180 college students were asked to make judgments assumed to correspond with judgments about the mental illness of targets who projected various combinations of cues in attire and verbal messages. Procedures were designed to elaborate the position that the cues involved in making mental illness judgments about a target are not necessarily those associated with mental disease as traditionally defined; that the cues correspond with judgments of mental illness only in some cases and combinations, and that observers' construct systems affect judgments. Attire, message, and the degree of congruence between them were assumed to project to observers certain cues regarding the core-self and self-explaining role of the target. Different combinations of attire and message were presented to separate sample groups by the same target. Analyses of scores taken from semantic differential scales, a behavior check list, and a question about psychiatric condition showed a tendency for the targets with in-congruent attire and message to be judged as with more mental illness. In addition, older subjects and subjects with a more “demythologized” opinion about mental illness tended to attribute slightly less mental illness to targets in general.
Questionnaire responses of eighth-grade students who had made a brief visit to a residential substance (alcohol and drug) abuse treatment center were analyzed to determine the impact of the experience over and above traditional classroom presentations about substance abuse. Questions were designed to test the hypotheses that the brief encounter would result in greater assimilation of and accommodation to more correct information about substance abuse, greater changes in substance abuse constructs, and concomitant changes in attitudes and behaviors. It was expected that visitors would maintain fewer naive, idealized beliefs of the type that facilitate "backing" into participation in substance abuse. Some expected significant differences were found in responses to questions reflecting knowledge and attitudes. The visitors manifested a more realistic, factually based view of substance abuse and substance abusers. It is concluded that intensive prevention/education programs are appropriate for this age group and that the school-based program was significantly enhanced by the brief naturalistic exposure to the people of a therapeutic community. Implications for cognitive learning theory and needed future research are discussed.
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