Causal Explanations, Treatability, and Mental Illness Stigma: Experimental Study

Public stigma toward people with bipolar versus borderline: An experimental study of attributions, treatability, race, and gender.

“…Causal explanations of the VC’s condition were also manipulated, including a genetic explanation, an environmental one, and no information (the control). Unlike previous studies (Elliott et al, 2023; Kvaale et al, 2013; Schomerus et al, 2012), the genetic attribution did not directly predict desire for social distance. However, presenting either an environmental or a genetic explanation (vs. no explanation) did predispose participants to desire less social distance, to be less supportive of discrimination, and to express greater prognostic optimism because the explanations reduced perceived responsibility of the VC for their condition.…”

“…By extension, scholars assumed mental illness would be less stigmatized when it was attributed to biomedical factors beyond an individual’s control, but research has demonstrated otherwise. While attributing mental illness to genetics does reduce blame, it still tends to be positively associated with stigma such as desire for social distance (Elliott et al, 2023; Kvaale et al, 2013; Schomerus et al, 2012). This effect may be driven by genetic essentialism or the tendency for people to make inferences about the behavioral tendencies of entire categories of people who share common heritage (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011).…”

“…Lebowitz and Ahn (2012) found that adding information that BOR was treatable to a biomedical explanation reduced desire for social distance from a vignette character (VC) with BOR. However, when Elliott et al (2023) manipulated treatability with a probability sample representative of the U.S. adult population, they found it decreased prognostic pessimism regardless of mental health condition (although they did not examine BIP or BOR).…”