CCSR - Recent Projects

			Recent Projects - Current Projects - Future Projects Recent Research Projects TRIAD State Media and Public Policy Discrimination Assessment Investigators: Corrigan, Watson, Rasinski, and Heyrman In this project, we will be working with NAMI's TRIAD project to assess 1) newspaper portrayals of mental illness in each state; and 2) legislation and administrative codes relevant to consumers in each state. Specifically, a report will be generated for each state concerning stigmatizing and discriminatory legislation and media coverage; and national reports will discuss trends and regional variations in stigmatizing and discriminatory media coverage of mental illness and public policy that impacts upon consumers and family members. View Legislation Project MBA Students' Preferences Towards Persons with Disabilities: A Conjoint Analysis Principal Investigator: Chow Lam Co-Investigators: Fong Chan, Patrick Corrigan The purpose of this study is to examine MBA students’ preferences in selecting persons with disabilities in two social contexts. MBA students will be asked to sort 32 cards describing characteristics of candidates with disabilities according to their preferences as a Human Resources Officer. Two weeks after the fist card sort, the participants will then perform card sort as a coworker. Six demographic characteristics that would influence preference of selection include: (a) disability type (four levels: HIV/AIDS, mental illness, substance abuse, and bone cancer); (b) gender (two levels: male and female); (c) time of onset (two levels: recently diagnosed and three years ago); (d) age (three levels: adolescent/young adult, middle-aged adult, and elderly adult) (e) education (three educational levels: high school graduate, college graduate, and a graduate degree), and (f) ethnicity (four levels: European American, African American, and Hispanic American, and Asian American). Using an orthogonal array of the conjoint analysis we reduce (disability x gender x onset x age x education x ethnicity) 576 combinations to 32 hypothetical combinations. Conjoint analysis was closely related to theories of human decision-making, which are concerned with preference judgments among multi-attribute alternatives. Similarly, conjoint analysis requires respondents to make preference decisions through a process of comparisons and trade-offs among comparative and competitive alternatives, which may be very similar to real-life decision situations. It is hypothesized that characteristics of persons with disabilities will influence the participants’ preference of selection. The Paradox of Self-stigma and Mental Illness Principal Investigator: P. Corrigan Self-stigma is defined as lowered self-esteem and diminished self-efficacy that result from internalizing stereotypes about mental illness. However, the personal reaction to stigma is a fairly complex experience best understood as a paradox. Instead of self-stigmatizing, some people respond with righteous anger, and some are indifferent to the experience. The purpose of this study is to better understand self-stigma and our model of paradox. The study consists of two phases. In phase one, we develop and evaluate a measure of self-stigma in people with serious psychiatric disability. Test items will reflect the three components of self-stigma: awareness of the stereotype, stereotype self-concurrence, and self-concurrence esteem decrement. In the second phase, effects of perceived legitimacy and in-group identification on self-stigma will be assessed. A measure of righteous anger will also be collected. The study is important in providing a first step in designing strategies for helping people cope with self-stigma. This proposal has been submitted to NIMH. Affecting Policy Decisions: Two strategies for Challenging Mental Illness Stigma Principal Investigator: Patrick Corrigan The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of different stigma change strategies on attitudes about mental illness and allocation preferences. Some groups have argued that highlighting instances of violence committed by persons with untreated mental illness will increase the public's willingness to support resource allocation for mental health services. To examine the effectiveness and implications of such strategies, we will randomly assign 150 community college students to either one of two experimental interventions or a control condition. The experimental interventions will involve either a presentation related incidents of violence committed by persons with mental illness or information related to causes and treatments for mental illness. We will examine the effect of the different strategies on mental illness stigma and resource allocation preferences for different types of mental health services. The Impact of Police Officer Attitudes on Interactions with Individuals With Mental Illness Principal Investigators: Amy Watson, Patrick Corrigan The general public tends to view persons with severe mental illness as dangerous; childlike and in need of supervision; and/or wild and irresponsible. This stigmatization has been shown to have negative consequences for persons with mental illness. These individuals are at least as likely as the average person to have contact with police officers, who vary in the extent to which they embrace negative