Journal article
Coping with the Stigma of Mental Illness: Empirically-Grounded Hypotheses from Computer Simulations
Social forces, Vol.89(4), pp.1315-1339
06/2011
DOI: 10.1093/sf/89.4.1315
Abstract
This research demonstrates how affect control theory and its computer program, Interact, can be used to develop empirically-grounded hypotheses regarding the connection between cultural labels and behaviors. Our demonstration focuses on propositions in the modified labeling theory of mental illness. According to the MLT, negative societal conceptions of the mentally ill become personally relevant upon diagnosis and damage psychiatric patients' self-concept. This, in turn, increases patients' use of three coping behaviors: concealing treatment history, educating others about mental illness and withdrawing from social interaction. We evaluate these propositions by analyzing data generated from Interact simulations that incorporate self-meaning data gathered from psychiatric patients. We produce six general principles about the way patients' stigma sentiments (evaluation, potency and activity associated with the cultural category "a mentally ill person") and diagnostic category (adjustment, affective, schizophrenic) jointly shape patients' predicted use of these coping behaviors.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Coping with the Stigma of Mental Illness: Empirically-Grounded Hypotheses from Computer Simulations
- Creators
- Amy Kroska - University of OklahomaSarah K Harkness - Stanford University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Social forces, Vol.89(4), pp.1315-1339
- Publisher
- The University of North Carolina Press
- DOI
- 10.1093/sf/89.4.1315
- ISSN
- 0037-7732
- eISSN
- 1534-7605
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 06/2011
- Academic Unit
- Sociology and Criminology
- Record Identifier
- 9984002577402771
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