Stigma, Sympathy, and the Double Edge of Strong Ties: Social Capital Activation in Job Searches

• In Event: 562 - Regular Session. Social Networks, Identities, and Inequality

Abstract

We examine a puzzle concerning people’s decisions to activate their social ties to help a job seeker with whom they have a preexisting relationship but who bears a potentially stigmatizing mark. Such marks might limit the extent of help provided to a job seeker because of concerns about courtesy stigma; yet they might also facilitate help by triggering sympathy. Contrary to intuitive predictions, we argue that—subject to scope conditions—sympathy will dominate stigmatization in such situations. We also illuminate the double edge of strong ties in this process: while these ties increase motivation to help, they simultaneously intensify the risk of courtesy stigma. Thus, when the job seeker is perceived to be responsible for acquiring a stigmatizing mark, strong ties provide no more socially observable help—in the form of social capital activation—than do weak ties. Using a mark that facilitated causal identification (an accident-related burn scar), an experiment with a diverse population of 510 employed adults validated our hypotheses, and interviews with twenty informants further illuminated the results. We draw implications for research on stigma, social capital, and labor markets.

Authors

• Andras Tilcsik, University of Toronto

• Sanaz Mobasseri, University of California-Berkeley