Public Attitudes Toward Mental Illness: An Experimental Design Examining the Media's Impact of Crime On Stigma

Mental health consumers encounter numerous barriers that complicate their lives such as housing, employment, social support, and resulting low self-esteem. Stigma has been found to be a primary deterrent for individuals who need mental health services. Research examining how stigma varies across disorders is still in its infancy. Studies have shown that the public learns about mental illness primarily through the media, particularly newspapers, and the message being delivered is that people with mental illness are dangerous and are to be feared. Labeling theory has been utilized as a framework to explain the impact of the label “mental illness." By varying only the diagnostic label in this study, it will provide further evidence as to the impact of a psychiatric label to affect attitudes which serve as a proxy for behavior. This study simulated a phenomenon popular in media today: a newspaper article featuring a man with mental illness who committed murder. To prevent self-selection which has plagued attitudinal research examining stigma, deception was implemented by not informing respondents as to the true purpose of the study until debriefing. Six vignettes were created and all featured a fictitious adult male who assaulted another man who later died from head trauma. Vignettes varied only by diagnostic label (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, panic disorder without agoraphobia, major depressive disorder, cancer, control) of the perpetrator. The independent variable was vignette type, and dependent variables were the Social Distance Scale and four subscales (authoritarianism, benevolence, social restrictiveness, community mental health ideology) of the Community Attitudes toward Mental Illness (CAMI). Providing socially desirable responses has been a limitation of attitudinal studies so the Impression Management scale (IM) was also administered to measure the degree to which respondents were exaggerating their responses. A convenience sample of adults (N=313) was obtained from a public science center in a large Midwestern city. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of six vignettes and then completed the instruments. Researcher hypothesized that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder would be associated with the most stigma on each of the dependent variables. MANCOVA analyses revealed no difference between vignette type on any of the four subscales of the CAMI. However, there was a statistically significant difference between groups on the Social Distance Scale. Post-hoc analyses indicated that panic disorder without agoraphobia was associated with the most favorable attitudes whereas major depressive disorder was associated with the least favorable attitudes. Results suggest that there may be different factors contributing to social distance other than fear. The tendency for depressed individuals to engage in excessive reassurance-seeking may be a possible explanation for the respondents' uncharacteristically negative attitudes toward consumers with major depressive disorder. Findings may also reflect an increase in acceptance by the public toward those with panic disorder or anxiety in general. Social workers engaged in mental health practice need to be mindful of the impact of stigma on consumers' lives. Collaboration with media sources is also discussed. Limitations are the use of a convenience sample as well as difficulty transferring attitudes to behavior.