Mental health stigma: social relationships, social cognition, and perceptions of violence

Over 40 million adults each year in the U.S. contend with mental health issues, many of whom are viewed and treated differently as a result. For example, individuals socially avoid those with mental illness—assuming that they are dangerous, untrustworthy, and in need of social restriction. Mental health stigma, or the attitudes and beliefs that motivate individuals to socially avoid, devalue, or fear people with mental illness, contributes to negative social, personal, and emotional outcomes for individuals with mental illness. Given the consequences of this persistent problem, scholars continue to examine how and why mental health stigma persists, and what can be done to counter it.

My dissertation investigates mental health stigma through three interrelated studies. The first study leverages a unique natural experiment to better understand how discussing white-perpetrated mass violence events as a byproduct of mental illness impacts beliefs about mental health and race. The second study implements social network methods to comprehensively examine the social exclusion and devaluation experienced by the family and friends of people with mental illness. The third study explores if people who explicitly reject mental illness stereotypes may still hold implicit biases (i.e., nonconscious negative beliefs about people with mental illness) that can contribute to discriminatory behavior. Each chapter tackles a distinct research question related to mental health stigma and offers novel empirical and theoretical contributions to the field that could have broader policy impacts.