=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1751/AICS_2016_paper_53
|storemode=property
|title=Stigma and Empathy: An Organising Principle for the Continuum of Social Understanding
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1751/AICS_2016_paper_53.pdf
|volume=Vol-1751
|authors=Samuel Finnerty
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/aics/Finnerty16
}}
==Stigma and Empathy: An Organising Principle for the Continuum of Social Understanding==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1751/AICS_2016_paper_53.pdf
Stigma and empathy: an organising principle for the
continuum of social understanding
Samuel Gerard Finnerty
Dept. of Cognitive Science,
University College Dublin
samuel.finnerty@ucdconnect.ie
Abstract. Stigma is a universal social phenomenon of significant importance to
our understanding of social cognition. Stigma, and in-group out-group distinc-
tions, have been shown to affect perception of emotions, intentions, and actions
of people marked as members of a stigmatized category. Noting the lack of liter-
ature that conceptually organizes the concepts of stigma and empathy this paper
reviews the relevant literature and proposes an organizing principle. This princi-
ple is derived from the continuum of social understanding. This principle states
that the amount, and type, of information available on each point of this contin-
uum enables stigmatization and empathy, to greater or lesser degrees.
Keywords. Stigma, empathy, labelling, stereotype, social cognition.
1 Introduction
Stigma is a universal social phenomenon [1]. There is an extensive sociological [1, 2,
3, 4] and social psychological [5, 6, 7] literature on the topic, which cover its conceptual
definition [1, 2, 3], and the many diverse forms of it concerning issues of mental health,
disease, race and ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and others. Stigma is, for the individual,
or a group of people, to be distinguished from the norm, to be marked as possessing an
undesired difference [2]. It has important implications for our understanding of social
cognition (SC) in how people construct and use categories in navigating the social
world. These are employed in day to day face-to-face (f-to-f) interactions with other
people, in mediated interactions (MI), and in cases of linguistic reference (LR) e.g.
‘those people are like that’. Understanding this would aid our grasp of SC1. Of interest
is its effects on social understanding in general, and for this paper, empathy in particu-
lar. Despite this it has been neglected in the wider cognitive science literature.
Theories of SC should be able to account for stigma, and related phenomena of ‘in-
group’ ‘out-group’ distinctions [8], and cases of dehumanization [8, 9, 10, 11]. Com-
1
I will use abbreviations to avoid repetition. SC will stand for social cognition, f-to-f for face
to face interaction, MI for mediated interaction, LR for linguistic reference, ST for simulation
theory, TT for theory theory, ToM for theory of mind, and DP for direct perception.
peting understandings of SC have deliberated over the cognitive and affective mecha-
nisms of SC. Debates over framing and conceptualization of SC phenomena continue
[12]. Various approaches, ‘Theory-theory (TT) [13, 14, 15], ‘Simulation-theory’ (ST)
[16, 17, 18], empathy [19, 20], theories of direct perception (DP) [21, 22, 23], have
been proposed, though each has its particular limitations. The empathy concept, which
in a basic sense, refers to seeing the other person as a ‘you’ as opposed to an ‘it’ [24],
that is, someone with their own subjective cognitive and affective experience, is a start-
ing point for looking at social perception of people who are marked as ‘different’.
Stigma’s effects on cognitive and affective forms of inter-personal and social under-
standing could provide insights into SC. A number of neuro-imaging studies have
demonstrated that perception of pain in another person is modulated by whether they
are in an out-group [25]2 or a stigmatized category [26]3, with a reduction in empathic
neural and behavioral responses to their pain. Other research demonstrated that nega-
tive beliefs about out-groups, can affect the ability to recognize emotions, as well as
intentions, and actions, in out-group members [27]. Stigmatization of people may also
lead to dehumanization, where that person’s very humanness is diminished to the point
of them being perceived as non-human, or sub-human, as having no ‘inner life’ [8, 9].
They are perceived as lacking the same qualities, normatively valued as good, of the
in-group. Basic empathy in these cases seems to be entirely missing. In cases of extreme
violence dehumanization helps overcome revulsion against killing, which is seen on an
unsettling scale in war and genocide contexts [28]. What is most significant is that cor-
rectly perceiving emotions, intentions and actions of stigmatized members of out-
groups can be affected to a greater or lesser degree by these distinctions.
