The mentally ill face a multitude of challenges. One of those challenges is the stigmatization they face. Stigmatization is social rejection; those stigmatized are rejected by people because of the label they carry or that their behaviors clearly indicate that they belong to a certain labeled group.
Stigmatization of the mentally ill is caused by the public’s belief in myths about the dangerousness of the mentally ill and exposing those myths can reduce stigmatization.
Regarding the mentally ill, it appears that people respond to the mentally ill with feelings of fear and rejection. While, the common response to a mentally ill person is to fear violence, diagnosed mental patients commit violence at the same rates as non-diagnosed people. Public perceptions may not match reality due to the public’s lack of contact with the mentally ill.
Stigmatization of the mentally ill is caused by the public’s belief in myths about the dangerousness of the mentally ill and exposing those myths can reduce stigmatization. At least one-third of the people said that they would both reject socially and fear violence from someone displaying behaviors associated with different mentally illnesses.
Rejection is associated to lack of contact with the mentally ill and that as contact increased, fear of the mentally ill decreased. The direction of the relationship between fear and rejection seems to be that fear (possibly based upon myths about mental illness) causes rejection.
Taken as a whole, it appears that exposing these myths as myths increases the acceptance of the mentally ill and that staged contact with a mentally person to expose myths has an even more powerful effect.
