The Effect of Psychological Perspectives on Stigmatic Thinking Regarding Mental Disorders [University of Wisconsin River Falls]

Abstract

This study examined how an individual’s psychological perspective affects stigmatic thinking regarding mental disorders. Several research studies have examined how different explanations for mental disorders contribute to stigmatic thinking. For example, research done by Lebowitz et.al (2013) found that biochemical and genetic attributions for depression were associated with prognostic pessimism. Another study done by Lebowitz & Ahn (2014), found that mental health clinicians who held a biological perspective reported less empathy towards those who experience depression than did those that held psychosocial perspectives. Up until now, researchers have only differentiated between broad biological and psychological perspectives. This study went beyond previous research by breaking down both the biological and psychological perspectives into narrower theoretical explanations; and by attempting to assess the individual theoretical perspectives of each participant. The goal of this study was to determine whether different psychological perspectives of mental disorders related to stigmatic thinking.