Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness.

Many people with serious mental illness are challenged doubly. On one hand, they struggle with the symptoms and disabilities that result from the disease. On the other, they are challenged by the stereotypes and prejudice that result from misconceptions about mental illness. As a result of both, people with mental illness are robbed of the opportunities that define a quality life: good jobs, safe housing, satisfactory health care, and affiliation with a diverse group of people. Although research has gone far to understand the impact of the disease, it has only recently begun to explain stigma in mental illness. Much work yet needs to be done to fully understand the breadth and scope of prejudice against people with mental illness. Fortunately, social psychologists and sociologists have been studying phenomena related to stigma in other minority groups for several decades. In this paper, we integrate research specific to mental illness stigma with the more general body of research on stereotypes and prejudice to provide a brief overview of issues in the area. The impact of stigma is twofold, as outlined in Table ​Table1.1. Public stigma is the reaction that the general population has to people with mental illness. Self-stigma is the prejudice which people with mental illness turn against themselves. Both public and self-stigma may be understood in terms of three components: stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Social psychologists view stereotypes as especially efficient, social knowledge structures that are learned by most members of a social group (1-3). Stereotypes are considered "social" because they represent collectively agreed upon notions of groups of persons. They are "efficient" because people can quickly generate impressions and expectations of individuals who belong to a stereotyped group (4). Table 1 Comparing and contrasting the definitions of public stigma and self-stigma The fact that most people have knowledge of a set of stereotypes does not imply that they agree with them (5). For example, many persons can recall stereotypes about different racial groups but do not agree that the stereotypes are valid. People who are prejudiced, on the other hand, endorse these negative stereotypes ("That's right; all persons with mental illness are violent! ") and generate negative emotional reactions as a result ("They all scare me! ") (1,3,6). In contrast to stereotypes, which are beliefs, prejudicial attitudes involve an evaluative (generally negative) component (7,8). Prejudice also yields emotional responses (e.g., anger or fear) to stigmatized groups. Prejudice, which is fundamentally a cognitive and affective response, leads to discrimination, the behavioral reaction (9). Prejudice that yields anger can lead to hostile behavior (e.g., physically harming a minority group) (10). In terms of mental illness, angry prejudice may lead to withholding help or replacing health care with services provided by the criminal justice system (11). Fear leads to avoidance; e.g., employers do not want persons with mental illness nearby so they do not hire them (12). Alternatively, prejudice turned inward leads to self-discrimination. Research suggests self-stigma and fear of rejection by others lead many persons to not pursuing life opportunities for themselves (13,14). The remainder of this paper further develops examples of public and self-stigma. In the process, we summarize research on ways of changing the impact of public and self-stigma.