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Abstract
This chapter addresses the psychological effects of social stigma. Stigma directly affects the stigmatized via mechanisms of discrimination, expectancy confirmation, and automatic stereotype activation, and indirectly via threats to personal and social identity. We review and organize recent theory and empirical research within an identity threat model of stigma. This model posits that situational cues, collective representations of one's stigma status, and personal beliefs and motives shape appraisals of the significance of stigma-relevant situations for well-being. Identity threat results when stigma-relevant stressors are appraised as potentially harmful to one's social identity and as exceeding one's coping resources. Identity threat creates involuntary stress responses and motivates attempts at threat reduction through coping strategies. Stress responses and coping efforts affect important outcomes such as self-esteem, academic achievement, and health. Identity threat perspectives help to explain the tremendous variability across people, groups, and situations in responses to stigma.
Key Words social identity, identity threat, stress and coping, stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination
INTRODUCTION
Stigma is a powerful phenomenon with far-ranging effects on its targets (Crocker et al. 1998, Jones et al. 1984, Link & Phelan 2001). Stigma has been linked to poor mental health, physical illness, academic underachievement, infant mortality, low social status, poverty, and reduced access to housing, education, and jobs (Allison 1998, Braddock & McPartland 1987, Clark et al. 1999, Yinger 1994). Although psychologists have long been interested in the causes of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, only recently have they focused in earnest on understanding the psychological effects of these processes.
The roots of contemporary perspectives on stigma can be traced to Erving Goffman's (1963) classic book Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity. In the 1980s, theory and research began to challenge traditional perspectives on how stigma affects self-esteem (Crocker & Major 1989) and academic performance (Steele 1992, Steele & Aronson 1995), among other outcomes (Jones et al. 1984). This emphasis on the situational nature of stigma and the role of the self in responses to stigma stimulated an explosion of research. Psychlnfo reveals a dramatic increase in the number of articles that mention stigma published in the period from 1965-1989 (N = 603) as compared to 1990-2004 (N = 2321).
Reflecting the vibrancy of this growing field, review chapters on stigma and...