"Discredited" Versus "Discreditable": Understanding How Shared and Unique Stigma Mechanisms Affect Psychological and Physical Health Disparities

Abstract

In his classic treatise, Goffman (1963) delineates between people who are discredited-whose stigma is clearly known or visible-and people who are discreditable-whose stigma is unknown and can be concealable. To what extent has research in the past 50 years advanced Goffman's original ideas regarding the impact of concealability on stigma management strategies and outcomes? In the current article, we outline a framework that articulates how stigma can "get under the skin" in order to lead to psychological and physical health disparities. Further, we consider when and to what degree concealability moderates these effects, creating divergent outcomes for the discredited and discreditable. Does the stigmatized individual assume his differentness is known about already or is evident on the spot, or does he assume it is neither known about by those present nor immediately perceivable by them? In the first case one deals with the plight of the discredited, in the second with that of the discreditable. This is an important difference.- Goffman (1963, p. 4).

FIGURE 1

Stigma mechanisms in health disparities model.