| dc.description.abstract | Individuals experiencing mental illness face numerous negative social, economic, and personal
outcomes, partly due to the public stigma around mental illness. Attribution theory posits that
stigma occurs when publicly held stereotypes of individuals with mental illness elicit negative
emotions, eventually resulting in discriminatory behaviours. The stigma associated with common
mental disorders is not well understood, especially in the context of attribution theory. The
current study aimed to address these gaps through an online survey of undergraduate students’ (n
= 302) perceptions of the public’s stigmatizing attitudes, emotions, and behaviours towards an
individual depicted as having social anxiety disorder (SAD), depression (DEP) or schizophrenia
(SCH). Differences were identified in how strongly specific stigma components were endorsed:
SAD and DEP were associated with greater Weak-not-Sick (WNS) attitudes and intentions to
help compared to SCH; DEP had the highest blame ratings; SCH had the highest pity ratings;
SAD had the lowest avoidance ratings and SCH had the highest. Further, hierarchical multiple
regressions revealed that WNS and blame attitudes were a unique predictor of negative affective
reactions for SAD and DEP respectively. Dangerousness predicted negative affect for all three
disorders. Fear and anger predicted discriminatory behaviours for SAD and DEP, while fear and
pity were predictors for SCH. These findings partially supported study hypotheses. Additional
exploratory regressions were conducted to identify predictors of pity, help and avoidance.
Results from this research suggests that the stigma associated with mental illness is best
understood by examining disorder categories individually. Findings can inform the development
of effective anti-stigma strategies to improve outcomes for those living with mental illness. | en_US |
