Status, Ideology, and Adaptation to Stigmatized Illness: A Study of Leprosy

Abstract

The social and psychological components of stigma have been the subject of a series of recent essays by Erving Goffman, beginning with his interest in "impression management." By "impression management" he means the efforts made by people to create desired images about themselves in the face of the inescapable fact that whether a person wishes or not, his actions yield expressions about himself. Impression management is a way to "control the conduct of others, especially their responsive treatment" by controlling what they see and hear. In a later work Goffman focuses on persons characterized by stigma, or "undesired differentness," of which he identifies three general types: ( 1 ) physical disfigurement; (2) aberrations of character and/or personality; and (3) social categorizations such as race, nation, and religion. Since stigma may be visible or invisible, known about or not, impression management yields two sub-types: (1) the management of social in formation about self, and (2) the management of tension in interpersonal encounters. The management of information is the main task of "discreditable" individuals possessing a deeply discrediting attribute which may not be known or immediately perceivable to those present. The management of tension is the main task of the "discredited" - stigmatized individuals who can assume that their differentness is either already known or is immediately evident.