Noting the lack of literature that attempts to conceptually organize stigma and em-
pathy, in this exploratory paper I propose to attempt an organizing principle to unite
these literatures. My aims are twofold. Firstly, to review the literature, and secondly to
propose a continuum of social understanding and an organizing principle. I will argue
that both the diverse phenomena and research concerning stigma and empathy can be
linked by a principle based on our cognitive tendency to categorize the environments
in which we are embedded, and of which other people are a most salient part. The for-
mation of these categories depends on the available information. This hinges on
whether it is gained in an informationally rich f-to-f embodied interaction with another
person, along a continuum of available information to instances of LR. With that in
mind we can begin.
2
When subjects, in a fMRI study, (Caucasians or Chinese) viewed members not of their racial
group undergoing painful needle penetration to the face, decreased activation in the anterior
cingulate cortex (thought to be associated with some forms of empathic response) was
observed, when compared with viewing members of their own racial group [25].
3
Using fMRI and behavioural measures, they found that participants were less likely to
perceive pain in a HIV+ person who contracted it through intravenous drug use, when
compared to a HIV+ person who contracted it through a blood transfusion, and the healthy
control [26]. fMRI has severe limitations, both temporally and in terms of resolution, in its
current form. Also this study used video footage of people in pain as opposed to having people
there directly. It is missing the crucial f-to-f interaction which is the most basic encounter
people have with one another.
2 The literature on stigma and empathy
2.1 Social organization and stigma
“Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals. Crimes
properly so called, will there be unknown; but faults which appear venial to the layman
will there create the same scandal that the ordinary offence does in ordinary conscious.
If, then, this society has the power to judge and punish, it will define these acts as crim-
inal and will treat them as such” [29].
Durkheim [29], in this quote, captures a general sense of the inevitability of the emer-
gence of difference in society. A group by defining what it is, invariably excludes what
it is not. Stigma is an outcome of this process. Stigma may be seen as a relationship
between, or a co-occurrence of, “an attribute and stereotype” [2], where attribute refers
to a ‘mark’ or label, that may define membership in a stigmatized category of persons
[5], and “stereotype refers to a generalized set of beliefs that are invoked by that cate-
gory membership” [3]. This view says nothing about the intrinsic goodness or badness
of a stigmatized category. What is stigmatized at one time, in one place, or with certain
people, can shift dramatically [7], e.g. attitudes to sexuality and marriage have changed
considerably over the past few decades. It is in the specific context where normative
values are ascribed. It is possible for marked differences to be positively valued e.g.
framing it as exotic, which may prompt a desire for more contact, rather than ostracism
or discrimination. However, on the whole, difference from the norm, whatever that
might be, is often negatively valued.
For our purposes we are concerned with general principles. Though it is context spe-
cific, this is not a case for relativism, as stigmatization, in some form or other, is uni-
versal, with a long and varied history [7]. The universal aspect of stigmatization is cat-
egorization. In the heterogeneous social worlds, we inhabit, social categories employed
in instances of stigmatization could be viewed as being cognitively efficient. This says
nothing about their correctness, but they aid in handling the amount of possible infor-
mation available, in addition to making predictions about the behaviors of people that
will not be interacted with directly. In addition, such categories may be useful for main-
tain social cohesion by delineating outsiders from insiders [4], [29].
2.2 The debate on empathy and social cognition
A wide range of researchers invoke some variation of empathy to explain successful
social interaction [17, 18, 19, 20]. Others [30] have extended the concept, suggesting a
widening arc of empathy as enabling our modern globalized civilization, where much
of our engagement with one another is not local or involves bodily presence. Due to
space constraints I will have to pass over the literature rather spritely, see [12], [20], for
detailed reviews. What is meant by empathy, how it is possible, and which activities
qualify as empathy, are maddeningly unclear. This problem was recognized early on its
conceptual development [31]4. In psychology it has hindered the empirical investiga-
tion of it [32, 33]. The merging of the empathy concept with the multi-dimensional
concept of sympathy in some social psychological work, has been a source of particular
confusion [34]5. This paper is not concerned with prosocial behavior, where someone
is motivated to act on behalf of another by feeling sympathy or compassion for them,
but whether they empathize with that person or not, based on the known presence of
social salient stigma.
Broadly speaking empathy has been proposed as one means of coming at the prob-
lem of other minds, that is, how it is that we come to understand one another as having
minds [19]. Two current streams of thought can be put forward. One stream, constituted
by TT and ST approaches, under the rubric of ‘Theory of Mind’ (ToM) [35], have
framed the problem, since the late 1970’s, in terms of access to the other person’s mind.
