Can a negative religious causal attribution of mental illness affect the phenomenon of public stigma?

Abstract

This study assessed, through an exploratory approach, how religion-based negative causal attributions of mental illness may be associated to stigmatising attitudes and behaviours that contribute to public stigma in an Italian convenience sample. All participants (N = 311; average age = 33 years, 38.6% male) completed a set of three questionnaires: Religious Beliefs and Mental Illness Stigma Scale, the Attribution Questionnaire 27 and the Mental Health Knowledge Schedule. The study found support for two specific models. The Responsibility model involved four key predictors: participant age, the influence of religious beliefs in everyday choices, religious beliefs about the connection between morality/sin and mental illness and having participated in seminars about mental illness stigma. The Dangerousness model involved three exogenous variables: participating in mental illness stigma seminars, religious beliefs about morality/sin and mental illness, and participant age.This study allows the identification of variables that seem to activate or attenuate the models of "Personal Responsibility" and "Dangerousness".

… And is there no new thing under the sun? Retrospective study on the presence of stigmatizing articles in two Italian newspapers during the period 2006–2021.

“…Presently, there are eight main types of stigma described in scientific literature (Evans-Lacko et al, 2016;Fox et al, 2018), and all of these can be promoted or supported by the media: Public stigma is the response that the general population has to people with mental health challenges (Corrigan & Watson, 2002); structural stigma refers to rules, laws, or institutions that systematically discriminate or disadvantage people with mental disorders (Corrigan et al, 2005); self-stigma occurs when individuals internalize public attitudes as prejudice and discrimination, resulting in numerous negative consequences (Corrigan & Rao, 2012); felt or perceived stigma occurs when individuals believe that people around them would judge them negatively for having a certain characteristic (Evans-Lacko et al, 2016); label avoidance happens when people avoid seeking out or participating in mental health care to prevent the impact of a stigmatizing label (Clement et al, 2015); experienced stigma is the actual experience of discrimination and/or participation on the part of the person affected (Van Brakel, 2006); courtesy stigma, also known as stigma by association, refers to the stigmatization experienced by individuals who are associated with a stigmatized person or group (Wahl & Harman, 1989); and spiritual stigma, characterized by beliefs about mental illness associating it with sinful behavior or encouraging people to focus on religious practices and rituals as treatment for mental health challenges (Peteet, 2019;Pingani et al, 2021Pingani et al, , 2022.…”