Labeling theory posits that self-identity and the behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. It is associated with the concepts of self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. Labeling theory holds that deviance is not inherent in an act, but instead focuses on the tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from standard cultural norms. The theory was prominent during the 1960s and 1970s, and some modified versions of the theory have developed and are still currently popular. Stigma is defined as a powerfully negative label that changes a person's self-concept and social identity.Macionis, John, and Linda Gerber. 2010. Sociology (7th ed.). London: Pearson Education Canada.
Labeling theory is closely related to social-construction and symbolic-interaction analysis. Labeling theory was developed by sociologists during the 1960s. Howard Saul Becker's book Outsiders was extremely influential in the development of this theory and its rise to popularity.
Labeling theory is also connected to other fields besides crime. For instance there is the labeling theory that corresponds to homosexuality. Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues were the main advocates in separating the difference between the role of a "homosexual" and the acts one does. An example is the idea that males performing feminine acts would imply that they are homosexual. Thomas J. Scheff states that labeling also plays a part with the "mentally ill". The label does not refer to criminal but rather acts that are not socially accepted due to mental disorders.
Theoretical basis
George Herbert Mead One of the founders of social interactionism, George Herbert Mead, focused on the internal processes of how the mind constructs one's self-image. In Mind, Self & Society (1934), he showed how infants come to know persons first and only later come to know things. According to Mead, thought is both a social and pragmatic process, based on the model of two persons discussing how to solve a problem. Mead's central concept is the self, the part of an individual's personality composed of self-awareness and self-image.Macionis, John J. 2012. Sociology (14th ed.). Boston: Pearson. .
Frank Tannenbaum Frank Tannenbaum first introduced the idea of "tagging."O'Grady, William. 2011. Crime in Canadian Context. Ontario: Oxford University Press. Kerry Townsend (2001) writes about the revolution in criminology caused by Tannenbaum's work:"The roots of Frank Tannenbaum's theoretical model, known as the 'dramatization of evil' or labeling theory, surfaces in the mid- to late-thirties. At this time, the 'New Deal' legislation had not defeated the woes of the Great Depression, and, although dwindling, immigration into the United States continued.Sumner, C. 1994. The Sociology of Deviance: an Obituary. New York: Continuum Publishing. The social climate was one of disillusionment with the government. The class structure was one of cultural isolationism; cultural relativity had not yet taken hold. 'The persistence of the class structure, despite the welfare reforms and controls over big business, was unmistakable.'
"One of the central tenets of the theory is to encourage the end of labeling process. In the words of Frank Tannenbaum, 'the way out is through a refusal to dramatize the evil", the justice system attempts to do this through diversion programs. The growth of the theory and its current application, both practical and theoretical, provide a solid foundation for continued popularity."Townsend, Kerry. 2001. "Frank Tannenbaum: 'Dramatization of Evil'." Florida State University. Archived from the original on 2009-04-26. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
Tannenbaum discusses criminal behavior, with a focus on those who commit crimes professionally or as a career. He classifies criminals into six types: occasional, financially motivated, vagrants, unintentional, mentally ill, and professional. Frank Tannenbaum's explanation of Labeling Theory highlighted the negative consequences of police interactions with children which argues that arresting youth leads to a "dramatization of evil". His research indicated that youth being arrested and labeled as criminals shapes their self-perception to fit that label.
Edwin Lemert Edwin M. Lemert was an influential American sociologist and criminologist known for his contributions to labeling theory and the study of social deviance. He introduced the concepts of primary and secondary deviance—primary deviance being minor, initial acts of rule-breaking that don't alter self-identity, and secondary deviance occurring when an individual internalizes the deviant label imposed by society, leading to further deviant behavior. Lemert's work emphasized how societal reactions to deviance can reinforce and escalate it, shaping an individual's identity as deviant. Lemert's popular books, such as "Social Pathology" (1951) and "Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control" (1967), have had a lasting impact on criminology and sociology. Edwin Lemert writes: "His acts are repeated and organized subjectively and transformed into active roles and become the social criteria for assigning status.…When a person begins to employ his deviant behavior or a role based on it as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert problems created by the consequent societal reaction to him, his deviation is secondary."Lemert, Edwin M. 1951. Social Pathology. New York: Mcgraw-Hill.
Howard Becker While it was Lemert who introduced the key concepts of labeling theory, it was Howard Becker who became their successor. He first began describing the process of how a person adopts a deviant role in a study of dance musicians, with whom he once worked. He later studied the identity formation of marijuana smokers. This study was the basis of his Outsiders published in 1963. This work became the manifesto of the labeling theory movement among sociologists. In his opening, Becker writes:"…social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction creates deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by other of rules and sanctions to an 'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label."While society uses the stigmatic label to justify its condemnation, the deviant actor uses it to justify his actions. He wrote: "To put a complex argument in a few words: instead of the deviant motives leading to the deviant behavior, it is the other way around, the deviant behavior in time produces the deviant motivation."Becker, Howard. 1973 . Outsiders. New York: Free Press.
Becker's immensely popular views were also subjected to a barrage of criticism, most of it blaming him for neglecting the influence of other biological, genetic effects and personal responsibility. In a later 1973 edition of his work, he answered his critics. He wrote that sociologists, while dedicated to studying society, are often careful not to look too closely. Instead, he wrote: "I prefer to think of what we study as collective action. People act, as Mead and Blumer have made clearest, together. They do what they do with an eye on what others have done, are doing now, and may do in the future. One tries to fit his own line of action into the actions of others, just as each of them likewise adjusts his own developing actions to what he sees and expects others to do."
Francis Cullen reported in 1984 that Becker was probably too generous with his critics. After 20 years, Becker's views, far from being supplanted, have been corrected and absorbed into an expanded "structuring perspective."Cullen, Francis. 1984. Rethinking Crime and Deviance Theory. Totowa, NJ: Bowman and Allanheld.
Albert Memmi In The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965), Albert Memmi described the deep psychological effects of the social stigma created by the domination of one group by another. He wrote:The longer the oppression lasts, the more profoundly it affects him (the oppressed). It ends by becoming so familiar to him that he believes it is part of his own constitution, that he accepts it and could not imagine his recovery from it. This acceptance is the crowning point of oppression.Memmi, Albert. 1965. The Colonizer and the Colonized. New York: Orion Press.In Dominated Man (1968), Memmi turned his attention to the motivation of stigmatic labeling: it justifies the exploitation or criminalization of the victim. He wrote:Why does the accuser feel obliged to accuse in order to justify himself? Because he feels guilty toward his victim. Because he feels that his attitude and his behavior are essentially unjust and fraudulent.… Proof? In almost every case, the punishment has already been inflicted. The victim of racism is already living under the weight of disgrace and oppression.… In order to justify such punishment and misfortune, a process of rationalization is set in motion, by which to explain the ghetto and colonial exploitation.Memmi, Albert. 1968. Dominated Man. New York: Orion Press.Central to stigmatic labeling is the attribution of an inherent fault: It is as if one says, "There must be something wrong with these people. Otherwise, why would we treat them so badly?"
Erving Goffman Perhaps the most important contributor to labeling theory was Erving Goffman, President of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and one of America's most cited sociologists. His most popular books include The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. Interaction Ritual, and Frame Analysis.Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
His most important contribution to labeling theory, however, was Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity published in 1963.
Goffman's key insights 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: "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."Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NY: Prentice-Hall.Living in a divided world, deviants split 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: "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."