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Psychology Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Medicine and Health Sciences

University of Denver

2023

Etiology

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Full-Text Articles in Psychology

The Effect Of Language Type And Perceived Controllability On Stigma And Compassion, Maddie Leake, Christine Mcgrath, Trudy Mickel, Claire Shaver, Gina A. Paganini, E. Paige Lloyd Feb 2023

The Effect Of Language Type And Perceived Controllability On Stigma And Compassion, Maddie Leake, Christine Mcgrath, Trudy Mickel, Claire Shaver, Gina A. Paganini, E. Paige Lloyd

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Previous research suggests that mental health stigma creates significant barriers to treatment seeking and adherence, diminishes treatment outcomes, and motivates social rejection towards people experiencing mental illness; by contrast, compassion seems to offer protective effects, improving treatment outcomes and helping behavior. The current work extends the established literature by experimentally examining the independent and interactive effects of two factors theorized to influence stigma and compassion: controllability and language. Participants read vignettes about hypothetical mental illnesses explained with a genetic attribution (indicating low controllability) or a behavioral attribution (indicating high controllability) and completed measures of perceived controllability, stigma, and compassion. We …