The Stigma Stability Framework: An Integrated Theory of How and Why Society Transmits Stigma Across History

Psychologists have long treated stigma—the labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination of social groups—as a static process. Yet recent evidence has shown that, in fact, contemporary indicators of stigma (e.g., racial prejudice, violence against Jewish people) are strongly correlated with historical measures of stigmatization (e.g., slavery, anti-Jewish pogroms, respectively), even over timespans of centuries. What explains this striking persistence? Here, we seek an answer to this question by reviewing the emerging, interdisciplinary body of social science research using big data and computational methods to study long-term historical trends of stigma. We first review perspectives on why society is motivated to maintain (vs. change) stigma over history, as well as how stigma might be maintained to satisfy such motivations. Specifically, we present an integrated theory, the Stigma Stability Framework, which argues that stigma persists, on average, because society (1) devises new methods to stigmatize the same group (i.e., stigma reproducibility) and/or (2) transfers stigma hydraulically between groups (i.e., stigma replacement). We use this general framework to organize a diverse set of empirical findings from across the social sciences, which underscore the widespread prevalence of stigma persistence mechanisms. Finally, we close with a discussion of open questions for future research, including how researchers and practitioners can use an historical and multi-level perspective on stigma persistence to design more effective stigma reduction strategies. Indeed, we argue that it is only by shedding light on historical processes that we might hope to durably alter stigmatization in the future.