Language Proficiency
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Labeling succinctly defined is the act of identifying or classifying through words intended to describe that which is being identified. Labeling takes many forms in our society all of which can be conceptualized along a continuum from informal to formal using criteria that range from completely idiosyncratic and based on personal opinion to specifically defined by law. Informal labels include, among others, those which describe a person’s recreational preferences such as ‘‘runner’’ or ‘‘book worm,’’ occupations such as ‘‘teacher’’ or ‘‘salesperson,’’ behavioral tendencies such as ‘‘giver’’ or ‘‘taker,’’ or political affiliations such as Democrat or Republican. More formal labels, such as Learning Disabled have specifically defined criteria. Despite identical language, the definition of a category such as Learning Disabled may differ according to the educational background and professional affiliation of the entity doing the labeling, as will be discussed below.
Why Do We Use Labels? In a general sense, labeling is related to the social psychological construct of schemas, or cognitive structures that help individuals interpret complex information about other persons, things, groups, and situations efficiently. Schemas contain information about attributes and how concepts relate to other concepts. For example, when one sees a dog on the street, one is able to recognize it as belonging to a certain class of animals that have 4 feet, fur, sharp teeth, and are often kept by people as pets. In addition, each person has his or her own schema about dogs based on personal past experience. A person who was bitten by a dog as a child may also have the information that dogs should be avoided as part of his or her schema, and a person with a history of positive experiences with dogs may choose to approach and pet the dog as a result of information in that personal schema. Schemas help the individual process large amounts of information efficiently in a variety of ways. First, schemas guide memory by organizing information and thereby affecting what individuals remember and what they forget. Research has found that people tend to remember information better when it is either consistent
with their existing schemas or contradictory to those schemas, as opposed to when information is irrelevant to those schemas. Second, schemas allow individuals to make inferences about new situations or people based on information within their existing schemas. In this way, schemas can fill in gaps in information. Third, schemas help individuals make judgments about new persons or situations. In people’s quest for cognitive efficiency, the richness of detail in an experience is sometimes sacrificed. This can lead to drawbacks such as bias, erroneous factual conclusions, and improper inferences. There is also a societal foundation for labeling in that labels are often created by comparing behavior to a norm and deciding how much deviance from the norm is necessary to identify an abnormality. Perhaps the most infamous example of this societal foun
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