"Stereotype threat, in contrast, refers to the
strictly situational threat of negative stereotypes, the threat that
does not depend on cuing an internalized anxiety or expectancy. It
is cued by the mere recognition that a negative group stereotype
could apply to oneself in a given situation. How threatening this
recognition becomes depends on the person's identification with the
stereotype-relevant domain. For the domain identified, the
situational relevance of the stereotype is threatening because it
threatens diminishment in a domain that is self-definitional. For
the less domain identified, this recognition is less threatening or
not threatening at all, because it threatens something that is less
self-definitional.
Stereotype threat, then, as a situational pressure "in the air"
so to speak, affects only a sub-portion of the stereotyped group and,
in the area of schooling, probably affects confident students more
than unconfident ones. Recall that to be identified with schooling
in general, or math in particular, one must have confidence in one's
domain-related abilities, enough to perceive good prospects in the
domain. This means that stereotype threat should have its greatest
effect on the better, more confident students in stereotyped groups,
those who have not internalized the group stereotype to the point of
doubting their own ability and have thus remained identified with
the domain-those who are in the academic vanguard of their group."
|
AIDS Action testing |
An AIDS
awareness counselor recently summed up her experience of
society's response to AIDS: 'I believe that, although AIDS is a
new disease, it is laying bare all the old prejudices and
political injustices that already exist.' One area where this is
most apparent is the misuse of testing for HIV infection. |
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AIDS-related stigma among adolescents |
The primary
goal of this study is to examine and determine factors
influencing stigmatization and discrimination among adolescents
towards people living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana. |
Pdf 75 kb |
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An analysis of the policies, pronouncements and programmes on
HIV-related stigma and discrimination in Nigeria |
The
international community had long recognized the limiting effect
of HIV-related stigma and discrimination on the control of
HIV/AIDS. It is known to undermine the ability of individuals,
families and societies to protect themselves and provide support
and reassurance to those affected |
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An Investigation of
HIV Knowledge and Self-Perceptions of Behavior |
At present, young adults and college students are
at a substantial risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. Some college
students often perceive personal autonomy as freedom from their
family of origin and lack of responsibility. Many experiment
with alcohol and drugs, and this behavior can increase HIV risk
factors. A large number of students do not accurately perceive
their risk of infection and remain unaware of the seriousness of
the HIV/AIDS epidemic |
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Aspects of Stigma |
Until we can
define what we are dealing with when we talk of stigma and
discrimination we may not be able to do anything very much. |
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CHRONIC/SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS |
. . . individuals who, through no fault of their own or their
families, suffer from one of several diseases affecting the
brain, the most complex of human organs. The causes remain
unknown, but are probably multiple. There is no cure, but we do
have effective treatment. In addition to having a brain disease,
people with serious mental illness are (by definition)
significantly functionally impaired by the illness for an
indefinite period of time (diagnosis, disability, duration). At
least 1% of the population are seriously mentally ill. The
problems of victims and their families are compounded by stigma,
one of the cruelest and most prevalent forms of bigotry that
exists. |
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Closing the inequality gap in access to primary health care for
women living with Hepatitis C |
One of the
major challenges facing women diagnosed with hepatitis C is
overcoming the stigma attached to this illness which frequently
acts as a barrier to appropriate and timely primary health care. |
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CONSENSUS VERSUS DISAGREEMENT IN DISEASE-RELATED STIGMA: A
COMPARISON OF REACTIONS TO AIDS AND CANCER PATIENTS |
Theories
about disease-related stigma may be classified in two
categories: the behavioral model, which compares diseases
or statuses of different types, assumes that stigmas arise from
the actions of the stigmatized, and predicts consensus among
observers; and the cultural conflict model, which
compares the symbolic attitudes of observers, defines stigmas as
social constructions, and expects disagreements in reactions.
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Consequence
of Stigma |
The impact of
stigma on the affected individual can lead to feelings of
depression, guilt and shame, as well as to behaviour that limits
participation within communities and access to services intended
to assist them. Additionally, the fear of being stigmatised can
lead to individual behaviour that heightens the risk of
transmission. |
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COPING MECHANISMS OF THE STIGMATIZED: METHODS OF PROTECTING
SELF-WORTH |
Stigmatized
person possesses and exhibits an attribute that conveys a
devalued personal and social identity within a particular social
context . Stigmatized individuals are commonly the targets of
stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination face social
rejection, and perceive considerable threat from the
nonstigmatized or outgroup |
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DISABILITY AWARENESS AND CHANGING ATTITUDES
|
Public
attitudes toward disability are often the greatest barrier for
people with disabilities. Since the publication of the reference
bibliography "Attitudes toward Handicapped People, Past and
Present" in 1984, however, the emphasis in the literature on
disability has been shifting from a focus on differentness and
limitation to a focus on abilities and potential. |
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Does the Media report the news or create the News? |
Not only did
this hysteria-inducing front-page headline bluntly imply that
"the mentally-ill" are violent and crazy, but more disturbingly,
it boldly implied that New York City's streets are reserved for
a select few ("OUR streets", versus, "the streets"). |
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Don’t treat me like I have leprosy |
We all have
prejudices. Even the most fair-minded of us will at times
harbour irrational stereotypes of people who are in some way
different. |
422 kb pdf |
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Evolved Disease-Avoidance Processes and Contemporary Anti-social
Behavior: Prejudicial attitudes and avoidance of People with
Physical Disabilities |
Drawing on
evolutionary psychological logic, we describe a model that links
evolved mechanisms of disease-avoidance to contemporary
prejudices against individuals with physical disabilities.
