Immediate and Delayed Effects of Imagined Contact with an Individual with Schizophrenia on Mental Illness Stigma and Interaction Quality.

摘要

Mental illness stigma is pervasive and has detrimental consequences for those experiencing various mental illness diagnoses (Crisp, Gelder, Rix, Meltzer, & Rowlands, 2000). Among mental illnesses, schizophrenia elicits uniquely strong negative biases (Angermeyer & Dietrich, 2006). One particularly effective mental illness stigma reduction strategy is the "contact hypothesis," which postulates that face-to-face contact with an outgroup member will reduce intergroup anxiety (i.e., the emotional discomfort caused by contact with an outgroup member), and will encourage future intergroup interaction (Allport, 1954). As with many stigmatized conditions, individuals with schizophrenia tend to conceal their disorder (Smart & Wegner, 2000), which makes interaction between the general public and people with schizophrenia difficult to facilitate. To remedy this problem, researchers have shown that even imagining a face-to-face encounter with an outgroup member could have benefits that are on par with direct, face-to-face contact (Giacobbe, Stukas, & Farhall, 2013; Turner, Crisp, and Lambert, 2007). The effects of imagined contact as a means to change negative attitudes, emotional reactions, behavioral intentions, and behaviors have been tested immediately following the imagined contact intervention, however, the delayed effects (tested at 1 week following the intervention) have yet to be substantiated.;The present research investigated the impact of imagined contact as a tool to reduce schizophrenia stigma among college students both immediately following the imagined contact (Immediate Version) and one week after (Delayed Version). In the imagined contact with schizophrenia group (experimental condition), participants listened to a recording which asked them to imagine a pleasant interaction with an individual with schizophrenia. The control group listened to a recording which asked them to imagine a pleasant interaction with an individual with no diagnosis. In the study, participants filled out self-report measures of attitudes, perception of dangerousness, and affect toward individuals with schizophrenia in a pretest survey and after the imagined contact task. Additionally, as behavioral measures, participants were asked to set up chairs in anticipation of a conversation with an individual with schizophrenia so that desired distance could be measured, as well as have a brief conversation with an individual they were told had schizophrenia. The longevity of the potential benefits from imagined contact were assessed by having about half of the participants in both the control and experimental conditions complete these measures immediately following the imagined contact intervention and about half complete the measures one week following the imagined contact.;It was hypothesized that participants in the experimental group of both the immediate and delayed versions of the experiment would have a significant decrease in all the measures that reflect stigma toward individuals with schizophrenia and would perceive a higher interaction quality in the experimental conversation task, whereas the control group would remain stable. Instead, the present research failed to replicate previous research in the immediate version, and the delayed version had a similar pattern. The one exception to this pattern was that imagined contact was shown to improve perceived quality of the interaction from the perspective of the participant in the immediate version, however this effect did not hold true for participants in the delayed version of the experiment. Thus, the present study raises questions regarding the efficacy of imagined contact as an effective means to reduce mental illness stigma and in doing so underscores the value of replicating findings before extending investigations to new areas.