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Mass media shape not only public, but also healthcare professionals' attitudes towards individuals with a mental illness. This study investigates how watching a movie about schizophrenia affects stigma-related attitudes of rehabilitation science students, who are likely to work with affected individuals. Participants watched an entertainment movie portrayal of schizophrenia. Stigma-related attitudes and social distance were assessed one week before watching the movie, directly afterwards, and one week later. No significant differences in stigmatization emerged between viewers and non-viewers. Enjoyment, appreciation, and general movie evaluation mediated viewers' transportation into the story on changes in stigmatization. Results are discussed with respect to media effects on stigma-related attitudes and their implications for mental health nursing practice and education.

Abstract

Attributed controllability of a person's substance addiction, perceived responsibility for the addiction, as well as familiarity with a substance and perceived dangerousness affect stigmatizing responses toward individuals. It is still unclear how media depictions of individuals with a substance addiction influence audiences' attitudes, and how characteristics of the portrayed persons interact with each other, and with audience characteristics such as recipients' moral values. In a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 online-experiment participants (N = 400) read a news article about a person with a substance addiction. Articles were manipulated regarding the type of substance, responsibility for the addiction, sex, and employment status of the exemplar. Recipients' moral value orientation was measured as moderator. Results indicate that differences in stigmatization toward affected persons were largely influenced by exemplar's suggested type of substance addiction and respondents' moral value orientation. Interactions of the addictive substance with the exemplar's employment status and of respondents' moral value orientation with the ascribed cause emerged as well. Findings are discussed regarding media representations of stigmatized groups, the intersectionality of stigma-related characteristics, and stigma-sensitive health communication.

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