College students' stigmatization of people with mental illness: familiarity, implicit person theory, and attribution

Background: Stigma associated with mental illness (MI) results in underutilization of mental health care. We must understand factors contributing to stigma to shape anti-stigma campaigns. Aims: To investigate the factors influencing stigma in university students. Method: Undergraduate psychology students completed measures on causal attribution, stigma, social distance, implicit person theory (IPT), and familiarity. Results: The hypothesis was partially supported; people who felt personality traits were unchangeable (i.e. entity IPT) were more likely to stigmatize individuals with mental disorders and desired more social distance from them. Familiarity with people with a MI individually predicted less desire for social distance, yet the redundancy of the predictors made the effect of familiarity on stigma fall just short of statistical significance. Judgments of biogenetic causal attribution were related to higher stigma levels, but not so when familiarity and IPT were taken into account. Conclusions: Educational campaigns may be effective by focusing on aspects of MI highlighting similarity with non-diagnosed people, and that people with MI can recover.