Purpose
The persistent gap between population indicators of poor mental health and the uptake of services raises questions about similarities and differences between social and medical/psychiatric ...constructions. Rarely do studies have assessments from different perspectives to examine whether and how lay individuals and professionals diverge.
Methods
Data from the Person-to-Person Health Interview Study (P2P), a representative U.S. state sample (N ~ 2700) are used to examine the overlap and correlates of three diverse perspectives—self-reported mental health, a self/other problem recognition, and the CAT-MH™ a validated, computer adaptive test for psychopathology screening. Descriptive and multinominal logit analyses compare the presence of mental health problems across stakeholders and their association with respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics.
Results
Analyses reveal a set of socially constructed patterns. Two convergent patterns indicate whether there is (6.9%, The “Sick”) or is not (64.6%, The “Well”) a problem. The “Unmet Needers” (8.7%) indicates that neither respondents nor those around them recognize a problem identified by the screener. Two patterns indicate clinical need where either respondents (The “Self Deniers”, 2.9%) or others (The “Network Deniers”, 6.0%) do not. Patterns where the diagnostic indicator does not suggest a problem include The “Worried Well” (4.9%) where only the respondent does, The “Network Coerced” (4.6%) where only others do, and The “Prodromal” (1.4%) where both self and others do. Education, gender, race, and age are associated with social constructions of mental health problems.
Conclusions
The implications of these results hold the potential to improve our understanding of unmet need, mental health literacy, stigma, and treatment resistance.
Purpose
This study seeks to understand how accountant stereotypes have been constructed and reconstructed at the macro-national and the structural level in Chinese society.
...Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative investigation into China's social construction of accountant stereotypes employs Becker's (1963) labelling theory. Viewing stereotyping as a socially constructed practice, this study draws on a post-positivistic, reflexive epistemology in conducting 28 semi-structured interviews with accountants and related actors.
Findings
Chinese accountant stereotypes are constructed and reconstructed according to the rules created and enforced in different cultural-political periods. The accountant stereotypes constructed during the ancient Confucian period (500 BC – 1948) were replaced during 1949 and 2012 when the political focus shifted towards propagating socialism and later promoting economic growth. They also show how Confucian stereotypes of accountants resurfaced in 2013 but were reconstructed by the central government's cultural confidence policy of propagating Confucianism.
Originality/value
Empirically, prior literature has focused on what the accountant stereotype is and how accountants respond to such stereotypes, but it has neglected the ways in which these accountant stereotypes are politically and culturally constructed, diffused and legitimated. This paper fills in the gap by understanding the social practice of accountant stereotyping in a previously unexplored political-cultural context, namely Chinese society. In theoretical terms, by offering the first use of Becker's (1963) labelling theory in the accounting literature, it furthermore enhances our understanding of how accountants' identities and social standing are shaped by social rules.
This article explores the proposed psychiatric diagnostic category of nonsuicidal self‐injury disorder (NSSID) through the lens of feminist psychiatric disability theory. Mobilising insights from ...labelling theory’s accounts of stigma and recovery, in conjunction with critical and feminist disability theory’s attention to emotional and physical pain, we suggest that a feminist psychiatric disability approach to NSSID can illuminate the limits of a fully demedicalised engagement with self‐injury. While remaining critical of psychiatrisation processes, we explore the implications of ‘strategic (dis)identifications’ with illness labels as mechanisms through which to manage and access care, treatment and recovery. Such a nuanced account engenders more deeply material considerations of pain, stigma, treatment and ‘cure’ at the site of NSSID, opening new avenues of engagement with self‐injury for sociologists and critical disability scholars alike.
Across the world, numerous students are being bullied at school. Bullying is often caused by a power imbalance between students. Therefore, identifying potential sources of such a power imbalance can ...prevent school bullying from happening. Based on the labelling theory, we expect that grade retention can lead to such a power imbalance and, therefore, increase the likelihood of being bullied at school. Hence, this study examines the association between grade retention and self-reported victimisation. We also expect that retainees will be less likely to become a victim of school bullying in schools and countries with a high number of other retainees. If true, this would signal a moderating effect of both school- and country retention composition on the association between grade retention and victimisation. The contextualised impact of grade retention upon victimisation is assessed by cross-national multilevel analyses on PISA2018 data (25 countries; 8,039 schools; 159,412 students). Overall, our findings indicate that being retained in primary and/or secondary education is associated with higher levels of victimisation, while retainees suffer from more victimisation in countries with a low number of other retainees. In contrast to our expectations, however, we did not find such a moderation effect of school retention composition.
