SELF-LABELLING THEORY: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS AMONG MENTAL PATIENTS

THE newly popular theoretical approach to deviance known as the " labelling theory " (Becker, 1963) or the "societal reaction perspective " (Kitsuse, 1962) shifts the focus of concentration from deviant actions to reactions to deviants. In spite of recent critical evaluations of this approach calling for clarification of kind and degree of reaction needed for type of act and/or actor (Schur, 1971; Gibbs, 1972; Warren and Johnson, 1972), social labelling and/or societal reactions are usually taken as the major independent variables to explain how deviance is produced and maintained. Thus, labelling analysts have, until now, to a great extent either minimised or taken for granted differential aspects of self-labelling involved in the process of becoming deviant (Rotenberg, 1974). Empirical evidence has shown, however, that degree of congruence between group-assigned labels and incumbents ' self-concepts might vary greatly (Second and Backman, 1965; Sarbin and Allen, 1968; Rotenber