It stems from the assumption that other minds are to a fundamental extent ‘unobserva-
ble constructs’ [36]. Observed behavior and actions of another person are not meaning-
ful unless some interpretation is added in. Some have dubbed this the ‘principle of im-
perceptibility’ [10]. This manifests an epistemic gap6 which must be overcome by some
perceptual or extra-perceptual mechanism. TT approaches have attempted to bridge this
gap by working from an assumption that the attribution of mental states, comes via the
application of an innate naïve theory of psychological states [13, 14], or ‘folk psychol-
ogy’ [15]. Beyond this assumption there is considerable debate over the specifics of
TT. Some dispute whether ToM is innate and modularized in the brain [13, 14]7, or is
acquired in the way of ordinary scientific theories [37]. A criticism of TT is that it
excludes the intuition that the experience of attributing mental states does not always
seem to involve inference, except in more explicit cases where we try to reason about,
or question, what the other person’s intentions and affective states were. TT approaches
struggle to account for the automaticity and habit formed embodied aspects of interac-
tion.
ST approaches taking up this intuition, assume that a person understands another, by
imaginatively presenting herself into the situation of the other thus enabling an approx-
imation of that person’s affective or cognitive state [19]. In essence, we use our own
minds as a model for the other person. As with TT, there are debates over the finer
details of ST approaches. Some argue that simulation is conscious but non-inferential
in nature [38], whilst others argue that simulation is not explicit or conscious but is
4
“As Lipps, Scheler, Husserl and others all quickly recognised, empathy does not constitute a
single phenomenon but is rather a loose term for a large constellation of interrelated and many-
layered experiences and activities, central not only to philosophy and psychology, but also to
sociology, moral theory, political science...” [31]
5
Sympathy, in the work of David Hume and Adam Smith referred to-“… a family of
psychological mechanisms that would allow us to explain how an individuals could be
concerned about and motivated to act on behalf of another human being” [20].
6
It is possible to descend into a solipsistic nightmare where we can never be sure of anything
beyond our own subjective experiences. Yet, resurrecting this Cartesian thought experiment
would still fail to explain how SC and our immersion in social communities is possible.
7
This account would struggle to account for stigma as the categories are informed to a large
extent by the surrounding cultural and social context.
implicit and sub-personal [39]8. A major criticism of ST approaches is that they stress
the role of the psychological and neurological similarity between an empathizer and the
target’s psychological state in empathic forms of understanding. By stressing the simi-
larities between the experiences of two individuals, one of which empathizes with the
other, simulation based approaches deemphasize the dissimilarities. In a basic sense
human beings share a particular embodiment and phylogenetic endowment. However,
this view struggles to account for barriers such as stigma and in-group, out-group dis-
tinctions, and especially dehumanization, to a perception of shared embodiment, shared
cognitive states, shared affective states, shared identity etc. Both ST and TT approaches
have been criticized as shutting off minds from the world in a way that reanimates the
Cartesian problem of mind and the world [12].
Recognizing these deficits and difficulties others have approached the problem in
terms of direct perception of emotions, intention and action [12]. Adapting the work of
Husserl [42], Scheler [43], and Merleau-Ponty [44], from phenomenology, and Witt-
genstein’s remarks on psychology [45]9, some consider empathy to be an irreducible,
perception based understanding of the other that requires no inference or simulation
[21, 22, 23], [46]. Their central assertion is that the phenomenology of everyday per-
ception should not be reduced to extra-perceptual processes, at the sub-personal level,
which lift up an inadequate perception [10]. By framing empathy and SC this way, the
problem of other minds disappears to an extent, though it raises problems of its own.
How is it that we directly perceive and thus understand one another? Interaction theo-
rists and related scholars [47, 48] are attempting to answer this problem by arguing that
social understanding is possible primarily through embodied social interaction, rather
than simulation routines, or inference. Regarding social categorization and its manifes-
tation in stigma, in-group, out-group distinctions, and cases of dehumanization, can DP
account for this? In these cases, especially in case of dehumanization, social perception
as DP seems not to be direct since it can be interrupted by the cultural beliefs and social
categories of the surrounding culture10.
