Stigma is a powerful human emotion.  Our Gemara on amud aleph discusses possible additional allowances made to a divorcee so that she may collect her kesuba more easily.  The Gemara says it is due to “Chiyna” “being favorable”.  Rabbenu Chananel (see Tosafos) interprets this is having some additional financial status to overcome the stigma of divorce and make her more desirable to suitors.

We should respect and pay careful attention to any instinct, especially one as powerful as stigma.  The emotional anguish that a person feels when they are at a loss of social standing and status can be excruciating. Like all instincts, they are part of the powerful psychic forces that promote health, success and survival, socially and individually.  But also like other instincts, in a broad sense they may be helpful, but in individual circumstances, they can run amok.  A fever is the body’s way of fighting an infection, but it can get out of control and cook the person alive instead of killing the virus.  So too, with any instinct.

The field of Evolutionary Psychology seeks to understand the role of various psychological functions and how they can be explained as arising from natural selection. That is, to explain how this trait became part of the gene pool by promoting survival.  A believer in Creation and Intelligent Design can also benefit from these analyses because they help us appreciate the wisdom of the Creator in designing us with these instincts (See Rambam, Yesode HaTorah 4:12).

Researchers Kurzban and Leary (Psychological Bulletin 2001, Vol. 127, No. 2, 187-208) discuss past various conceptualizations of stigma and offer some new theories as well:

Historians, anthropologists, and political scientists tend to agree that social exclusion is characteristic of human cultures around the world and throughout recorded history (Boehm, 1986; Gruter & Masters, 1986; von Hentig, 1948; Williams, 1997; Winzer, 1997; Zippelius, 1986).

Most theory and research on the Stigmatization process can be traced to Goffman (1963), who defined stigma as "an attribute that is deeply discrediting" (p. 3). According to Goffman, Stigmatization is a process of global devaluation of an individual who possesses a deviant attribute. Stigma arises during a social interaction when an individual's actual social identity (the attributes he or she can be proved to possess) does not meet society's normative expectations of the attributes the individual should possess (his or her virtual social identity). Thus, the individual's social identity is spoiled, and he or she is assumed to be incapable of fulfilling the role requirements of social interaction.

Jones et al. (1984) proposed that a person is stigmatized when a mark (a deviation from a prototype or norm) has been linked to dispositions that discredit the bearer of the mark. Thus, the mark of deviance initiates an attributional process through which people interpret other aspects of a person in terms of the mark and respond to stigmatized individuals on the basis of their stigma at the expense of their individuality.

In contrast, Elliott, Ziegler, Altman, and Scott (1982) suggested that stigma is a form of deviance that leads others to judge individuals as illegitimate for participation in an interaction. People may be considered illegitimate interactants because they lack the abilities or skills to carry on an interaction, behave unpredictably or inconsistently, or are a threat to others or to the interaction itself. According to Elliott et al., once a person has been classified as illegitimate for participation in an interaction, he or she is beyond the protection of social norms and, as such, may be excluded or ignored altogether.

Each of the definitions are different, with the first focusing on the way in which the social group perceives the qualities of the individual and renders him or her as unfit to belong. The second focuses more on a particular attribute or “mark of shame” that renders the person unfit. The last definition is about qualifications to participate in a set of social interactions recognized as important to the group.  

Kurzban and Leary summarize all three as having a common denominator as:

“When a shared characteristic of a category of people becomes consensually regarded as a basis for disassociating from (that is, avoiding, excluding, ostracizing, or otherwise minimizing interaction with) individuals who are perceived to be members of that category.” (Leary & Schreindorfer, 1998, p. 15).  

