Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 317 pages. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: If cosmetic surgery has become the cultural lens through which Americans look at issues of beauty and ugliness (Haiken 1997), then minor bodily stigma is the personal lens through which we scrutinize our bodies and self-diagnose our own flaws in the first place (Ellis 1998). In this dissertation, I interrogated the stories of eight women who struggled with two specific minor bodily stigmas--strabismus (crossed eyes) and micromastia (small breasts). Cosmetic surgery presents a potential "cure" for both of these conditions, however, as some of my interviewees could testify, the results are unpredictable. While some women reported being grateful that they could try to resculpt their bodies with surgery, others were too afraid to try, or annoyed that the option existed in the first place. / ABSTRACT: Using a Grounded Theory approach, I combined autoethographic techniques with interactive interviewing to collect and interpret my data about how individuals cope with, and talk about, minor bodily stigma in an age of cosmetic surgery. The two flaws I chose to examine carry a great deal of cultural significance because in the West, eyes are revered as "windows to the soul," while breasts are regarded as powerful symbols of sexuality. Consequently, I looked at each woman's exposure to culture at three levels--the mass media, the local culture, and the circle of family and friends. First, I wanted to find out how these women identified themselves as flawed in the first place, and what impact their perceived stigma had upon their lives. I wanted to know if, and how, they communicated to others about their minor bodily stigmas. Next, I delineated the eight coping strategies outlined by my interviewees and examined the efficacy of each. / ABSTRACT: Finally, I looked at how each woman made and communicated her decision regarding whether or not to pursue cosmetic surgery as a solution to her minor bodily stigma. I asked those who had surgery to elaborate on their decision and its outcome. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

My dissertation focuses on the design and incentives of survey techniques. As many institutions use surveys to allocate funding or determine policy, ensuring surveys provide accurate information is essential. Though incentives certainly play a role in whether survey participants report information truthfully, economists have largely overlooked the issue while statisticians tend to focus on estimators without directly modeling incentive constraints. One of the chapters models and analyzes the incentives of a commonly used survey technique, randomized response, while the other two chapters of my dissertation design two response techniques which improve upon others found in the literature by obtaining more precise estimates and/or incentivizing participants better. In Chapter One "A Game Theoretic Analysis of the Randomized Response Technique," I explicitly model the decision of participants to truthfully respond in the randomized response survey as a game. Randomized response techniques are used to determine the proportion of a population that belongs to a stigmatized group and introduce noise so the surveyor cannot perfectly infer whether a participant belongs to a stigmatized group, regardless of how a participant responds. The interviewer wants to reduce noise as much as possible while maintaining enough noise to ensure participants respond truthfully. Unlike prior literature, I find that the incentives of a participant depend on the number of participants; therefore, the amount of noise required under randomized response decreases when the number of participants increases as adding respondents relaxes truth-telling constraints. However, adding respondents only relaxes incentive constraints to a limit, so some noise remains even when there are a large number of participants. I improve upon the original randomized response technique in two ways in Chapter 2: "Eliciting Private Information using Correlation: A Modification of Randomized Response." In standard randomized response techniques, participants receive questions independently by using a randomization device such as a die. With my technique, participants receive perfectly correlated questions which reduces the variance of the surveyor's estimator while still protecting the privacy of the subjects. Unlike with the randomized response technique, adding correlation allows the surveyor to use a dominant strategy mechanism though it provides limited information. In addition to correlation, my technique provides the surveyor with private information on the distribution of questions asked. Because of the private information, participants become more uncertain of which question is more associated with the stigmatizing characteristic giving them a stronger incentive to respond truthfully. My final chapter, Chapter 3 "A Response Technique with Dominant Strategies in Forced Responses," improves upon a randomized response technique commonly used in practice. In the forced response technique, a fraction of survey participants are directly asked whether they belong to the stigmatizing group while the remaining participants either simply state "yes" or "no" according to a privately observed command. Unlike the original randomized response technique, the surveyor must worry whether participants obey the command in addition to answering truthfully. Psychologically, participants may feel more inclined to disobey than to lie. Therefore, I design a technique where obeying the command is a dominant strategy by providing the surveyor with private information. The paper then discusses a more general response technique with private information and suggests restrictions on the mechanisms to ensure the surveyor does not have an incentive to try to "trick" respondents into believing they have more privacy protection than they actually do. The chapter concludes with a discussion on privacy measures.

