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Reducing Stigma toward the Mentally Ill:

Reducing Stigma toward the Mentally Ill:. The Impact of Exposure versus Information Stephanie Turner Hanover College. Stigma.

Mercy
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Reducing Stigma toward the Mentally Ill:

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  1. Reducing Stigma toward the Mentally Ill: The Impact of Exposure versus Information Stephanie Turner Hanover College

  2. Stigma • Goffman (1963) defines stigma as an attribute of an individual that “makes him different from others…and of a less desirable kind-in the extreme, a person who is quite thoroughly bad, or dangerous, or weak”.

  3. Definitions • Stigma: more specific, negative form of attitudes; directed toward specific group • Exposure: any association or connection with mentally ill which involves seeing them as full human beings, capable of humor, warmth, intelligence, etc. and deserving of empathy • Empathy: “vicarious emotional experience of others” (Mehrabian, 1972)

  4. Tested Interventions to Reduce Stigma • Angermeyer (1996) and Dietrich (2006) discuss how close contact with the mentally ill impacts and shapes attitudes • Addison and Thorpe(2004) • Found that factual knowledge alone did not positively alter attitudes • Used Community Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill Scale (CAMI)

  5. Pre- / Post-Intervention Design • Demographics • 2 surveys pre-intervention • Empathy scale, CAMI • Participant sees one of two videos • Information: “Professional Lecture” • Exposure: “Robert Documentary” • Post-intervention surveys • Empathy scale, CAMI

  6. Hypotheses Hypothesis 1:Participants in the ExposureCondition (“Robert Documentary”) will show a decrease in stigmatizing attitudes compared to participants in the Information Condition (“Professional Lecture”). Hypothesis 2:Participants in the Exposure Condition will show an increase in empathy as compared to the participants in the Information Condition.

  7. Participants • Students (N = 25) n = 22 female; n = 3 male • Wide range of previous experience with mental illness, including acquaintance, friend, family member, and self • Majority (76%) reported some previous experience or contact with mentally ill persons

  8. Materials: CAMI • Community Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill (CAMI) (Taylor & Dear, 1981) • Four dimensions of attitudes: 5 point Likert Scale • Benevolence • “We need to adopt a far more tolerant attitude toward the mentally ill in our society” • Authoritarianism • “The best way to handle the mentally ill is to keep them behind locked doors” • Social Restrictiveness • “The mentally ill should not be given any responsibility” • Community Mental Health Ideology • “The best therapy for many mental patients is to be a part of a normal community”

  9. Materials: Revised Empathy Scale • Based on the Emotional Empathetic Tendency Scale (EET)(Mehrabian, 1971) • Specified empathy toward mentally ill people • 16 items total • 5 point Likert Scale • 8 concepts- 2 question each

  10. Empathy Scale Sample Questions • Concept: Sympathy for the mentally ill • Negative: “People make too much of the feelings and sensitivity of the mentally ill.” • Positive: “The mentally ill deserve our sympathy.”

  11. Materials: Professional Lecture • Video created for this study • Licensed Clinical Psychologist and director of a college counseling center • Discusses three mental disorders: Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder, and Schizoaffective disorder • Formal lecture style, no empathic or humanizing information present

  12. Materials: Robert Documentary • Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival(Hott, 2004) • Film by two brothers • Robert, who has suffered with mental illness • Jay, primary caretaker over the last 38 years • Shows how family copes with mental illness • Realistic, humanizing portrayal of Robert

  13. Results: CAMI • Mixed Model ANOVA • CAMI- significant interaction (p = 0.005) • Follow up analysis for simple main effects of time also significant (p < 0.05) • Benevolence subscale- significant interaction (p < 0.05) • Follow up analysis for simple main effects of time also significant (p < 0.05) • Other subscales showed no significant differences

  14. Pre-/Post- CAMI Changes CAMI Score • Significant • interaction • (p = 0.005)

  15. Pre-/Post- Benevolence Changes Significant interaction (p < 0.05) Benevolence Score

  16. Discussion of CAMI • Hypothesis 1 confirmed: Participants showed more benevolent, and thus less stigmatizing attitudes after Exposure intervention • CAMI and Benevolence differences might be even greater with a neutral or more stigmatizing sample.

  17. Results: Empathy Scale • Reliability was achieved: Empathy Scale revised to specify the Mentally Ill was found to be reliable (α = 0.71) • Hypothesis 2 not supported: No significant main effects or interaction found

  18. Previous Contact of Participants

  19. Empathy Discussion • Participants displayed high levels of empathy pre-intervention. • Mean: 61.4 • Range: 49-70 • High empathy levels may have restricted the amount of change that could be evoked by intervention.

  20. Implications and Future Research • Target sample low in empathy and high in stigmatizing attitudes toward mentally ill • Further research is needed to • Test intervention with more participants • Explore the role benevolence plays in reducing stigmatizing attitudes and how it is related to empathy

  21. Pre-/Post- Empathy Changes Empathy Score No significant Interaction p = 0.737

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