Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Evolutionary origins of social responses to deviance
- 3 Mental representations of deviance and their emotional and judgmental implications
- 4 Meeting individuals with deviant conditions: understanding the role of automatic and controlled psychological processes
- 5 Individual differences in responding to deviance
- 6 Variations in social control across societies, cultures, and historical periods
- 7 A focus on persons with a deviant condition I: their social world, coping, and behavior
- 8 A focus on persons with a deviant condition II: socio-economic status, self-esteem and well-being
- 9 Theorizing about interventions to prevent or reduce stigmatization
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction
7 - A focus on persons with a deviant condition I: their social world, coping, and behavior
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Evolutionary origins of social responses to deviance
- 3 Mental representations of deviance and their emotional and judgmental implications
- 4 Meeting individuals with deviant conditions: understanding the role of automatic and controlled psychological processes
- 5 Individual differences in responding to deviance
- 6 Variations in social control across societies, cultures, and historical periods
- 7 A focus on persons with a deviant condition I: their social world, coping, and behavior
- 8 A focus on persons with a deviant condition II: socio-economic status, self-esteem and well-being
- 9 Theorizing about interventions to prevent or reduce stigmatization
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction
Summary
Introduction
In earlier chapters, it became clear that the negative reactions frequently received by persons associated with deviant conditions may turn into a type of social control that we have termed stigmatization. Although, as shown in Chapter 6, people in modern Western societies often show relatively strong egalitarian tendencies and disapproval of stigmatizing and prejudiced responses, persons with a deviant condition nevertheless frequently meet with stigmatization in these societies, with a social world that is at least in part chilly, cold, and hostile. As we have noted in Chapter 1, under these circumstances, where a deviant condition is stigmatized and generally seen as a shameful or discrediting attribute, it can be useful to denote deviant conditions with the term stigma. Nevertheless, for different reasons it may not be possible to sharply distinguish stigma from deviant condition. First, as will become clear in this chapter, the person associated with a deviant condition contributes to shaping the responses of the social environment. For example, a person with a minor facial abnormality may unwarrantly expect severe negative or stigmatizing responses from others, and accordingly behave in rather tense or defensive ways when meeting strangers. Clearly, in these cases the term stigma will be used prematurely when referring to the deviant condition. Second, as noted in previous chapters, it is often difficult to determine empirically to what type of social control observed negative responses belong.
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- Information
- Stigmatization, Tolerance and RepairAn Integrative Psychological Analysis of Responses to Deviance, pp. 234 - 278Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007