On labeling, its effect on social psychology, and pejorative uses of labeling; linked is a journal from one of the early stages of the discovery of social psychology, and more specifically "labelling theory." Since then
many essays and research has been done in sociology to find out the effects of labelling on an individual. While research has shown that labelling sometimes is beneficial, such as in medical cases such as in diagnostic labelling. However what most people use labelling for is to push people into these checkmarked boxes, reducing their being to one word to describe them: black, retarded, white, mentally ill, criminal, etc. When those words are used as descriptive labels, often they reduce the person down to that and that only. I'm sure everyone here knows what the placebo effect is, and labels can have a similar effect, "tricking" the person into believing what they are told. Sure, calling someone a retard once probably won't have an everlasting effect on the individual, but being labelled as "mentally ill," "mentally incapable," "crippled," etc can have devastating effects on the mental health of said individual, and make them conform to the label so to speak.
"Further support for the negative effects of being labeled with a mental disorder suggests that people are looked at and judged upon in various ways, not taking into account the seriousness of the illness. (Serres, 2004). This was supported by Angermeyer and Matschinger (2003) who examined public attitudes towards people with schizophrenia and people with depression. They found that labeling someone with a mental disorder has an impact on people's attitudes towards them. They concluded that people adhered to the stereotypical view of schizophrenics being 'dangerous'. This initiated a stronger negative effect on the way people react emotionally to those diagnosed and would dissociate themselves from them. Contrary to this, the effect of labeling had almost no effect on those diagnosed with depression. This suggests that labels are socially constructed and are dependent on the severity of the illness. Mentally ill people are unfairly treated in accordance to their 'label'."
One famous study on the effect of labels, more so a critique of the barbaric asylum practices of the time, was the
Rosenhan experiment. In this experiment, subjects feigned insanity to gain admittance to an asylum, and upon entering the asylum immediately stopped acting abnormal and claimed they were fine. The asylum wardens forced the subjects to admit they had a mental illness, and forced them to take anti-psychotic drugs because of the label of "mentally ill." Otherwise normal activities such as "looking out the window" and writing in a notepad were considered abnormal, pathological behavior. Evidence that the people were just crazies, to the asylum workers. This study shows the dangers of dehumanization and labeling in just the medical field, where labeling is supposed to be used just as a categorical element. However once labeled, other people view those people differently, as if they have a list of expectations that labels should live up to.
Here is a different article, not talking about mental illness, and instead focusing on the effect that labeling can have on deviance, that is youth delinquency. "The observed positive associations between parental labeling (actual and perceived) and youth delinquency are consistent with the labeling argument that stigmatizing reactions of significant others may have a detrimental impact on subsequent youth involvement in delinquency." Basically, once pegged as "a problem child" one tends to live up to the role, and resign themselves to forever staying with that label. This is similar across all fields of labeling, from someone who gets deemed their soccer team's "consistent scorer" and such whenever you miss a goal you feel you let the team down because of your label, to being deemed a studious individual, as you progress through school you are more likely fill that role and end up becoming a studious intelligent person, even if you aren't "smarter" than other children. This partly explains certain stereotypes, at least to me, such as the anxious depressed Asian student who has expectations that they must do spectacularly in school.
In short, labeling is not a good thing. Whether you call someone "mentally ill" or "mentally atypical" or "retard" they still fill that slot of a label that people try to conform to. That's why the issue of dehumanization with respect to the word "retard" is so important, because its important to recognize that just because someone deviates from the social norms of society does not necessarily mean that they are "abnormal" or otherwise "ill" and to suggest that through connotation like "retard" is unnecessarily cruel. I do not claim to be a perfect individual as I have certainly said my fair share if not more of words like "(BAN ME PLEASE)" or "retard" ad infinium, especially around my friends, but its important to keep in mind the effect that those labels can actually have on someone who may struggle with their own insecurities. Sure, "sticks and stones may break my bones" but words certainly can hurt and have deep psychological impact on such social creatures as humans. I for one having researched this in some of my psychology classes have started to make the effort to purge such negative words from my vocabulary, and I suggest people like
kilometerman do the same.
