This harms their psycho-social well-being and self-systems, causing them to produce and reproduce stress-induced, disadvantageous behavioral responses that lead to the development of maladaptive habits.
Furthermore, the absence of proactive engagement as catalysts for change, such as fostering counterspaces and practicing active citizenship, hinders the overall welfare of the collective in hegemonic societies.
[5] Internalized homophobia is strongly associated with guilt and shame (especially among youth) and has been linked to increased anxiety, depression and suicide.
[10] Internalized ableism is often a result of relentless pathologization and lack of or inadequate support disabled people face on a daily basis.
The fact the medical establishment is a significant factor that causes and contributes to interalized ableism with frameworks such as the pathology paradigm mean that disabled people trying to enact emancipatory change and self-identify are often deemed as "anti-science" by individuals and institutions which subscribe to scientism.
[citation needed] Internalized oppression may also exist among immigrants, and based on the transgenerational trauma, it may affect their descendants as well.
When the host community devalues a foreigner's ethnic origin, native language or culture, the immigrant may feel inferior.
"[18] French philosopher Michel Foucault "has argued that the rise of parliamentary institutions and of new conceptions of political liberty was accompanied by a darker counter-movement, by the emergence of a new and unprecedented discipline directed against the body.
[19] According to University of Massachusetts Amherst doctoral students Valerie Joseph and Tanya O. Williams, "Deep racial self-negation[,] ... internalized racial hatred [and] internalized oppression ... stymied [their] growth as people and scholars [and] inhibited [their] ability to be…profound, strong, and beautiful ..."[14] Individuals can be made to feel "implicated in a project of compliance with the values and goals" of the dominant society.
[18] Lorde cites oppressed individuals as "encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of [one]self and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of the self";[18] they may hesitate to breach the false stereotypes surrounding them or verbalize resistance to violence.
[18] Racial manifestations include "multifaceted and extreme psychological, social, and economic self-sabotage"; a tendency to "defer to whites", and feelings of being "not black enough".
[17] Sandra Bartky identified disturbances in body image, gender expression and power dynamics as manifestations of internalized sexism in women.