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<p>Different Perspectives is a study of detainees' and guards' experiences of the remand prison. The result of the study shows that the remand prison brings forth the individuals anxiety, stress and fear. The individual detained in remand prison have a great need for contact with their families, but also with the guards. In the remand prison there is always a great level of control and always some kind of power practised. It is the guards who have the power and the competences to make the individuals detained in remand prison follow the rules and do what they have been told. The society possesses biases and a great curiosity about remand prisons and the people being there. This can lead to stigmatization among both the detained individuals as well as the guards.</p>

Different Perspectives is a study of detainees' and guards' experiences of the remand prison. The result of the study shows that the remand prison brings forth the individuals anxiety, stress and fear. The individual detained in remand prison have a great need for contact with their families, but also with the guards. In the remand prison there is always a great level of control and always some kind of power practised. It is the guards who have the power and the competences to make the individuals detained in remand prison follow the rules and do what they have been told. The society possesses biases and a great curiosity about remand prisons and the people being there. This can lead to stigmatization among both the detained individuals as well as the guards.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / Esta pesquisa busca compreender significaÃÃes de pobreza e lugar(es) ensejadas pelas margens urbanas de Fortaleza-Ce nestes anos 2000, sob o ponto de vista de moradores de territÃrios estigmatizados da regiÃo do Grande Bom Jardim.Optei, assim, pela pesquisa qualitativa, com a adoÃÃo da observaÃÃo participante em complementaridade com as entrevistas. Trata-se de um estudo sÃcio-antropolÃgico, circunstanciado no Mela Mela e no Marrocos, sobre os quais recaem estigmatizaÃÃes sÃcio territoriais e de desqualificaÃÃo social de seus residentes em condiÃÃo de pobreza. Nos esquemas classificatÃrios locais, as estigmatizaÃÃes associadas à pobreza, aos âpobresâ e aos seus locais de moradia sÃo ora recusadas/dissimuladas, ora transferidas/reproduzidas pelos agentes, travando lutas de classificaÃÃo em distintos espaÃos e nÃveis. Esta tese buscou apreender as lutas simbÃlicas cotidianas e intra territoriais,urdidas nos Ãmbitos individual/grupal pelos moradores em torno das re-semantizaÃÃes de pobreza/âser pobreâ e da construÃÃo social de lugar(es) reconhecidos como expressÃes doâvixe do vixeâ desta regiÃo. Em suas micro tÃticas de distinÃÃo social, os narradores-residentes fabricaram (re)classificaÃÃes, traduzidas em suas percepÃÃes de um ânÃs idealâ, bem como (des)classificaÃÃes hierarquizadas dos âpobresâ locais, demarcatÃrias de fronteiras simbÃlicas entre (des)iguais geograficamente prÃximos, tornados socialmente distantes. Elaboraram seus conceitos nativos de pobreza, delineando duas principais versÃes: uma individualizada e privatista, que distingue âpobreza-precisÃoâ deâpobreza de espÃritoâ; e a outra, que associa pobreza ao local de moradia, configurado em espaÃo de abandono e inseguranÃa sÃcio-econÃmica e civil. Compreender as (re)significaÃÃes da pobreza urbana em tempos contemporÃneos exigiu apreender seus enraizamentos nos lugares praticados pelos narradores, importante parÃmetro nas produÃÃes relacionais de seus esquemas classificatÃrios intra territoriais e de classificaÃÃes estigmatizantes projetadas sobre a regiÃo e seus residentes. A outra dimensÃo destas lutas simbÃlicas apreendida nesta tese diz respeito aos sentidos de lugar(es) em duas perspectivas: a de valorizaÃÃo do territÃrio vivido como lugar de memÃria, reconhecimento e pertenÃa sÃcio territorial, embora considerando-o abandonado pelo poder pÃblico; e a de espacialidade(s) de medo e inseguranÃa(s), sintonizada com prÃticas topofÃbicas de habitÃ-las e sociofÃbicas de evitaÃÃo social, enunciando tendÃncias de um viver acuadoâ nestas margens da cidade. Esta tese enseja uma interpretaÃÃo crÃtica dos conceitos nativos de âpobrezaâ/âpobreâ e seus lugares vividos, adensando reflexÃes multivocais e polissÃmicas sobre o viver nas margens das margens urbanas em tempos contemporÃneos. / This research aims at understanding the meanings entailed by poverty and places on unprivileged urban areas in the city of Fortaleza, state of Ceara in the 2000 years, according to the evaluation of dwellers of stigmatized territories, in this case, the Grande Bom Jardim region. In view of this configuration, a qualitative research was chosen with adoption of participative observation to complement the interviews. It is a social and anthropological study encompassing the Mela Mela and Marrocos communities that are heavily burdened by social and territorial stigmatization and social disavowal commonly associated with residents in a poverty condition. In local classification patterns, stigmatization associated with poverty, âthe poorâ and their dwelling places is at one time refused/dissimulated and at another time transferred/reproduced by agents who battle in different spaces and levels. This thesis tries to apprehend the daily symbolic struggles within the territory that are weaved by individual and group environments related to dwellers dealing with new linguistic meanings of poverty/âbeing poorâ and the social buildup of place or places considered âthe pitsâ in the region. According to their micro-tactics of social empowerment, the narrators/dwellers engendered new classifications that were transformed into perceptions that they have of an âideal usâ as well as hierarchy-based refusal of the local âpoorâ demarcating symbolic frontiers between unequal people who are on the other hand geographically close, but who became socially distant. They elaborated their native concept of poverty delineating two main versions: the first, an individual and private configuration that distinguishes âsurviving povertyâ from âspiritual povertyâ; and the other that associates poverty with dwelling place, meaning neglected space plagued by social-economic and civil insecurity. In order to understand the re-significations of urban poverty in the present required from the researcher to delve into the ârootsâ of places indicated by narrators, being this instance an important parameter seen in relational production and its territorial classifying patterns as well as in stigmatizing classifications that are projected on the region and its residents. The other dimension of those symbolic struggles as evaluated by this thesis refers to the meaning of locus according to two perspectives: the increased value of dwelling territory, caused by an increased social-cultural sense of memory, appreciation and belonging, in spite of a feeling of being abandoned by the city administration; and spreading of fear and insecurity encompassing topophobic practices that inhibit dwelling and sociophobic practices that enhance social avoidance revealing trends of living under siege within those areas of the city. Therefore, this thesis offers a critical evaluation of native concepts of âpovertyâ/âpoorâ and the related lociassociated with them in their characterization as dwelling places that engross multivocal and polissemic reflections on living beyond urban limits at the present time.

