Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled IdentityFrom the author of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Stigma is analyzes a person’s feelings about himself and his relationship to people whom society calls “normal.” Stigma is an illuminating excursion into the situation of persons who are unable to conform to standards that society calls normal. Disqualified from full social acceptance, they are stigmatized individuals. Physically deformed people, ex-mental patients, drug addicts, prostitutes, or those ostracized for other reasons must constantly strive to adjust to their precarious social identities. Their image of themselves must daily confront and be affronted by the image which others reflect back to them. Drawing extensively on autobiographies and case studies, sociologist Erving Goffman analyzes the stigmatized person’s feelings about himself and his relationship to “normals” He explores the variety of strategies stigmatized individuals employ to deal with the rejection of others, and the complex sorts of information about themselves they project. In Stigma the interplay of alternatives the stigmatized individual must face every day is brilliantly examined by one of America’s leading social analysts. |
Contents
STIGMA AND SOCIAL IDENTITY | 1 |
INFORMATION CONTROL AND PERSONAL IDENTITY | 41 |
GROUP ALIGNMENT AND EGO IDENTITY | 105 |
Copyright | |
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acceptance actual social identity apparent attributes become behavior biography blackmail blind call girl called cerebral palsy Chevigny circle colostomy conceal concern considered contingencies course criminal cripple defect deviator disability discreditable person employed Erving Goffman ex-mental patient example experience face fact failing feel Formal social control girl hard of hearing Harold Garfinkel Henrich and Kriegel homosexual hospital human identification ileostomy illustration indi interaction involved Journal kind know him personally known learning matized means mental patient merely moral career Negro normals norms particular stigma passing personal identity physically handicapped polio possesses possible present problem professional prostitute provides psychological regarding relation relationship role secret signs social deviants social information social situations society Sociology someone sometimes stig stigma management stigma symbols stigmatized individual stigmatized person strangers suggested sustained term tion tized vidual visibility Warfield Wright York