attitudes toward mental illness. The proposed study will examine police officer attitudes about citizens with mental illness that are victims, suspects, witnesses and persons in need of assistance, and the influence of these attitudes on officer's decisions regarding how to handle situations they encounter. Survey of Involuntary Treatment Attitudes and Experiences Principal Investigators: Daniel Luchins, Patricia Hanrahan, Kenneth Rasinski The purpose of this study is to contribute to our understanding of the attitudes of mental health professionals toward involuntary treatment of people with mental illness and substance use disorders. In particular, it is designed to measure the attitudes of psychiatrists in Illinois toward the use of involuntary treatment, and the rationale behind these attitudes. The Westside Mental Health Stigma Education Project Principal Investigators: Alicia Matthews, Patrick Corrigan Research has clearly shown that the course of serious mental illness and other brain disorders can be greatly improved through appropriate psychopharmacology and psychiatric rehabilitation. Unfortunately, as noted in a 2001 report of the U.S. Surgeon General, people of color do not use the full range of psychiatric services. One reason why African Americans do not avail mental health services is to avoid the STIGMA of mental illness. Education programs have been shown to change public attitudes about stigma. However, these programs have typically been developed for European American communities. The purpose of this project is to design and implement an education program for the African American community residing on the Westside of Chicago. The project targets stigma as a barrier to receiving services for mental health problems. This program is being developed jointly by the University of Chicago and the Westside NAACP who jointly sponsored the Westside Mental Health Summit (WMHS) in December of 2001. The WMHS included leading clergy from the Westside and discussed the problem of mental illness stigma in their community. One of the common themes of the programs summary was the need for a follow-up education project to address mental illness stigma in African Americans. Funding for this project has been provided by the Boeing Foundation. Determinants and Consequences of Internalized Stigma in Lesbians and Gay Men Principal Investigators: Galen Bodenhausen, Alicia Matthews In this project, we are seeking to develop new, empirically rigorous ways of studying the phenomenon of "internalized homophobia," in order to better understand its role in mediating the deleterious impact of broader societal devaluation on personal adjustment and well-being. We seek in particular to understand the psychological differences between gay individuals who are relatively free from internalized stigma versus those who are not. Ultimately, we plan to develop a comprehensive model linking risk factors for internalized stigma (and strategies for deflecting societal devaluation) with both implicit and explicit aspects of personal and collective self-esteem, as well as with a variety of indicators of general well-being (such stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms). (G.Bodenhausen, A. Matthews) People with Schizophrenia as Targets of Projection Principle Investigator: Leonard Newman Co-Investigator: Aliza Silver The purpose of this study is to further explore how being labeled as mentally ill affects the social interactions of people with schizophrenia. The primary hypothesis guiding the proposed research is that people with schizophrenia are especially likely to serve as "projection screens" for other people. That is, people with schizophrenia might not just run the risk of being labeled n terms of specific stereotypic traits; their behavior might be prone to being construed in terms of any idiosyncratic unfavorable trait that is cognitively accessible for a given perceiver. Drug Control Policy and Public Opinion Principal Investigator: Kenneth Rasinski This study is part of a national survey of public opinion on drug policy. We included a 6 item scale measuring the stigmatization of drug users. The items were developed from the theoretical literature on stigma and from results of focus groups on the topic. They were pre-tested in a pilot study and will be used to examine the relationship between stigma and support for different types of drug policy. Structure and Function of Mental Illness Stigma Principal Investigator: Kenneth Rasinski This study examines the structure and function of mental illness stigma. We have collected and developed a pool of statements that relate to attitudes about people with mental illness. The theoretical literature has been used to develop statements we believe to be related to different aspects of mental health stigma. We will sort the items into categories that, according to E. Goffman, people use to organize their perceptions of others. Those categories are "biography" (i.e., who people are) and "social role" (i.e., what people do). We will use empirical methods to examine the structure of these groups of statements and then try to relate the dimensions of structure and function to different motivations people have to stigmatize.

© 2001 - 2008 Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research www.stigmaresearch.org

Recent Research Projects