Because contagious diseases were often accompanied by anomalous
physical features, humans plausibly evolved psychological
mechanisms that respond heuristically to the perception of these
features, triggering specific emotions (disgust, anxiety),
cognitions (negative attitudes), and behaviours (avoidance). |
136kb pdf |
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Fighting
Stigma |
There are many ways we all can fight stigma. The simplest way is to
"come out of the closet" and present "positive visibility" in the
community and the media. Positive visibility is loosely translated as
"your best foot forward." When you let people in your community know
that you, who have been leading a blameless life right next door, have a
mental illness, it will make them question and (we hope) ultimately
reject the stigmatizing myths. |
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HIV/AIDS-related Stigma and Discrimination: A Conceptual
Framework and an Agenda for Actions—Horizon Report
|
Jonathan Mann
identified three phases of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: the epidemic
of HIV, the epidemic of AIDS, and the epidemic of stigma,
discrimination, and denial |
511 kb pdf
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HOMOSEXUALITY: Beliefs
about homosexuality; |
The two most extreme belief systems about homosexuality
are explained below. It is important to realize that many
-- perhaps most-- North Americans hold beliefs that are
intermediate between these two viewpoints. There is a strong
variation of belief with age. Many youth and young adults
follow the liberal view; most middle aged and elderly persons
hold strongly conservative views
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How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance
|
From an
observer's standpoint, the situations of a boy and a girl in a
math classroom or of a Black student and a White student in any
classroom are essentially the same. The teacher is the same; the
textbooks are the same; and in better classrooms, these students
are treated the same. Is it possible, then, that they could
still experience the classroom differently, so differently in
fact as to significantly affect their performance and
achievement there? This |
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Illness, Stigma and AIDS |
Imagine a
disease that arouses great fear throughout the United States,
especially in New York and other large cities where it is
rampant. Imagine that the disease has no cure and is fatal to
most people who manifest its symptoms. Physicians prescribe a
variety of treatments but with little success |
Pdf 119 kb |
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Implications of Educating the Public on Mental Illness,
Violence, and Stigma |
This study examined how two types of public education programs
influenced how the public perceived persons with mental
illness, their potential for violence, and the stigma
of mental illness. A total of 161 participants were
randomly assigned to one of three programs: one that
aimed to combat stigma, one that highlighted the
association between violence and psychiatric disorders,
and a control group. Participants who completed the
education-about-violence program were significantly
more likely to report attitudes related to fear and
dangerousness, to endorse services that coerced
persons into treatment and treated them in segregated areas,
to avoid persons with mental illness in social situations,
and to be reluctant to help persons with mental
illness. |
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Incarnating Stigma: Visual Images of the Body with HIV/AIDS |
HIV/AIDS has
been documented as a stigmatizing condition due to its
association with sickness, contagion, and bodily death. Still,
further attention needs to be given to the role that the body
plays in this process of stigmatization. |
406 kb pdf |
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Interventions: Research on Reducing Stigma
|
The term
stigma has many associations and implications rooted in history,
social science, and public health, but the historical concept of
physical stigmata and the sociological framework of deviance and
social interactions fall short of research needs for guiding
desirable public health interventions to reduce stigma. For
that, a working definition of stigma is required that recognizes
the distinctive features of particular diseases and particular
social and cultural contexts. Research needs include documenting
the burden from the stigma of various health problems; comparing
both the magnitude and character of stigma for different
conditions and in different social and cultural settings;
identifying distinctive features of stigma that may guide
intervention programs; and evaluating changes in the magnitude
and character of stigma over time and in response to
interventions and social changes. |
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JAMA: Early Effects of a School-Based Human Immunodeficiency
Virus Infection and Sexual Risk Prevention Intervention |
To determine
the short-term effect of a middle and high school-based human
immunodeficiency virus and sexuality intervention (Rochester
AIDS Prevention Project for Youth [RAPP]) on knowledge,
self-efficacy, and behavior intention . |
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Out of sight and out of mind
|
Stigma is
probably the biggest barrier to combating the HIV epidemic -
creating and supporting an environment that fosters new
infections, reluctance to testing and disclosing status and
reluctance to access treatment, care and support, subsequently
impacting at both an individual and societal level. |
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Overcoming the stigma of chronic illness-Strategies for
‘straightening out’ a spoiled identity |
This paper
addresses the concept of chronic illness as a socially
constructed experience of stigma. The stigma of having a
chronic illness affects the person’s self-concept,
capacity to adapt to the illness and the quality of
his/her social networks. Social stigma is a
de-legitimizing social process derived from both popular
and medical views of chronic illness. Based on research
into the coping strategies of a range of people with
long-term, serious chronic illnesses, the paper argues
that Government health policies and services in Australia
can best help people with chronic illness by supporting
their self-help groups and community-based activities.
