| Summary: | The article discusses concerns regarding the labeling theory. It focuses on two principal indictments and stigmas associated with labeling. It further discusses the nine-cell typology of adaptations. To negatively label a person or collectivity is an act of retaliation for alleged deviance and is under certain circumstances an unprovoked act of aggression. To label oneself or one's reference group negatively is tantamount to self assault. Epithets such as hoodlum, fink, whore, freak, or terrorists, racists are not mere figments of the sociological imagination. An individual either makes an acceptance of the deviant label or rejects it and exchange, that is an attempt to substitute or switch labels. This analysis has taken the position that contemporary labeling approaches to deviance tends to emphasize the stigma of labels to the neglect of systematic categorization of fighting back techniques. Self perception is based on the social behavior. Socioeconomic factors, kind of labels, movement across modes are also discussed.
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