The debates on SC and empathy are complex, and will not be resolved any time
soon. Gallagher [12] favors pluralist accounts of SC which suggest inference, simula-
8
Gallese and Cuccio have suggested that the embodied sub-linguistic sensorimotor system is
the means by which the self can know others, through embodied simulation [18]. They argue
for an intersubjectivity that is derived from embodied simulation. This theory is supported by
research into mirror neurons (MNs) [40, 41] which are used as a means of naturalising
empathy. However, MNs’ existence and their role in SC continues to be debated [23].
9
“Look into someone else’s face, and see the consciousness in it, and a particular shade of
consciousness. You see on it, in it, joy, indifference, interest, excitement, torpor, and so on.
… Do you look into yourself in order to recognize the fury in his face?” [45]
10
For a thorough defence of DP in light of these social phenomena see [10]. In this case,
perception itself is modified by the surrounding culture-“In the case of dehumanization, for
example, one is not trained to make bad inferences; one is conditioned to directly perceive
others as non-persons. … social interaction processes are shaped by forces external to the
individual, and by social and institutional practices that impact intersubjective understanding
to the extent that they form and sometimes deform perception (Gallagher 2013a), as well as
any further cognitive processes involved in our understanding of others” [10].
tion, imagination, DP, are different strategies to deal with the milieu of social under-
standing. These must also account for the interaction processes themselves in terms of
their framing of social understanding and the wider social and cultural landscape [12]11.
To put forward a pluralist account it is necessary to describe the breadth of SC, which
I suggest may be framed as a continuum of social understanding.
3 The continuum of social understanding
Stigma and empathy are concepts that are continuously evolving. Their importance is
indicated by the way in which they have transcended any one field. How can we make
sense of this literature so as to begin to make headway? If we are to understand obser-
vations of empathic forms of understanding being affected by in-group, out-group dis-
tinctions, and stigmatization, then it is prudent to speculate that empathy, seeing the
other as human (basic empathy), and especially seeing someone as being like yourself,
must have something to do with categorization. Whether these categories are explicit,
or fuzzy, vary from person to person, vary in size, and scope, from culture to culture,
are primarily utilized through embodied habitual processes through social learning, or
require inference or simulation, is the remit of future work.
There are a myriad number of ways in which we interact and learn information about
one another. Any theory of stigma and empathy which wishes to provide a good account
of SC needs to account for this range. Social interaction takes places not within a vac-
uum but in a heterogeneous, and structured social world [49]. ST and TT approaches,
in their efforts to posit sup-personal processes for explaining SC, lack this careful anal-
ysis of the social worlds in which people are embedded. We bring knowledge to our
encounter with the other person, knowledge of a general sort (this could be interpreted
as support for some notion of folk psychology which concerns people in general), and
knowledge about the person as target e.g. their habits, interests, inclinations etc., [49].
Schutz [49] distinguished understanding of the other based on whether they belong to
the world of associates, contemporaries, predecessors or successors [46], [49]. He dis-
tinguished interpersonal understanding along lines of whether the person is bodily pre-
sent or removed from us through either space or time. Stressing the multilayered char-
acter of the social world, he argued that when understanding a contemporary you con-
ceive of her as an instantiation of a type as opposed to being a unique person i.e. those
who are your associates in your Umwelt [49]. The understanding is framed by ‘struc-
tures of typicality’, rather than by direct expressions through f-to-f contact and the sur-
rounding context. Using his distinctions as a lodestone I would like to expand on this
by describing the continuum of social understanding. This list is not exhaustive but is
illustrative of the vast scope of SC.
11
“The ultimate pluralist model would cut across all of these dimensions – conscious, non-
conscious, personal, sub-personal, brain, body, the physical, social and cultural environments,
individual processes and intersubjective interaction. … A pluralist account would weigh each
factor in a multitude of situations before deciding where there is just one general rule, or that
across all situations there is just one default strategy of process that determines social
cognition” [12].
3.1 Face to face: the importance of bodily presence
To be co-present with another person is the most basic form of interaction. It is for this
case that the early phenomenologists initially conceptualized empathy [20], [42], [49].
The stock example involves engaging with a person who is bodily present before you.
Empathy in this case is theoretically easier than in cases of LR. Basic empathy, seeing
the person as a minded creature, is supported by the living person before you. They can
reach out and grab you, talk with you (which can be supported further by sharing a
common language), cry, laugh, shout etc. Their idiosyncrasies e.g. particular verbal
ticks, their unique features e.g. tone of voice, smell, posture, manner of speaking etc.,
are available. It is informationally rich.
