AnnouncementsThird exam is December 11 the exam is not cumulativeWhat is stigma?Stigma creates negative, socially-constructed identities which reduce an individual “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one”Someone may not be thought of as a person that is similar to him or her, may think this is a separate type of person.Maybe we don’t see the person as trustworthy, they are inherently different.The last part of this sentence tells us that we strip the person from all other qualities except one thingConceptsLabelingNegative social categorization through an identifiable human differenceWhatever characteristic that can be seen or known. It is the thing that says oh this is this kind of person.We label people in a lot of ways, it isn’t always what we see but what we hear or what we encounter.StereotypingAssignment of a consistent set of (negative) attributesIdeas we have about a group of people who share a certain characteristicOnce we label people it becomes easier to stereotype themSeparation“Us” and “them”; labeled persons are inherently different from “us”It creates these in groups or people who are like me, and out groups or people who are not like meWe are able to label people and stereotype them. So when people do a different behavior it is easy to say these people are weird these people are differentStatus loss and discriminationDevalued, differently treated, restricted opportunitiesThen it is easy for these people to be devalued in society. The different person will usually suffer status loss.Discrimination is when we think of people as different then us and it becomes us and them, you want people in your in group to do well. If you do better then other people that you don’t value and you have access to resources this is where discrimination happens.All 4 of these have to be place to be considered stigmatized. All 4 of these could be in place and it doesn’t necessarily mean there is stigma.Some ways you might come to know that someone has a mental illness? Maybe through someone else or through social media. We can see some mental illness…Maybe certain places that people might go? If you want to find someone with an addiction problem or a mental problem you could go to the behavior help clinic.Any group can suffer a stigma.For something to be stigma we are talking a lot about power differential. The stigma is discrediting and devaluing. Without a power differential, stigma doesn’t exist.Why do people stigmatize others?Keeping people inNorm enforcementYou have an “in” group and you want your “in”group to preform well. We want people like us to continue to be like us and to be viewed positively in society. We stigmatize negative behaviors to try to keep people who are like you from being deviants. It’s a form of behavioral control.Keeping people away“Not in my back yard”We think of people in the “out” group, we want to keep people away from us. We don’t want them to access our resources so people like us do better; we don’t want other people to interfere with what we are doing.“Not in my back yard” whenever a treatment center or homeless shelter communities get together and everyone protests that center being put anywhere near where they live.Keeping people downDominance (social hierarchy)We don’t want people to use our resourcesPeople who are inherently different from us, we don’t care how they do so we aren’t going to support them.Now days there are certain functions of stigma.Unique nature of addiction stigmaWe learn stereotypes about addiction and mental illness as we grow upWe come to expect that addicted persons will “turn out bad” and will be treated differently“Perceived stigma”This is innocuous for people who never develop problemsBut it has personal relevance for those who doResult: Concealment/secrecy, social withdrawalWe develop expectations of people who use drugs or alcohol. What is different too is that substance abuse problems don’t develop until much later in life. And much after they come to learn that people who have these types of problems are bad people.You grow up thinking people are bad, might have problems when kind of young, and then when 25-30 is when you start to realize you have an addiction problem.Expectations of being discriminated or devalued are really nothing more than belief. People who do develop problems, it then becomes personally relevant.Because of this there is a lot of concealment, secrecy, and social withdrawal.Addiction stigma you don’t know it’s going to happen to you and then you develop negative beliefs about it before it comes on.Perceived stigmaIf you believe that someone who was in alcohol treatment is not as trustworthy as an average citizen then that is stigmatization. Later if you have the same problem we will think we will have that same stigma.Stigma manifests at multiple levels of the environmentStigma can happen in multiple levels of the environment. The first one is the broadest and most impacted which is the structural level. There are laws and policies that are stigmatizing against people with addiction.Also there is workplace, healthcare, and educational system resources. People with addiction get less access to these things.Then there is the social level. This is attitudes of people who are close to you like friends and family.And then there is also individual level stigma.Structural level examplesLack of healthcare and insurance coverage – up until now (Affordable Care Act)Drug convictions and restriction of student financial aidRestriction of housing, employment, nutrition, and other benefits assistanceCan think about things that put you at risk for addiction.All of these things have to do with access to resources and money. These typically have to do with access to resources.Social level examplesMany people support public restrictions against people with addiction problemse.g., managing their own money, restrictions about serving in public officeSocial attitudesAddictions/alcoholics are unpredictable, dangerous, irresponsible, of bad character, and at fault for one’s illnessAttitudes against people with addiction are worse than those with other mental health problemsA lot of negative attitudes against people who have used drugs or who have previously used drugs or alcohol.Addiction problems are much more stigmatized because of blameDistancingSome are common sense; most students thought they were nothing like an