The Intervention Effects of Self-Perspective Imaginative Empathy on Mental Illness Stigma in Chinese Undergraduates

Background: Reducing mental illness stigma is critical for mental health literacy enhancement in China, where stigmatization remains pronounced among undergraduates. Imaginative empathy is a promising anti-stigma intervention, but its specific effects and the potential moderating role of gender remain under-explored. Methods: Three studies were conducted with 18–22-year-old Chinese undergraduates. Study 1 (n = 223, survey design) explored gender’s moderation on empathy-stigma links. Study 2 (n = 217, 2 × 2 × 3 mixed design) tested the intervention effect of self-perspective imaginative empathy. Study 3 (n = 71, 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design) verified gender moderation. Stigma was measured via stereotypic explanatory bias (SEB) with internal attribution tendency as the core indicator. Results: Gender moderated the empathy-stigma relationship in positive situations (Study 1: β = 0.82, p < 0.001; Study 3: F = 4.77, p = 0.032), with males showing increased internal attribution as empathy rise. Self-perspective imaginative empathy significantly increased internal attribution in positive situations (F = 8.70, p < 0.01) and decreased it in negative situations (F = 109.63, p < 0.001; Study 2). Conclusion: Self-perspective imaginative empathy elicits attributional shifts consistent with reduced mental illness stigma among Chinese undergraduates. It induces a significant increase in internal attribution tendency among males in positive situations, providing implications for developing culturally tailored anti-stigma interventions targeting implicit cognitive biases.