PREJUDICES AND OPINIONS OF MENTAL HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES REGARDING MENTAL ILLNESS
Authors: JOHN MIDDLETON
Journal: American Journal of Psychiatry (1953)

A "Prejudice Test" was given to 392 state mental hospital employees representing every work group. The attendant personnel made up approximately 67% of all those taking the test. Correlations were done on age, IQ, education, and length of employment in mental hospitals. Negative correlations of -.58 and -.75 were found for education and IQ and .43 for age with degrees of "prejudice." On some statements, attendants were more "prejudiced" than nonattendants. 1. Between 0% and 20% of all employees agreed that: (a) people working around mental patients are somewhat mentally queer; they often become ill themselves; (b) all mental patients are very much alike; most are homicidal; all patients like to be by themselves and resent intrusions; mental patients need more punishment and criticisms than normal people; once a person has been mentally ill he can never lead a completely normal existence again; (c) wealthy people very seldom have mental illness; and most mental patients come from the slums. 2. Between 20% and 40% of all employees agreed that: (a) most mental patients are oversexed; masturbation is one of the principal causes of mental illness; (b) it is difficult to insult or offend a mental patient; some do not require kindness and consideration; demanding mental patients should be ignored; it is unnecessary to win a mental patient's confidence because he mistrusts everybody anyway; (c) many people act insane to receive government support; many insane people are really criminals and are not sick; you can usually tell whether a man is insane by the look in his eye; (d) one should pay no attention to mental patients since they do not know what is best for them; punishment often convinces them they should behave more normally; the actions and speech of most mental patients are revolting and disgusting to a person of fine breeding; (e) nervous people are often helped by working in a mental hospital (see I (a) above). 3. Between 40% and 6o% of all the employees agreed that: (a) everybody is a little "crazy" at times and all of us have had serious doubts about our sanity; most mental patients are curable; (b) mental disease is hereditary; people who lead immoral lives often go insane as a result; (c) in working with mental patients a sympathetic attitude is more important than an understanding of their disease. 4. Between 60% and 8o% of all employees agreed that: (a) unusual behavior and peculiar ideas are always present; insults and obscene language are invariably found in all mental patients; (b) mental disease is not contagious; mental patients are really sick like other patients in other hospitals. 5. Between 80% and 100% of all the employees agreed that: (a) in order to work successfully with mental patients you should first win their confidence (see 2 (b) above); there is much that can be done for mental patients aside from administering to their physical wants and hoping they will get well; in dealing with mental patients one should remember that they are different from normal people in their thinking and feeling; (b) some mental patients have a real sense of humor; most of them appreciate favors you do for them; they have feelings and emotions like other people do (see 5 (a) above); (c) knowledge of mental disease is not harmful to well-adjusted normal people; mental disease is not any more common in one race than another.