Empathy in the sense of sharing category membership that you ascribe both to your-
self and the other person is also possible, as the other person’s actions may reveal some
commonality e.g. you are from the same community, you both like similar things such
as particular sports, foods, music, places, etc. You can feel anger towards this person,
joy, indifference, attraction etc., but you cannot deny their presence entirely. It may still
be possible to stigmatize, focusing on some available features over others e.g. you learn
they are HIV+, which you may associate with immorality or contagion etc. However,
there is a higher likelihood that you will learn more than the stigma about them. This
could possibly cause you to adapt your categories, either by including that individual
in some categories though not necessarily all, changing your categories by expanding
them or modifying them, or reinforcing certain categories if the person confirms them.
Dehumanization is possible but this requires particular supporting conditions e.g. a
wider social, cultural, political and infrastructural framework (these include MI and
LR), that serves as a backdrop to the interaction. This was the case in Nazi Germany’s
extermination of Jewish people, and in the political and media campaign of the Hutu
majority government in Rwanda to foment mass killings of Tutsis (stigmatized group)
and some moderate Hutus. Alternatively, any psychological condition which contrib-
utes to a perception of other people as objects or less than human is another qualifying
supporting condition for dehumanization.
On the whole f-to-f interaction is a dynamic, informationally rich, form of activity.
It depends on the history of similar interactions with people who you may have associ-
ated with a stigmatized category. This may support or challenge these in-group, out-
group distinctions. It is also highly context dependent. In a work setting you may be
prompted to adhere to particular observed behaviors and practices, which may guard
against overt discrimination. At home you may feel the need to extend hospitality, re-
gardless of your beliefs about the person, or you may act with little concern for the
person due to the privacy afforded. Alternatively you may cease any further interaction
with a person once the stigma is revealed to you, as a pragmatic action taken against a
perceived threat [50]12. There are many other instances of f-to-f interactions which can-
not be covered here13.
12
“Stigma, we hypothesize, threatens the loss or diminution of what is most at stake, or actually
diminishes or destroys that lived value.” [50]
13
Engaging with a person in a shared social setting with other people present, e.g., a dinner
party. Similar to the above but the social setting and other people afford certain activities e.g.,
3.2 Mediated interactions
MI consist of interactions that are mediated by a physical object e.g. a wall or fence, a
theatrical device for live performance e.g. a theatre or designated performance space,
or interface e.g. WhatsApp, Facebook, email, text, telephone etc. In the case of refu-
gees, a physical space such as a fence or camp, that separates them from the general
population, aids stigmatization by making it easier to distinguish the in-group from the
out-group, the general population and the migrant community respectively. The oppor-
tunity for interaction, especially f-to-f interaction, is curtailed by the barriers in place.
Within these camps there may be a diversity of languages, religions, cultures, and peo-
ple, but this may not be immediately knowable. The idea of a common humanity in the
sense of basic empathy may be curtailed by this demarcation. There is distance. The
extent of the interaction might be to witness the physical demarcation, to see the faces
of the people on the other side of the barrier, and no more. They may wear attire that is
not like your own, they may speak languages that you do not, the color of their skin
may not resemble yours. It is still possible for empathy to take place. The available
information may correspond to some categories that you ascribe to yourself e.g. being
a parent and seeing parents of an out-group with their children. Again context is im-
portant and the exact form of mediation plays a significant role in supporting either
empathy or stigma.
3.3 Abstracted from interaction: imagination and linguistic reference
Virtual reality, cinema, television, video games, audio recordings, newspaper articles,
books, utterances etc., can be grouped at this end. These are abstracted almost entirely
from f-to-f and MI, though it can be argued that, especially regarding video games and
virtual reality, the person is interacting with the representations. Each of these can pro-
voke empathic, as well as stigmatizing responses. Feeling empathy in these cases, in
the sense of sharing some category membership, is imagined or speculative, as you are
now engaging with representations of people. These may be fictitious in the case of
visual and aural mediums for entertainment, or representations, of varying accuracy,
that are placeholders for the people they refer to e.g. news reports. The ability to go
beyond f-to-f enables people to form complex societies and group identities that persist
through time, through imagined connections between people in the sense of shared cat-
egory membership. The literature on ‘imagined communities’ [51]14 is instructive here.
other people becoming involved in the interaction, and constrain others e.g. other people may
not permit you to learn certain kinds of information, or may intervene in the case that you
engage in discrimination. Of course this also depends on you knowing the rules of the social
setting i.e. what is considered acceptable behaviour which, to a greater of lesser extent,
determines your behaviour. Other forms of bodily present interaction include participation in
group activities e.g. ritual activity, football chanting, etc.
