Examining Two Aspects of Contact on the Stigma of Mental Illness

This study expands on earlier research by our group that has shown that contact with people with mental illness has significant effects on changing stigmatizing attitudes. Two factors that affect contact are examined in this study: the medium through which contact is experienced, and the level of stereotype disconfirmation engendered in contact. One hundred sixty-four individuals were randomly assigned to one of five conditions. Three of the conditions allowed us to examine the effects of medium: no stigma-control, in vivo contact with moderate disconfirmation, and videotaped contact with moderate disconfirmation. Along with the moderate disconfirmation videotape, two additional videotaped conditions —little or no disconfirmation and high disconfirmations—defined the three groups for our second set of hypotheses on disconfirmation. Research participants completed the Social Distance Scale prior to being assigned to condition and immediately upon completion. In terms of the medium of contact, results showed that both videotaped and in vivo contact led to significant change in stigmatizing attitudes. Two interesting results were found in terms of level of disconfirmation. First, viewing a videotape of a person with mental illness that does not disconfirm the stereotype (e.g., the person is manifestly psychotic) does not change stigmatizing attitudes. Second, videotapes of people who moderately and highly disconfirm the stereotype lead to significant improvement in attitudes, with nonsignificant trends suggesting that moderate disconfirmation yields better effects. Implications of these findings for future work on changing public attitudes are discussed.