Erving Goffman Term Paper

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Sociology

Erving Goffman and Stigma

In his book Stigma, sociologist Erving Goffman considers the issue of stigma, offering a detailed look at how people respond to others based on stigma, why people act the way they do towards stigmatized individuals, and how being stigmatized impacts those that have the stigma. Goffman's ideas are partly drawn from the work of George Herbert Mead and Georg Simmel. However, Goffman extends on their ideas and offers a more contemporary view of stigma. These issues will now be considered. This will begin by considering Goffman's definition of stigma. This will be followed by a consideration of how people respond to stigmas. Finally, Goffman's ideas will be compared to those of Mead and Simmel.

Erving Goffman (5) defines a stigma as "an undesired differentness from what we had anticipated." The idea of "differentness" means that something about an individual is different from what is considered ordinary and normal. This relates to the idea that society categorizes people and establishes settings and attributes for what is considered normal. In meeting another individual, a person will compare the new person with their ideas on what is considered normal. If the person is considered normal, the person won't even be aware that have completed this analysis. However, if there is something that sets the person apart from those that are normal, this aspect of the person is noticed. Goffman (5) further describes this saying that the person with a stigma "possessed a trait that can obtrude itself upon attention and turn those of us whom he meets away from him, breaking the claim that his other attributes have on us." This shows that when a person has a stigma, it becomes the attribute that defines that person, with other normal attributes going unnoticed. The attribute results in a person considering them as "other" and rejection of the person because they fall outside the norm. The actual form of the stigma varies. It can refer to physical disabilities, such as blindness, deafness, or any other physical deformity.

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It can also refer to mental disabilities such as schizophrenia. It can also refer to differentness based on social behaviors that are considered abnormal and unacceptable. Individuals such as prostitutes and drug addicts fall into this category. Finally, it can also relate to people who do not behave in the accepted social way. For example, individuals who are extremely shy can be stigmatized, as can people who simply do not have an awareness of socially acceptable behavior. Goffman also goes into further details about the different ways that people can react to stigmas.

The first way that people can react to stigmas is by dehumanizing the individual. This refers to a process where the person is defined by the stigma to the extent that the human being behind the stigma is no longer perceived. For example, a person who has a physical deformation that prevents them from being able to walk may be labeled simply as a cripple. It must be noted that the term "cripple" refers to the individual's physical state and is not an indication of who the person is or what value they have. By labeling people as cripples, they are reduced to being understood only in terms of their physical problems. This dehumanizes them and allows people to justify the rejection of these people. Goffman gives another example where he refers to individuals who are blind and notes that people define the blind by their disability. This refers to the way that blind people can be generalized as being disabled, rather than being seen as a human being who happens to also be blind. Goffman gives a good example by describing how many people will shout at a blind person as if they are deaf or talk to them slowly as if they are incapable of understanding. This shows how people can respond to a stigma by generalizing and assuming that the stigma is the person, rather than just one aspect of the….....

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