This study provides insight into the lives of stigmatized people by describing the effects of stigma on minority identity development. The stigmatization of certain groups within the school perpetuates the physical and psychological abuse outside in society. Because gay people are more at-risk for overt displays of stigmatization than most minority groups in our society, this study chose to investigate adolescent homosexual identity and the effects of stigma in their lives. This dissertation presents the findings of a qualitative study of approximately fifty, self-identified, gay male, lesbian, and bisexual youth in an urban setting. The study was conducted by the author between July 1993 and August 1994. Analysis focused on the role of stigma and stigma-management techniques on adolescent gay male, lesbian and bisexual identity. Findings revealed variations on how gay youth experience the developmental tasks of adolescence, the stages of homosexual identity development, and membership in ethnic minority communities. The participants in the study made suggestions for reforming the educational process in order to create a more tolerant school environment for gay teenagers. Within the limits imposed by a qualitative methodology employed, these findings have several implications for teaching, education policy, and the development of new theory.

This study explores the experiences of people who have lost loved ones due to socially stigmatized deaths. Drawing from eight individual interviews, the author argues that the stigma associated with death due to drug overdose, suicide, substance abuse, or murder can cause traumatic or prolonged grief and can complicate the way the bereaved talk about grief as a part of their healing process. With the mortality rate in the U.S. rising, there is an epidemic of disenfranchised grief affecting millions of bereaved individuals. Using Coordinated Management of Meaning and Communication Privacy Management theories, the author uncovers strategies the traumatically bereaved employ to manage interactions and relationships with others. A qualitative analysis of participant interviews revealed that social stigma, whether experienced or anticipated, affects the way the bereaved communicate and can cause self-silencing. Findings indicate a need for safe, supportive, and non-judgmental spaces for the traumatically bereaved to share their stories.