This study represents a continuation of our efforts to identify a cost-effective, doable, practical intervention that, when added to the curriculum of future health professionals, results in the reduction of stigmatizing attitudes toward people living with mental illness. The authors reasoned that a personal presentation from a recovering person would, unlike previous educational efforts described, encompass the elements of personal relevance and inspiration and thus be effective. Measures of stigma, as well as of courtesy stigma, were used. The results support the hypothesis.
“Irrational” attributions of responsibility (attributing more responsibility to a victim when his misfortune is greater and attributing more responsibility to a weaker rather than a stronger victim) were more common when decisions were hurried and among people who characteristically assign causes of actions to persons. People whose moral judgments are more sophisticated in Kohlberg's schema made fewer irrational attributions generally.
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