Labelling

Question 1

Who founded the theory?

Answer 1

Becker (1963)

Question 2

What is a label?

Answer 2

A label is a stereotype that you give a person. This could be a stereotype for a group of people or a minority and it could come with a stigma around it.

Question 3

What is a retrospective label?

Answer 3

Going back to someone’s past and reinterpreting their actions to fit into the label that they now have. Eg - someone is a criminal and now people label their behaviour as a child as bad and say that ‘they have always been bad’

Question 4

What is a prospective label?

Answer 4

Labelling someone who is stigmatised and saying what will happen to that person in the future. Eg - ‘one of these days he’s going to do something really bad’

Question 5

How does labelling explain recidivism in criminals?

Answer 5

If a person is labelled as a criminal and they know that then they might always think they are a criminal and conform to that label and never do anything about it

Question 6

What did Bull and green find?

Answer 6

They aimed to find out how stereotypes affect the likelihood of being labelled a criminal they got 58 ptts (10 policemen) and asked them to evaluate 10 male faces as likely criminals.
Results: one face was picked 38 times for drug possession, another picked 38 times for mugging, one picked for violence with robbery 31 times. This shows that people label certain people who ‘look’ like violent criminals as criminals