14
“In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps
even these) are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by their
falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined” [51]. Anderson noted the
infrastructural and technological requirements e.g. the printing press, that were necessary to
bring about the imagined community of the nation.
These large scale social imaginaries [52]15 are unstable, shifting considerably over time
which is down to the minute activities of people in the f-to-f and mediated interactions
that constitute such imaginaries.
What is important at this end of the continuum is the people being referred to are not
present. They may not be engaged with. There is only representation and reference.
Empathy is possible in that a person may feel themselves to be like the representation
in some sense of shared category membership. Stigmatization is more possible at this
end of the continuum than in f-to-f because all that is available may be a simple refer-
ence e.g. those people have AIDS and they are intravenous drug users. This does not
include all the other information that is available in f-to-f and MI which may contradict
the stereotype that is associated with that category. I suggest that f-to-f, MI, and LR,
can be thought of as a continuum of related activities. These are phenomenologically
distinct, and require different strategies of SC i.e. inference, imagination, simulation,
direct-perception, but are related through a principle of available information, and their
role in constructing, maintaining and breaking down categories. In the heterogeneous
social and cultural worlds, we inhabit, the reality of our interactions with one another
are far more complex than described above. You may engage in activities that are sim-
ultaneously f-to-f, mediated etc., whilst talking about some people in terms of LR. This
is a continuum of social understanding. The demarcations are purely illustrative of the
vastness of possible interactions and activities that constitute SC.
4 Information and categorization: an organizing principle
I do not propose to solve the debates on SC, but having made the argument for taking
stigma, in-group out-group distinctions, and dehumanization seriously in cognitive sci-
ence, I suggest that the literature on empathy and stigma can be unified through a tenet
of available information. One element that is crucial to each form of social understand-
ing is the total amount and type of information that is present in each instance. This
principle suggests that as information increases empathy should be easier whilst stig-
matization harder, and the reverse would also be true. LR on its own makes it easier to
say that ‘those people are like that’ and are thus ‘not like me’, as you are not encoun-
tering anyone who meets that distinction who can thus challenge, or confirm, your ste-
reotyping. This has important implications when such forms of reference are then used
to inform future interactions with perceived members of that group, or are used in gov-
ernment policy e.g., immigration and foreign policy. This principle has the benefit of
being able to link up the diverse phenomena concerning stigma and empathy. If adopted
it would facilitate a more productive discussion across the range of SC. It requires that
in each instance of social understanding concerning stigma and/or empathy careful at-
tention is paid to available information and the framing of the phenomena. It is a plu-
15
“I am thinking rather of the way in which they imagine their social existence, how they fit
together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that
are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these
expectations” [52].
ralist strategy for approaching SC, recognizing the sheer span of SC, and the complex-
ities and nuance of the cultural and social contexts in which people are embedded. As
a guiding principle it could be used to generate hypotheses about the relationship be-
tween information and social categorization. For example, you could speculate that on
average an increase of information, depending on the reliability of the type of available
information, should increase the likelihood of empathic understanding whilst decreas-
ing endorsement of stigma categories. To achieve this target requires interdisciplinary
collaboration across fields as diverse as anthropology, sociology, psychology, cognitive
science, pedagogy, political science, and history.
It suggests means by which to tackle stigma and increase the likelihood of empathy
(whilst acknowledging that it is possible to stigmatize a person in some respects, but
empathize in others). This involves increasing f-to-f interactions with people of stigma-
tized categories, in addition to changing the narratives that represent said people, and
any infrastructural elements which make it easier to delineate in-groups from out-
groups e.g. ghettoization, economic disparity, refugee camps. It also requires programs
that promote openness to difference16 by providing people with a different strategy than
stigmatization17. Successful advocacy programs such as that of Treatment Action Cam-
paign in South Africa combatted AIDS stigma by changing the narrative using this shift
in narrative to campaign for access to treatment, and a political voice [53]18.
