SOCB51H3 Chapter Notes -Mental Disorder
Document Summary
Today the term is used like the original sense but applied more to the disgrace than to the bodily evidence. When a stranger comes into our presence then first appearances attribute his category and social identity to use a term better than social status because personal attributes such as honesty and structural ones like occupation. The term stigma refers to an attribute that is deeply discrediting but 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. A stigma is then really a special kind of relationship between attribute and stereotype (note: some attributes discredited) In the first case one deals with the plight of the discredited in the second with that of the discreditable. Three different types of stigma may be mentioned.
