Psychic damage

Last updated

Psychic damage is a concept used in the field of social psychology to describe the negative effects of stereotypes on individual members of stigmatized groups. This definition of "psychic damage" was used by U.S. historian Daryl Scott to describe the effects of stereotyping on African-Americans in his 1997 book Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880–1996, [1] which won the Organization of American Historians' James A. Rawley Prize for the year's best work in race relations. [2]

In his book Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, U.S. social psychologist Claude Steele wrote that the psyches of individual African-Americans gets damaged "by bad images of the group projected in society -- images of blacks as aggressive, as less intelligent, and so on." Repeated exposure to these images, he wrote, is internalized by members of the stigmatized group, which damages their character by causing low self-esteem, low expectations, low motivation and self-doubt, and contributes to societal problems such as high unemployment, poor marriage success, low educational achievement and criminality.

Initially the concept of psychic damage was used to describe the effects of stigmatization on African-Americans, but the concept has also been applied to other stigmatized groups, such as Native Americans, [3] Latino people [4] and women. [5]

Related Research Articles

Collective unconscious refers to the unconscious mind and shared mental concepts. It is generally associated with idealism and was coined by Carl Jung. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is populated by instincts, as well as by archetypes: ancient primal symbols such as The Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Shadow, the Tower, Water, and the Tree of Life. Jung considered the collective unconscious to underpin and surround the unconscious mind, distinguishing it from the personal unconscious of Freudian psychoanalysis. He believed that the concept of the collective unconscious helps to explain why similar themes occur in mythologies around the world. He argued that the collective unconscious had a profound influence on the lives of individuals, who lived out its symbols and clothed them in meaning through their experiences. The psychotherapeutic practice of analytical psychology revolves around examining the patient's relationship to the collective unconscious.

In the psychology of self, one's self-concept is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?".

Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. It is theorized to be a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. Since its introduction into the academic literature, stereotype threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology.

Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, race, socioeconomic class, age, sexual orientation, sexuality, body image, physical disability, intelligence or lack thereof, and health. Some stigma may be obvious, while others are known as concealable stigmas that must be revealed through disclosure. Stigma can also be against oneself, stemming from negatively viewed personal attributes in a way that can result in a "spoiled identity".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Steele</span> American social psychologist and professor (born 1946)

Claude Mason Steele is a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, where he is the I. James Quillen Endowed Dean, Emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, Emeritus.

A label is an abstract concept in sociology used to group people together based on perceived or held identity. Labels are a mode of identifying social groups. Labels can create a sense of community within groups, but they can also cause harm when used to separate individuals and groups from mainstream society. Individuals may choose a label, or they may be assigned one by others. The act of labeling may affect an individual's behavior and their reactions to the social world.

Racialization or ethnicization is a sociological concept used to describe a political process of as ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such, or the infusion of race in a society's understanding of human behavior. It models racial dominance as a process by which a dominant group "racializes" a dominated group.

Oppositional culture, also known as the "blocked opportunities framework" or the "caste theory of education", is a term most commonly used in studying the sociology of education to explain racial disparities in educational achievement, particularly between white and black Americans. However, the term refers to any subculture's rejection of conformity to prevailing norms and values, not just nonconformity within the educational system. Thus many criminal gangs and religious cults could also be considered oppositional cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Henryism</span> Strategy for coping with prolonged exposure to stress

John Henryism (JH) is a strategy for coping with prolonged exposure to stresses such as social discrimination by expending high levels of effort which results in accumulating physiological costs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stereotype</span> Generalized but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing

In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes are often overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information. A stereotype does not necessarily need to be a negative assumption. They may be positive, neutral, or negative.

Self-affirmation theory is a psychological theory that focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that are threatening to their self-concept. Claude Steele originally popularized self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s, and it remains a well-studied theory in social psychological research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-image</span> Mental picture of self that comes from different sources

Self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to an objective investigation by others, but also items that have been learned by persons about themselves, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others. In some formulations, it is a component of self-concept.

Attributional ambiguity is a psychological attribution concept describing the difficulty that members of stigmatized or negatively stereotyped groups may have in interpreting feedback. According to this concept, a person who perceives themselves as stigmatized can attribute negative feedback to prejudice. This can lead stigmatized group members to feel uncertainty about whether negative outcomes are due to discrimination against them or their own behavior. In comparison, they might discredit positive feedback as a form of sympathy rather than seeing it as the result of their ability and achievement. The term was coined by Melvin Snyder, Robert E. Kleck, Angelo Strenta, and Steven J. Mentzer in 1979 before being popularized by Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major and their colleagues in the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual stigma</span> Form of social stigma

Sexual stigma is a form of social stigma against people who are perceived to be non-heterosexual because of their beliefs, identities or behaviors. Privileged individuals, or the majority group members, are the main contributors of placing sexual stigmas on individuals and their minority group. It is those who hold a higher status that determine within a society which groups are deemed unworthy of a higher status by labeling their specific actions or beliefs. Stereotypes are then produced which further the debilitating effects of the label(s) placed on group members with non-heterosexual beliefs or practices.

Social tuning, the process whereby people adopt other people's attitudes, is cited by social psychologists to demonstrate an important lack of people's conscious control over their actions.

There is a great deal of research on the factors that lead to the formation of prejudiced attitudes and beliefs. There is also a lot of research on the consequences of holding prejudiced beliefs and being the target of such beliefs. It is true that advances have been made in understanding the nature of prejudice. A consensus on how to end prejudice has yet to be established, but there are a number of scientifically examined strategies that have been developed in attempt to solve this social issue.

Intergroup relations refers to interactions between individuals in different social groups, and to interactions taking place between the groups themselves collectively. It has long been a subject of research in social psychology, political psychology, and organizational behavior.

In social psychology, a metastereotype is a stereotype that members of one group have about the way in which they are stereotypically viewed by members of another group. In other words, it is a stereotype about a stereotype. They have been shown to have adverse effects on individuals that hold them, including on their levels of anxiety in interracial conversations. Meta-stereotypes held by African Americans regarding the stereotypes White Americans have about them have been found to be largely both negative and accurate. People portray meta-stereotypes of their ingroup more positively when talking to a member of an outgroup than to a fellow member of their ingroup.

Daryl Michael Scott is an American historian and author. He is a professor of History & Geography at Morgan State University.

Identity safety cues are aspects of an environment or setting that signal to members of stigmatized groups that the threat of discrimination is limited within that environment and / or that their social identities are welcomed and valued. Identity safety cues have been shown to reduce the negative impacts impact of social identity threats, which are when people experience situations where they feel devalued on the basis of a social identity. Such threats have been shown to undermine performance in academic and work-related contexts and make members of stigmatized groups feel as though they do not belong. Identity safety cues have been proposed as a way of alleviating the negative impact of stereotype threat or other social identity threats, reducing disparities in academic performance for members of stigmatized groups, and reducing health disparities caused by identity related stressors.

References

  1. Steele, Claude M. (2011). Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time). W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 46–7. ISBN   978-0393339727.
  2. "Faculty - Daryl Scott". Howard University College of Arts and Sciences Department Of History. Howard University. 29 November 2014.
  3. "About The American Indian Law Review". American Indian Law Review. 28: 81. 2003. Archived from the original on 23 November 2013. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  4. Karp, Marcelle (1999). The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order . Penguin Books. ISBN   9780140277746.
  5. DesAutels, Peggy (2013). Feminists Doing Ethics. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.