5 - Labelling Theory
5 - Labelling Theory
5 - Labelling Theory
The idea of labeling theory flourished in American sociology during the 1960s,
thanks in large part to sociologist Howard Becker.
Labeling theory states that people come to identify and behave in ways that reflect
how others label them. This theory is most commonly associated with the
sociology of crime since labeling someone unlawfully deviant can lead to poor
conduct. Describing someone as a criminal, for example, can cause others to treat
the person more negatively, and, in turn, the individual acts out.
Another example is when a person is responsible for the death of another. When
are they labeled as a 'murderer' or a 'killer?' The reaction to death sometimes
depends on the circumstances. The person responsible will be viewed differently
depending on the reason, whether it's murder, war, self-defense, or an accident.
How people react to or label a killing depends on the reason behind it.
Studies related to labeling theory have also explained how being labeled as deviant
can have long-term consequences for a person's social identity. Consider primary
deviance, which is an initial violation of a social norm - about which no inference
is made regarding a person's character. Primary deviance includes minor deviant
acts that just about everyone does once or twice, like playing hooky from school or
work. These behaviors have little reaction from others and therefore, have little
effect on a person's self-concept.
For example, the dynamic between nerds and jocks is portrayed in popular culture
all the time. Typically, there is someone who is intelligent but socially awkward
and becomes labeled as a 'nerd.' Once labeled, that person is considered unpopular
and shunned by the popular 'jocks.'
Stigma
Someone in high school that has been labeled as a nerd, for example, may begin to
think of himself or herself as a loser due to other people's opinions and treatment.
Someone who has been stigmatized usually has lower self-esteem and may even
behave more deviantly as a result of the negative label. The stigmatized person
may find it easier to come to terms with the label rather than fight it.
For example, people would likely discuss the past of someone who is labeled a
'murderer.' They might say something like, 'He was always a violent boy.' Even if
that person was no more violent than his peers, people would re-label the actions of
his youth in light of his current label
Erving Goffman:
Perhaps the most important contributor to labeling theory was Erving Goffman,
President of the American Sociological Association, and one of America's most
cited sociologists.
His most important contribution to labeling theory, however, was Stigma: Notes on
the Management of Spoiled Identity published in 1963. Unlike other authors who
examined the process of adopting a deviant identity, Goffman explored the ways
people managed that identity and controlled information about it.
The modern nation state's heightened demand for normalcy. Today's stigmas
are the result not so much of ancient or religious prohibitions, but of a new
demand for normalcy. He wrote: "The notion of the 'normal human being'
may have its source in the medical approach to humanity, or in the tendency
of large-scale bureaucratic organizations such as the nation state, to treat all
members in some respects as equal. Whatever its origins, it seems to provide
the basic imagery through which laymen currently conceive themselves.
Living in a divided world. Deviants divide their worlds into 1. forbidden
places where discovery means exposure and danger, 2. places where people
of that kind are painfully tolerated, and 3. places where one's kind is exposed
without need to dissimulate or conceal.
Dealing with others is fraught with great complexity and ambiguity. He
wrote: "When normals and stigmatized do in fact enter one another's
immediate presence, especially when they attempt to maintain a joint
conversational encounter, there occurs one of the primal scenes of sociology;
for, in many cases, these moments will be the ones when the causes and
effects of stigma will be directly confronted by both sides.... "What are
unthinking routines for normals can become management problems for the
discreditable....The person with a secret failing, then, must be alive to the
social situation as a scanner of possibilities, and is therefore likely to be
alienated from the simpler world in which those around them apparently
dwell."]
Society's demands are filled with contradictions. On the one hand, a
stigmatized person may be told that he is no different from others. On the
other hand, he must declare his status as "a resident alien who stands for his
group." "It requires that the stigmatized individual cheerfully and
unselfconsciously accept himself as essentially the same as normals, while