The key difference between stigma and ordinary rejection is that personal rejections based on idiosyncratic preferences are not stigmatization. Stigmatization is a social response by a group that consciously or unconsciously sets the norms, and uses shunning as a way to uphold those valued norms by excluding those who cannot or will not act in accordance with them.  The realities of any social system are that the very mechanisms that promote its well-being can also become sinister and dark.  The deeply wired response of the brain’s pain response system to shunning is used to help society stay orderly, and for people to keep respectful, in-line and less impulsive.  Yet, it also can be a tool for emotional oppression when taken to an extreme. From an evolutionary point of view, (or as we said earlier, to appreciate Chochmas HaBoreh,) those who have a trait or behavior that is held in check by the standards of the group will benefit in terms of social support, alliance and cohesion.  The body feels the stigma deeply and painfully as if it is a matter of life and death, because on an instinctual level it is.  Imagine you are a hunter and you trip and fall while a wild boar is chasing you.  If your friends respect and like you, they will take the extra moment to give you a hand to get back up, maybe even carry your satchel if you sprained your ankle. If they don’t like you, they aren’t going to assist you, and you are literally, dead meat.  Instincts are like computer programs; they do not operate with nuance, but follow basic rules and programming with indiscretion.  

Kurzban and Leary describe stigma as being a defensive response against one of three basic human mechanisms:  

(a) decreasing the probability of being cheated in a social exchange and avoiding interactions with partners who have little to offer in terms of social gain, (b) maintaining the group's integrity and exploiting those in subordinate groups, and (c) decreasing the probability of parasitic infection.

Thus people are likely to be stigmatized if they present danger on these fronts: Social standards and norms either to protect individuals within the society or the overall function of the society, and marks of disease that are perceived as contagious.  (Perception of contagion is an instinct, not having to do with science.  Thus a person who is unkempt, smelly, and having a runny nose and cough with allergies, while less contagious than a person with Tuberculosis, might be perceived on an instinctive level as a threat. And, through the same mechanism, someone branded as anti-social via criminality or even an unwillingness to buy into the society’s dress code can be equally stigmatized. It is possible that the instincts activate different emotions, e.g. fear, hate or disgust, respectively, depending on which mechanism above is being activated.

Because of this, danger and visibility are hallmarks of what activates stigma.  It is not about what is, but about what is seen and what causes activation on a social level. This explains why certain personal modes of behavior are tolerated by a group on a “don’t ask, don’t tell basis”, because if the person keeps his or her predilections private, it is not a threat socially.  Also to the extent that stigma represents the unconscious collective effort of the social group to protect its norms and integrity, the degree in which the stigmatizing feature or behavior is considered by choice or involuntary affects the power of the stigma.  If the person cannot be changed anyway, there is less force to the shunning, although there still may be a wish to distance the psychological or actual perceived contagion.  This helps explain why reducing fault finding, due to psychological or physical realities, reduces stigma.  For example, since addictions are framed more and more as a disease instead of a moral failing, they therefore become less stigmatized.

Because the social compact involves unwritten but powerful sets of rules, expectations and benefits, unpredictability itself is stigmatized:

In general, this situation occurs when an individual's behavior violates certain societal norms, one's behavioral schemata, or, more generally, one's expectations. Some of the mentally ill, for example, behave in unpredictable ways (Goffman, 1963; Hayward & Bright, 1997; Jones et al., 1984), and their likely future actions cannot be inferred from the usual cues that signal people's intentions. This fact might explain in part why the mentally ill are often seen as "unpredictable, dangerous, and untrustworthy" (Mehta & Farina, 1997, p. 405).

If we related these functions of stigma to a community’s reaction to divorce, we can see clearly the double edged quality of this sword.  Marriage should not be disposable and because of that, especially a traditional community which is committed to integrity of family and community even at the cost of some individual freedoms, is going to stigmatize divorce.  To the extent that it encourages respect, commitment and all-out efforts to hold marriages together, all fine and good.  The darkside to that is persons who are trapped in abusive or utterly non-functional relationships will be compelled to stay much longer than is good for them, and probably will be punished for leaving. This is analogous to the fever running wild. The instinct might be functional, but the application to a situation is painful and oppressive.  

The good news is that humans have this added capacity to mindfully overcome instinct, or in Tanya terms, moach shalit al halev. Our instincts are on autopilot, but we can overcome disgust or fear by thinking about whether the initial response is warranted. A great example of this comes from an earlier Gemara (Kesuvos 77b) where many sages stayed away from certain contagious Individuals but Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi helped them out, trusting in zechusim from Torah study to protect him.