5 Conclusion and future work
I have made the case for including stigma and in-group out-group social phenomena in
our models of social cognition. I have reviewed the literature on stigma, empathy and
SC, arguing that it is productive to frame it as a continuum of social understanding from
f-to-f interaction to LR. I have proposed a principle of information and categorization
as a means of understanding the related phenomena of stigma and empathy. This has
the benefit of being able to span the gamut of social understanding and can be used to
generate testable hypotheses. However, in addition to the heavy lifting that is required
to operationalize this principle, there are limitations to this view that must be addressed
by future work. Why is it that difference is predominantly negatively valued? Are cer-
tain cultures more likely to endorse stigmatizing categories than others? Are people
driven to maintain their category structures, or instead are people driven to seek out
new information and novelty which modify or breakdown these categories? What will
a truly expansive pluralist theory look like? These are questions for future research.
16
Research into why some differences are perceived positively rather than negatively would be
useful as it is a product of the same principle of available information.
17
This may be difficult due to the normative element of stigma. Also categorization itself won’t
be eradicated, nor could it. To think about anything beyond immediate experience is to
categorise to a significant extent. What is pertinent is that stigma categories modulate or
interrupt empathic and related forms of self-other understanding.
18
They challenged the negative associations of being HIV+ by promoting positive messaging,
e.g. inscribing HIV+ on t-shirts in protests, thus challenging the prevailing narrative about
people living with HIV/AIDS through an expansion of the discourse.
6 References Cited
1. Link, BG., Phelan, J.: Conceptualizing Stigma. Annual Review of Sociology. 27, 363-385
(2001)
2. Goffman, E.: Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Simon and Schuster,
New York (1963).
3. Ainlay, S.C., Becker, G., Coleman, L. M., The Dilemma of Difference: A multidisciplinary
view of stigma. Plenum Press, London (1986)
4. Falk, G.: How we treat outsiders. Prometheus, New York (2001)
5. Jones, E., Hastof, A., Markus, H., Miller, D., Scott, R. Social stigma: The psychology of
marked relationships. Freeman, New York (1984).
6. Crocker, J., Major, B., Steele, C. Social Stigma. In: Gilbert, D., Fiske, S. T., Lindzey, G.
(eds) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th ed. Vol. 2, pp 504-553. McGraw Hill, New
York (1998)
7. Dovidio, J. F., Major, B., Crocker, J.: Stigma: Introduction and Overview. In: Heatherton,
T. F., Kleck, R., E., Hebl, M., R., Hebl., Hull, J. G. (eds) The Social Psychology of Stigma.
Guildford Press, New York (2000).
8. Haslam, N.: Dehumanization: an integrative review. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 10, 252-264
(2006)
9. Bastian, B., Haslam, N.: Excluded from humanity: the dehumanizing effects of social ostra-
cism. J Exp Soc Psychol. 46, 107-113 (2010)
10. Gallagher, S., Varga, S.: Social constraints on the Direct Perception of Emotions and Inten-
tions. Topoi. 33, 185-199 (2014)
11. Harris, L. T., Fiske, S. T.: Dehumanising the lowest of the low: neuroimaging responses to
extreme groups. Psychol Sci. 17:847-853 (2006)
12. Gallagher, S. The new hybrids: Continuing debates on social perception. Consciousness and
Cognition. 36, 452-465 (2015).
13. Carruthers, P.: Language, Thought and Consciousness. Cambridge University Press, UK
(1996)
14. Baron-Cohen, S.: Theory of mind in normal development and autism. Prisme. 34, 174-83
(2001)
15. Frith, C. D., Frith, U.: Social cognition in humans. Curr Biol. 17, R724-R732 (2007).
16. Goldman, A.: In defence of the simulation theory. Mind and Language. 7, 104-119 (1992).
17. Goldman, A., Shanton, K.: Simulation Theory. Wiley Interdisc Rev: Cog Sci. 1, 527-538
(2010).
18. Gallese, V., Cuccio, V.: The Paradigmatic Body: Embodied simulation, intersubjectivity,
the bodily self, and language. In: Metzinger, T., Windt, J. M.: Open Mind. 23, 1-23 (2015).
