Stigma is:

By definition…

• a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.
• (in Christian tradition) marks corresponding to those left on Christ's body by the Crucifixion, said to have been impressed by divine favour on the bodies of St Francis of Assisi and others.
• (in medicine) a visible sign or characteristic of a disease.

It is known as an identifying mark or characteristic. Social stigmatisation is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceivable social characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society.

Question and Answer activity.

Where did it start?

The Greeks originated the term stigma to refer to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier. These “signs” were cut or burnt into the body of the bearer and usually symbolised that they were either a slave, a criminal or a traitor. They were used for members of society they deemed to be avoided.

Today the term is used similarly but in a less physical sense, more applied to the disgrace itself, rather than to a bodily sign of a characteristic.

Who is affected?

Phycologist, Erving Goffman, split social stigmatisation into three identifying categories that are recognised by society. These categories are stigma associated with mental illness, stigma associated with physical deformation and stigma attached to identification with a particular race, ethnicity, ideology, sexuality etc.

What has influenced it?

The diagram on shows an insight into the dimensions of social stigma. It shows the influences on ordinary people’s mindsets on those that are stigmatised and how they are “affected” by it.