Political attitudes as predictors of the multiple dimensions of mental health stigma

Abstract

Right-wing authoritarianism predicts various dimensions of mental health stigma, but more research is needed to determine the theoretical underpinnings. These current findings may guide research in this area and be used to target a variety of conservative audiences for stigma reduction.

Political Ideology and Stigmatizing Attitudes Toward Depression: The Swedish Case

“…First, we build on recent research 8,9 highlighting that sole reliance on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) theories contributes to an oversimplification of complex relationships; political ideology in general and conservatism in particular are multi-dimensional phenomena. This is also in line with a recent study by DeLuca et al 10 emphasizing the need for studies investigating the theoretical underpinnings of the relationship between RWA and mental health stigma. Feldman and Johnston 9 suggest that conservatives, compared with liberals, may score higher on authoritarianism, but at the same time there are reasons to expect that individuals who score high on economic conservatism are different from other conservatives because links between authoritarianism and economic conservatism are weak.…”

“…However, it is not clear whether this is generalizable for all RWA because a recent study in the United State did not find support for “dangerous world beliefs” as a mediator for this relationship. 10 Still, our results underpin that forthcoming studies on the link between political ideology and stigmatizing attitudes toward depression should include multi-dimensional measures on political ideology. The distinction in previous research between liberalism and conservatism, and the strong focus on mechanisms related to psychologic processes for managing fear and uncertainty, is simply not sufficient to explain why ideology matters.…”

“…In a recent study, DeLuca et al 10 observed how RWA predicted mental health stigma and they emphasized the need for further knowledge on why this association occurs. Our results may contribute to this and underpin the need to perform analyses in a multi-party system such as Sweden to reach generally valid conclusions.…”

Microaggressions towards people affected by mental health problems: a scoping review

“…Six included empirical studies were qualitative in nature, using focus group (Gonzales et al ., 2015 a ; Peters et al ., 2016 ), one-to-one semi-structured interviews (Holley et al ., 2016 a ; McCue, 2016 ; Harper et al ., 2017 ) and analysis of free-text survey questions (Charles et al ., 2017 ). Four were cross-sectional surveys (Zurick, 2016 ; DeLuca et al ., 2017 ; DeLuca et al ., 2018 ; Gonzales et al ., 2018 ), with sample sizes from 222 to 951 participants. Four of these studies employed convenience sampling of the US public using online survey platforms.…”

“…The latter was used in three studies aiming to identify individual characteristics associated with endorsement of mental health microaggressions by the general public. Broadly, endorsement of microaggressions was positively associated with right-wing political views (DeLuca et al ., 2018 ), suburban values and socio-economic disadvantage (Gonzales et al ., 2018 ), authoritarianism (the attitude that people with serious mental illness cannot care for themselves and require coercion) and social restrictiveness (the belief that people with mental illness should be feared and excluded) (Zurick, 2016 ). Endorsement was negatively associated with benevolence (the belief that people with mental illness are innocent and naïve) (Zurick, 2016 ).…”