To measure attributed mental illness1

Abstract

This work follows from the assumption that person perception processes allow people to categorize others, and, thereupon, to predict the perceived person's behaviors. A scale, the Mental Illness Behaviors Prediction Scale (MIBPS) was developed for use in studies of ascribed mental illness. The MIBPS is comprised of fifteen items, each of which describes a situation and four alternative behaviors scaled for "mental illness level." The alternatives were clearly scaleable. High item-to-total-score correlations were found. When subjects rated a "very poorly adjusted person" and a "very well-adjusted person," the item scores, as assigned to these two persons, were clearly differentiating. In other studies the overall "mental illness level" of perceived persons was found to vary with selected independent variables. The utility of the scale supports the conclusion that people have developed and do use a person-perceiving dimension labeled mentally ill/mentally healthy, and the use of this dimension promotes the expectation of specific kinds of behavior from the target person.

Concomitants of social support: Attitudes, personality characteristics, and life experiences

“…It seems possible, then, that people with good social supports will also have more benign, less punishing, more helpful attitudes toward other people in general, and toward their behavioral deviance in particular. One of the variables examined in the present study is the person's tolerance for behavioral deviancy; such tolerance is reflected in the person's view of mental illness and the mentally ill (Mancuso, Litchford, Yaffe, & DiCiurcio, 1980;Marsella, 1979;Rabkin, 1974Rabkin, , 1979.…”

Inferences of mental illness from noninvolvement

“…The Mental Illness Behavior Prediction Test (MIBPT), described elsewhere (Mancuso, Litchford, Yaffe, & DiCiurcio, 1980), was used as the main index of mental illness attributed to the target person portrayed in the videotaped scenarios. The MIBPT consists of 16 items that describe situations in which the target might be found.…”

“…Following the mentally ill categorization, we may expect people to put other, related implications into effect, confidently ascribing other roledefining characteristics to, and predicting other behaviors from (Mancuso, Litchford, Yaffe, & DiCiurcio, 1980) the person assigned to the category. This general expectation derives from applying a constructivist theory, like that of George Kelly (1955), and Mancuso and Adams-Webber, (1982), to understanding people's implicit personality theories (Rosenberg, 1977;Wegner & Vallacher, 1977).…”