|
106 kb
pdf |
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Peer
influence groups: identifying dense clusters in large networks |
Early
social network theorists argued that the power of social
networks lies in large-scale connectivity. The extended
effects of social networks are clear when we consider the spread
of diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, that have crossed the globe
through an intimate but far-reaching social network. |
743 kb pdf |
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Polarization: Concepts. Measurement, Estimation
|
There has
been a recent upsurge of interest in the measurement of
polarization and in the use of such measures as a correlate of
different aspects of socioeconomic performance. |
445 kb pdf
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Positive Stigma: Examining Resilience and Empowerment in
Overcoming Stigma
|
Considering the weight of the consequences associated with
stigma, stigma research has understandably focused on the
detrimental effects of stigmatization, paying attention to how
stigmatized individuals are devalued, exposed to prejudices, and
negatively stereotyped (Crocker and Quinn 2000). As a result,
this body of work paints a grim picture suggesting that targets
of stigma are doomed to lives of rejection, despair, and
failure. |
Pdf 71 kb |
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Prejudice from Thin Air: The effect
of Emotion on Automatic Intergroup Attitudes |
Two
experiments provide initial evidence that specific emotional
states are capable of creating automatic prejudice toward
outgroups. Specifically, we propose that anger should influence
automatic evaluations of outgroups because of its functional
relevance to intergroup conflict and competition, whereas other
negative emotions less relevant to intergroup relations should
not. |
162 kb pdf |
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Quarantine of PLWHAS in Mumbai Airport |
The following
is the details fo yet another shocking incident and that too by
the government officials. |
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Rooting Out
AIDS-Related Stigma and Discrimination |
A debate over how best to weed out AIDS-related stigma and
resulting discrimination is growing within international health
circles, as experts try to address these stubborn obstacles to
HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. While there is increased
consensus that HIV/AIDS programs must tackle these issues
directly, researchers have yet to find an effective means of
tracking changes in attitudes toward infected people |
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Social Stigma-A comparative qualitative study of integrated and
vertical care approaches to leprosy |
Leprosy has
been associated with stigma and social exclusion throughout
history and on all continents, although there are wide
variations in the ways in which this is worked out in different
communities. Stigma can be defined as an attribute that is
deeply discrediting, and the stigmatized individual is one who
is not accepted and is not accorded the respect and regard of
his peers; one who is disqualified from social acceptance |
Pdf 78 kb |
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STEREOTYPING MENTAL ILLNESS BY VISUAL PERCEPTION |
The link between stereotyping and mental illness was examined.
The data showed for each picture that was presented,
significance was found. The purpose of the examination was to
find out if people, while looking at a picture of another person
determined them to be mentally ill based solely on their
appearance. Some persons were known to be ill while other
subjects were known not to be ill. Based on the photographs
people did stereotype these persons. |
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Stigma |
What
constitutes stigma? |
Pdf 107 kb |
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Stigma and Social Identity |
Erving
Goffman studied the same psychological links as Lemert, but came
to different conclusions. In "Stigma and Social Identity"
Goffman reasoned that if Cooley and Lemert are correct
(that other people's reactions influence our behaviors and
identities), then we will try to control the reactions of others
by manipulating what we reveal about ourselves. |
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Stigma,
Race, and Disease in 20th Century American: An Historical
Overview |
The first he
called stigma deriving from physical deformities (and we might
add to, physical infirmity). Second, he suggested that
stigma was often associated with perceived “blemishes of
individual character” which could include anything from “mental
disorder” and “homosexuality” to “radical political behavior.”