19. Stueber, K: Rediscovering Empathy: Agency, Folk Psychology, and the Human Sciences.
MIT Press, MA (2006)
20. Stueber, K.: Empathy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2014)
21. Zahavi, D.: Empathy and direct social perception. Rev Phil and Psychol. 2, 541-58 (2011).
22. Gallagher, S.: Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition.
17, 535-543 (2008)
23. Gallagher, S., Zahavi, D.: The phenomenological mind. Routledge, London. (2008).
24. Froese, T. Breathing new life into cognitive science. Avant. II, 1, 113-129 (2011).
25. Xu, Y., Zuo, X., Wang, X., Han, S.: Do you feel my pain? Racial group membership mod-
ulates empathic neural response. J Neurosci. 29 (26), 8525-8529 (2009)
26. Decety, J., Echols, S., Correll, J.: The Blame Game: The effect of responsibility and social
stigma on empathy for pain. J Cog Neurosci. 22 (5), 985-997 (2010).
27. Gutsell, J. N., Inzlicht, M.: Empathy constrained: prejudice predicts reduced mental simula-
tion of actions during observation of outgroups. J Exp Soc Psychol. 46, 841-845 (2010)
28. Hinton, A.: The Dark Side of Modernity: Toward an Anthropology of Genocide. In: Hinton.,
A., Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide. University of California Press,
London (2002).
29. Durkheim, E.: The Rules of the Sociological Method. Steven Lukes (ed). Palgrave Macmil-
lan. London (2013 [1895])
30. Pinker, S.: The Better Angels of our Nature: How violence has declined. Viking, New York
(2011)
31. Sengen, R. T., Moran, D.: Introduction: intersubjectivity and empathy. Phenom Cogn Sci.
11 (2), 125-133 (2012)
32. Davis, M.: Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach. Westview Press: Boulder (1994).
33. Batson, C. D. These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena. In:
Decety, J., Ickes, W. (eds) The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, pp. 3-15. MIT Press, MA
(2009).
34. Wispe, L.: The Distinction between Sympathy and Empathy: To call forth a concept a word
is needed. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 50, 314-321 (1986).
35. Premack, D., Woodruff, G.: Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and
Brain Sciences. 1, 515-526 (1978).
36. Johnson, S. C.: The recognition of mentalistic agents in infancy. Trends Cogn Sci 4, 22-28
(2000)
37. Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, N., Kulh, P.: The Scientist in the Crib. NY, Harper Collins (1999).
38. Gordon, R.: Folk psychology as simulation. Mind and Language. 1-158-171 (1986)
39. Gallese, V.: The manifold nature of interpersonal relations: The quest for a common mech-
anism. Phil Trans Royal Soc London B. 358, 517-528 (2003).
40. Freedberg, D., Gallese, V.: Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences. 11, 197-203 (2007)
41. Rizzolatti, G., Craighero, L.: The Mirror Neuron System. Annu Rev Neurosci. 27, 169-92
(2004)
42. Husserl, E.: Cartesian Meditations. Cairns, D (Trans). Kluwer, Dordrecht. (1988 [1931]).
43. Scheler, M.: The Nature of Sympathy. Routledge & Keegan Paul, London (1973 [1954])
44. Merleau-Ponty, M.: The phenomenology of perception. Routledge, London (2002).
45. Wittgenstein, L.: Zettel. In: Anscombe, G. E. M., von Wright G. H. (eds), Anscombe, G. E.
M. (trans). University of California Press, Berkeley. (1967)
46. Zahavi, D.: Empathy, Embodiment and Interpersonal Understanding: From Lipps to Schutz.
Inquiry. 53 (3), 285-306 (2010)
47. De Jaegher, H., Di Paolo, E., Gallagher, S.: Can social interaction constitute social cogni-
tion? Trends Cogn Sci. 14, 441-447 (2010)
48. Gallager, S., Hutto, D.: Primary interaction and narrative practice. In: Zlatev. J., Racine, T.,
Sinha, C., Iktonen, E. (eds).: The shared mind: perspectives on intersubjectivity, pp 17-38.
John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 17-38 (2008).
49. Schutz, A.: The Phenomenology of the Social World. Walsh, G., Lehnert, F. (trans). North-
western University Press, Evanston (1967).
50. Yang, LH., Kleinman, A., Link, BG., Phelan, JC., Lee, S., Good, B.: Culture and stigma:
Adding moral experience to stigma theory. Soc Sci Med. 64 (7), 1524-35 (2007).
51. Anderson, B.: Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.
Verso, London (1991).
52. Taylor, Charles.: Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press, Durham (2004)
53. Robbins, S.: From Revolution to Rights in South Africa. James Currey, Suffolk (2008).