toward, and understanding of epilepsy through school education and epilepsy-related organizations.

In the media

In the early 21st century, technology has a large impact on the lives of people in multiple countries and has become a social norm. Many people own a television, computer, and a smart phone. The media can be helpful with keeping people up to date on news and world issues and it is very influential on people. Because it is so influential sometimes the portrayal of minority groups affects attitudes of other groups toward them. Much media coverage has to do with other parts of the world. A lot of this coverage has to do with war and conflict, which people may relate to any person belonging from that country. There is a tendency to focus more in the positive behaviour of one's own group and the negative behaviours of other groups. This promotes negative thoughts of people belonging to those other groups, reinforcing stereotypical beliefs.

"Viewers seem to react to violence with emotions such as anger and contempt. They are concerned for the integrity of the social order and show disapproval of others. Emotions such as sadness and fear are shown much more rarely." (Unz, Schwab & Winterhoff-Spurk, 2008, p. 141)

In a study testing the effects of stereotypical advertisements on students, 75 high school students viewed magazine advertisements with stereotypical female images such as a woman working on a holiday dinner, while 50 others viewed non stereotypical images such as a woman working in a law office. These groups then responded to statements about women in a "neutral" photograph. In this photo a woman was shown in a casual outfit not doing any obvious task. The students that saw the stereotypical images tended to answer the questionnaires with more stereotypical responses in 6 of the 12 questionnaire statements. This suggests that even brief exposure to stereotypical ads reinforces stereotypes.(Lafky, Duffy, Steinmaus & Berkowitz, 1996)

Effects of education, culture

The aforementioned stigmas (associated with their respective diseases) propose effects that these stereotypes have on individuals. Whether effects be negative or positive in nature, 'labeling' people causes a significant change in individual perception (of persons with disease). Perhaps a mutual understanding of stigma, achieved through education, could eliminate social stigma entirely. 

Laurence J. Coleman first adapted Erving Goffman's (1963) social stigma theory to gifted children, providing a rationale for why children may hide their abilities and present alternate identities to their peers. The stigma of giftedness theory was further elaborated by Laurence J. Coleman and Tracy L. Cross in their book entitled, Being Gifted In School, which is a widely cited reference in the field of gifted education. In the chapter on Coping with Giftedness, the authors expanded on the theory first presented in a 1988 article. According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited at least 110 times in the academic literature.

Coleman and Cross were the first to identify intellectual giftedness as a stigmatizing condition and they created a model based on Goffman's (1963) work, research with gifted students, and a book that was written and edited by 20 teenage, gifted individuals. Being gifted sets students apart from their peers and this difference interferes with full social acceptance. Varying expectations that exist in the different social contexts which children must navigate, and the value judgments that may be assigned to the child result in the child's use of social coping strategies to manage his or her identity. Unlike other stigmatizing conditions, giftedness is a unique because it can lead to praise or ridicule depending on the audience and circumstances. 

Gifted children learn when it is safe to display their giftedness and when they should hide it to better fit in with a group. These observations led to the development of the Information Management Model that describes the process by which children decide to employ coping strategies to manage their identities. In situations where the child feels different, she or he may decide to manage the information that others know about him or her. Coping strategies include: disidentification with giftedness, attempting to maintain a low visibility, or creating a high-visibility identity (playing a stereotypical role associated with giftedness). These ranges of strategies are called the Continuum of Visibility.

Stigmatising attitude of narcissists to psychiatric illness

Arikan found that a stigmatising attitude to psychiatric patients is associated with narcissistic personality traits.

Abortion

While abortion medicine is very common in western society, women rarely disclose their use of such services, and providers are also subject to stigma.

Stigmatization of Prejudice

Cultural norms can prevent displays of prejudice as such views are stigmatized and thus people will express non-prejudiced views even if they believe otherwise (preference falsification). However, if the stigma against such views is lessened, people will be more willing to express prejudicial sentiments. For example, following the 2008 economic crisis, anti-immigration sentiment seemingly increased amongst the US population when in reality the level of sentiment remained the same and instead it simply became more acceptable to openly express opposition to immigration.