Scaffolded Unlearning: Organizing the reduction of internalized stigma

Stigma constrains life chances, social participation, and well-being, yet we know much more about how stigma is reduced through changes in external evaluations than about how internalized stigma is reduced among stigmatized individuals themselves. Drawing on a qualitative case study of a long-standing organizational intervention supporting widowed women in India, we theorize the reduction of internalized stigma as a process of “scaffolded unlearning.” We show how interventions can organize opportunities to engage in alternative practices that enable individuals to adopt new roles, relationships, and social activities while reducing the risks of departing from stigma-consistent expectations. This process unfolds in three interrelated phases—re-fastening, reautonomizing, and reassociating—in which organizational scaffolds support practices associated with belonging and security, pride and self-efficacy, and hope and social recognition. Our findings reveal how organizations reduce internalized stigma by creating the conditions for sustained engagement in alternative practices that repeatedly elicit intertwined emotional and cognitive shifts, thereby advancing research on both destigmatization and scaffolding.