A Theoretical Perspective on Coping With Stigma

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 2001 by Carol T. Miller, Cheryl R. Kaiser

Carol T. Miller[*]

Stigmatized people have a vast array of responses to stressors resulting from their devalued social status, including emotional, cognitive, biological, and behavioral responses. This article uses existing theory and research on general stress and coping responses to describe responses to stigma-related stressors and to discuss the adaptiveness of these responses.

There is an increasing interest in the benefits of conceptualizing prejudice and discrimination as stressors in the lives of stigmatized people (Allison, 1998; Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999; Miller & Major, 2000). One advantage of putting stigma squarely in the domain of stress and coping is that it invites consideration of the many ways in which stigma can affect the stigmatized person, including psychological, social, and biological effects (Clark et al., 1999). Second, conceptualizing stigma as a stressor calls attention to the importance of cognitive appraisals in the experience of stigma-related stress and the coping responses made to that stress, just as such appraisals are important in responses to any type of stressor (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

A final benefit of thinking about stigmatization as a form of stress is that it calls attention to the ways in which stigmatized people may cope with the stress they endure as a consequence of their stigmatized status (Allison, 1998; Miller & Major, 2000). There have been recent theoretical developments in understanding how people respond to stress in general (Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001) that may further our understanding of the kinds of coping efforts stigmatized people may make in response to stigma-related stress.

Stigma and Stress

The core feature of stigma is that a stigmatized person has an attribute that conveys a devalued social identity within a particular context (Crocker, Major, & Steele, 1998). This devaluation leads to a variety of stressors. A stressor is an event in which environmental or internal demands tax or exceed the adaptive resources of the individual (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Prejudice can increase environmental demands by affecting access to educational and employment opportunities, confining stigmatized people to the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, and affecting the quantity and quality of health care stigmatized people receive (Allison, 1998; Clark et al., 1999). Prejudice also results in psychological and physiological stress responses (Clark et al., 1999). The perception of racism by African Americans, for example, results in negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, hopelessness, resentment, and fear (Armstead, Lawler, Gorden, Cross, & Gibbons, 1989; Feagin & Sikes, 1994) and increases in cardiovascular activity (Krieger & Sidney, 1996).

Compared to other types of stressors, stigma may be especially stressful because it poses some unique demands on the individual (Miller & Major, 2000). Although stigma is defined as a devalued social identity in a particular context, for many stigmatized people the context in which they are devalued is pervasive. People with physically obvious stigmas, such as members of devalued racial groups, face potential prejudice and discrimination across a broad range of social contexts. Some stigmatized attributes are so powerful in the reactions they engender that they are "master status" attributes that become the core, identifying attribute of the person who possesses them (Goffman, 1963). Thus, stigma can increase the quantity of stressors stigmatized individuals experience.

Stigmatized people also may face different kinds of stressors than others do. Prejudice and discrimination, for example, are sources of stress for stigmatized people but not, except in rare circumstances, for nonstigmatized people. One stressful feature of prejudice is that there often is considerable ambiguity about whether events that occur are the result of prejudice and discrimination or are the result of some other factor (Crocker et al., 1998; Crocker & Major, 1989). Stigmatized people themselves may often be in doubt about whether a particular response was discriminatory (Ruggiero & Taylor, 1997). Other people may scrutinize their claims about the stress created by prejudice and discrimination and may devalue stigmatized people who claim that prejudice has affected them (Clark et al., 1999; Kaiser & Miller, 2001).

Stigma also is linked to the individual's social identity (Crocker et al., 1998). This feature of stigma can increase the potential for stress because unfair treatment or judgments can be triggered simply by group membership and thus have implications for collective as well as personal identity (Miller & Major, 2000). Threats to collective identity are multifaceted. Seeing other group members suffer from unfairness due to stigma may result in vicarious stress responses. Other people's devaluation of the group may reduce the comfort and sense of belonging that group membership normally provides (Branscombe & Ellemers, 1998). Stigmatized people also may be pressured to be "a credit" to their group or to otherwise represent their group to the nonstigmatized world (Allport, 1954). These stressors arise precisely because stigmatized people have a devalued social identity.