With increasing rates of obesity in the United States, attention to life chances and psychological consequences associated with weight stigma and weight‐based discrimination has also intensified. ...While research has demonstrated the negative effects of weight‐based discrimination on mental health, little is known about whether different social groups are disproportionately vulnerable to these experiences. Drawing on the modified labelling theory, the focus of this paper is to investigate the psychological correlates of body weight and self‐perceived weight‐based discrimination among American women at the intersection of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES). Analyses use data from the National Health Measurement Study (NHMS), a national multi‐stage probability sample of non‐institutional, English‐speaking adults, ages 35 to 89 in 2005–2006. Our findings demonstrate that the effect of weight‐based discrimination on psychological well‐being is highly contingent on social status. Specifically, the psychological consequences of discrimination on Hispanic women and women in the lowest household income group is significantly greater relative to White women and women with higher household income, controlling for obesity status and self‐rated health. These results suggest that higher social status has a buffering effect of weight stigma on psychological well‐being.
This article considers the processes through which some police officers with mental ill-health experience stigmatization in police organizations. Situated in the sociological framework of Goffman and ...in modified labelling theory, it draws on the findings of a qualitative study and examines the sources of stigma embedded in police work, the consequences of stigma for the labelled officer, the nature of any resistance to the application of the label and approaches to challenging stigma within the policing context. It suggests that in order to tackle these negative attitudes constabularies must do more to address the processes of stigmatization associated with mental ill-health at the individual and institutional levels.
Women with serious mental illness (SMI) occupy a social position in which their experiences are simultaneously influenced by stigmatisation, institutionalisation and gendered dimensions of trauma and ...power. Women with SMI are stigmatised in society, pushed to the margins and left vulnerable to victimisation and rejection, particularly if hospitalised in psychiatric institutions. Using modified labelling theory, I investigate how women hospitalised with SMI, especially those who have histories of sexual abuse and trauma, experience sexuality and perceive men and masculinity. I extend modified labelling theory by empirically analysing the role of social status and power in the labelling process. Specifically, I focus on gender, and analyse interviews with 55 women in US psychiatric hospitals, focusing on gendered experiences of trauma, stigma and attitudes about sexuality. I show how trauma increases the salience of stigma and potential for retraumatisation, both of which are amplified by the institutional setting. I find meaningful differences in the narratives of women who have experienced trauma and those who have not. Modified labelling theory helps explain how labelling can perpetuate self‐stigma, which threatens women's self‐esteem, safety and trust in others. The intersection of these experiences extends modified labelling theory and may have profound implications for recovery.
Prisoner classification is an essential component of effective offender management and rehabilitation. However, the detrimental side-effects, such as that of labelling are often neglected. While ...prisoner classifications are generally assigned based on the level of risk that the offender presents, in certain circumstances, classifications such as that of the former Special Category Status in Northern Ireland and Category AA or Category 5 in New South Wales are reserved for terrorist offenders and are assigned based on the nature of the offence. Coupled with the practice of segregating this offender group from the mainstream prisoner population, and the requirement that they dress differently to their criminal peers, this paper argues that these conditions of confinement act as identity symbols that afford external validation to the terrorist offender's desired and dominant identity. Such practices in Northern Ireland were met with criticism and failure however despite this; New South Wales have implemented practices that arguably mimic many of those from Northern Ireland. As such, there is legitimate concern for the likelihood and consequences of history repeating itself.
Stigma directed towards persons with convictions for sexual offences and its potentially risk enhancing effects has prompted a growing body of research on public attitudes towards individuals who ...have sexually offended, including attitude measurement. However, many questions in attitudinal scales use the "sex offender" label, which potentially perpetuates stigma. The current study, which was part of a larger study examining effects of offence-based labels, sought to examine whether responses on an attitudinal scale would differ when person-first language was used instead of the "sex offender" label. Participants (N = 372) were randomly assigned to a label condition or person-first language condition and completed an anonymous online survey that included a popular attitudinal scale. A small, significant effect of labelling was observed: offence-based labels were associated with more negative attitudes than neutral descriptors. Implications for future research are discussed.
The current study found that the "sex offender" label was associated with more negative attitudes toward individuals who have sexually offended compared to neutral, person-first language (e.g. "people who have committed crimes of a sexual nature"). Replacing stigmatising labels with person-first language in research and in practice is an important step towards humanising people who have offended and supporting them to live safe, productive, prosocial lives. In research, using person-first language may help improve validity of attitude measurement and remove the possibility of inadvertently reinforcing the very stereotypes researchers seek to address.
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