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Labeling Theory

2023-09-21 14:08:02

Label theory argues that labeling people affects their own perception of themselves and others, thereby leading to deviations and integration of their behavior. Tags can be either positive or negative, but I will focus on the negative side of high school tags. Everyone has labels at high school, regardless of whether it is a "slut", "stupid", "freak" or "athlete"; this is the most obvious that individuals are tagged It is one of the times. The idea of ​​the students is that the labels attached to them are trapped forever on them and then lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Label theory was created by Howard Becker in 1963. Label theory believes that people become criminals when tagged and when accepting tags as individual identities. Key concepts of label theory include primary and secondary bias, traceability and expected labeling, and the importance of prejudice. Look at these concepts and take a look at some examples. Label theory emphasizes that deviations are relative terms. In this view, people react abnormally to react to behavior, not for actions themselves. There are two types of bias as part of this theory. The main deviation is a plot of the deviation from the behavior many people are participating in. A secondary deviation is that someone does something out of this abnormal behavior, which creates a negative social label that changes his own self-concept and social identity. This negative label is called shame

In sociology, label theory is a departure perspective, according to which it is marked as "deviant" which makes a person engaged in abnormal behavior. Label theory, born from the study of Howard Becker in the 1960s, explains why people's behavior conflicts with social norms. For example, a teenager living in an urban area where the gang frequently visits may be labeled as a gang member. As a result, youth may start acting like a gang member or become a member. Sometimes people tagged incorporate tags into their self concepts (when a teenager marked as a gang member starts to see himself as a gang member). Some researchers think that there is a high possibility that people with low social status are classified as deviating.

Label theory is closely related to social construction and symbolic interaction analysis. Label theory was developed by sociologists in the 1960s, arguing that bias is not unique to behavior. This theory is concerned with people who are thought to be most likely to deviate minority groups negative labels or deviate from standard cultural norms. The theory focuses on how to determine or influence individual's self identity and behavior through the terms used to describe or classify individuals. It is related to the concept of self-contained prediction and stereotype