Amerigo Farina

Are women nicer people than men? Sex and the stigma of mental disorders

Abstract The literature on sex differences in the social stigma associated with mental disorders is reviewed. Studies which have relied on non-behavioral measures (self-reports, attitude scales) are considered separately from those which have attempted to measure stigma behaviorally (denial of job, harsh treatment). Also, amount of stigma displayed by males and females toward an afflicted person is treated separately from the degree of disfavor in which society holds a male as compared to a female victim of mental disorder. Three main patterns are revealed by the literature: (1) Men and women express similar feelings and attitudes toward the mentally disordered but they behave in quite different ways toward them. (2) Women act in a much more benign and favorable way than men do. (3) Women who are present or former mental patients are treated more favorably than comparable men. An effort is made to understand these gender differences.

Some consequences of changing people's views regarding the nature of mental illness.

The major focus of the three studies reported was the consequences of changing public conceptions of mental illness for the sufferer and his family. In two identically performed studies with a total of 405 subjects, two messages (one describing mental illness as a disease and the other as a.- product of social learning) were effective in changing beliefs. More important, the subjects receiving the disease message thought that a victim of mental illness could do less to help himself than did the subjects receiving the social learning message. In a third study, the subjects received similar messages and were given a therapy session. They were then asked to keep a journal for a week and to make an entry in the journal every time a problem similar to one discussed in therapy arose. It was expected that the disease message subjects would feel less able to master the problems and, consequently, would think about them less frequently. The findings confirmed the expectation.

Social Competence and Adjustment

A research programme is described that is concerned with the general issue of adjustment, but focuses more specifically on social competence, viewed as a manageable and measurable component of adjustment. At first, the subjects of the research were psychiatric patients and it was found that better adjusted ones have a larger repertoire of social skills and use these more appropriately than more poorly adjusted patients. Correlations found between the social skill of parent and patient offspring suggest it is the family that is responsible for this component of adjustment. Research then shifted to normal subjects and it was greatly expedited by the development of a self-report scale to measure social competence. Many differences have been found between high and low social-competence people in the way they behave with others and in the impact they have upon them.

Sensitivity to Nonverbal Cues as a Function of Social Competence

The hypothesis that sensitivity to nonverbal messages is an important component of social compentence was tested employing 24 female subjects. It was predicted that subjects low in social competence would experience a high level of anxiety in a social interaction and that this would interfere with their ability to attend to the nonverbal behaviors of others. Subjects were given the task of interviewing a confederate. They were instructed to change the interview topic if the questioning appeared to produce discomfort in their partner. The confederate displayed a series of nonverbal cues indicating mounting tension while responding to certain questions. Two measures of sensitivity to the cues were obtained: (1) how quickly the subject changed the interview topic in response to the cues and (2) how many nonverbal cues the subject reported observing. The findings indicated that low-competence subjects reported having observed as many of the nonverbal messages as the high-competence subjects but failed to respond to them. An explanation for this is offered based on information gathered during a postexperimental interview. No difference was found between groups for level of anxiety experienced during the interaction. This is discussed in terms of the experimental design employed, which may have served to reduce anxiety in the subjects.

Does Stigma Towards Mental Illness Affect Initial Perceptions of Peer Providers

AbstractPeers (i.e. people with lived experience of mental illness and/or addictions) are being hired in large numbers to offer support for people with serious mental illnesses, but little is known about how peer providers are viewed. The goal of this study was to measure reactions towards actors posed as peer providers. Half of study participants interacted with an actor portraying a psychiatrist and half interacted with an actor portraying a peer provider. Ratings such as liking, feeling comfortable, as well as time spent talking were measured. Participants did not report preferring actors in either condition and did not talk more or have less silence with actors in either condition. Participants also were equally willing to see actors portraying peer providers again in the future and recommend them to a family member. Among participants who had received mental health services, there was a trend towards viewing actors portraying peer providers as more friendly and effective. These positive initial perceptions suggest that stigma towards people with mental illness does not taint the initial perception of peer providers.