Third, Goffman designated “the tribal stigma of race, nation,
and religion” which are “transmitted through lineages” and
possessed equally in all members of a family. Thus, group
membership and group identity could be (in themselves)
significant sources of stigma. |
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Striking Lack of Awareness
|
People with
hepatitis C infection deserve the same tools as those with HIV
so that they can become experts about their virus," explains
Michael Marco in the introduction to TAG's latest analysis of
hepatitis C research and treatment. |
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Surveillance, Social Risk, and Symbolism: Framing the Analysis
for Research and Policy |
Although
often discussed, the social risks of HIV infection are poorly
understood. To the extent these risks have been addressed by
privacy and antidiscrimination laws, the solution has been less
complete than many public health professionals appear to
believe: developments in law and policy, including the
increasing prevalence of criminal HIV transmission laws and
proposed changes in HIV testing and counseling standards, are
contextual factors that help explain the opposition to
name-based surveillance. Rather than focusing piecemeal on
specific "barriers" to testing and care, an appreciation of the
surveillance debate in context suggests a positive undertaking
in public health policy to provide the conditions of
opportunity, information, motivation and confidence that people
with HIV need to accept an effective program of early
intervention |
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Television and the Press: Purveyors of Prejudice or Slayers of
Stigma? |
"Stigma is
the single most serious obstacle to progress in the field of
psychiatry". This is not the impulsive outburst of some
misguided crank |
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The Language Of Disability: Problems Of Politics And Practice |
Language. .
.has as much to do with the philosophical and political
conditioning of a society as geography or climate. . .people do
not realise the extent to which their attitudes have been
conditioned since early childhood by the power of words to
ennoble or condemn, augment or detract, glorify or demean.
Negative language inflicts the subconscious of most people from
the time they first learn to speak. Prejudice is not merely
imparted or superimposed. It is metabolised in the bloodstream
of society. |
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The National Mental
Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse-Fighting Stigma |
The Random
House Dictionary defines "stigma" as "a blemish on one's
record or reputation." Such a stigma affects anyone who has a
psychiatric history. There are
myths that have become part of American "folklore" that
contribute to this stigma. The main ones are (1 ) that people
with mental illness are violent and (2) that people with mental
illness don't recover
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The Normal
and the Abnormal--Historical and cultural perspectives on norms
and deviations
|
Several
different articles concerning this topic |
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THE ORIGINS OF STIGMATIZATION:
Further commentary:
The tendency to stigmatize |
This time-honoured
propensity has probably served mankind and its ancestors well in
protecting the species and ensuring personal survival. Such
biological mechanisms as those subserving immediate survival,
the quest for food, reproduction and related territorial needs
are presumably its foundation. Moreover, the crudity of
categorisation and labelling of related perceived possible
threats needs, constitutionally, to be safely over-inclusive,
before juggling the consequent options of relating to, coming to
dominate, fleeing from or ignoring the source. |
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THE PSYCHIATRIC NOSOLOGY OF
EVERYDAY LIFE: CATEGORIES IN IMPLICIT
ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY |
Studies of
attitudes toward mental illness often treat the "mental patient"
as a single stereotype |
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The tendency to stigmatise |
This time-honoured
propensity has probably served humankind and its
ancestors well in the service of species and related
personal survival. Such biological mechanisms as those
subserving immediate survival, the quest for food,
reproduction and related territorial needs are
presumably its foundation. Moreover, the crudity of
categorisation and labelling of related perceived
possible threats needs, constitutionally, to be safely
over-inclusive, before juggling the consequent
options of relating to, coming to dominate, fleeing
from or ignoring the source |
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Understanding and Challenging HIV Stigma-a toolkit |
The
Toolkit is a resource collection of participatory educational
exercises for use in raising awareness and promoting action to
challenge HIV stigma |
99 kb pdf |
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When Family Members just can't Understand |
There are
probably few things in life that are more hurtful than being
rejected by family members when we need them most.
Unfortunately, many patients find that a diagnosis of hepatitis
C not only causes friends to scatter, but also contributes to
some families literally splitting apart |
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Who cares for family and friends?: providing palliative care at
home |
"Care in the
community is good and care at home is even better". While this
may be true for patients, it is not necessarily true for the
families and friends who provide most of the care when death is
imminent. Recently, the carers' perspective has tended to be
overlooked and they have often been referred to as the "hidden
patients". |
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Leprosy was a disease of unparalleled implications in
first-century Palestine. It was a horrible disease; it spread
slowly until it made the body ugly and robbed it of vitality. It
was a dreaded disease; it meant separation from social life and
from contact with all non-lepers. Leprosy was a deadly disease.
Because it was incurable and eventually fatal, it made its
victims the living dead. And leprosy was a “sinners’”
disease—not in that it was contracted through personal sin, but
because it formed an apt metaphor for the nature of sin. |
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Yes,
you're positive, but there's nothing we can do for you |
HIV is
intrinsically linked to poverty and to inequalities of all kinds
- social, economic and gender. However, awareness and other
preventive programmes do not address inequities that are
intrinsic to the problem. The married woman is unable to refuse
her husband unprotected sex. The commercial sex worker will not
insist on her client using a condom if he threatens to go
elsewhere. The national HIV programme fails to take into
inequities into account. |
|
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