The impact of contact on stigmatizing attitudes toward people with mental illness

Background: A growing body of research suggests that personal experience with people who have a mental illness can reduce stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness. However, the generalizability of these findings has been restrained by their samples and operational definitions of contact and stigma. Aims: To test the contact-stigma link using a nationally representative sample and comprehensive measures of both contact and stigma. Method: Data were collected in a 1990 American telephone survey of attitudes towards homelessness and homeless people with mental illnesses. By telephone, 1507 respondents completed measures of the perceived dangerousness of people with mental illnesses and their contact experiences with mental illness. A subsample of 640 respondents was read a vignette of a character with mental illness and then completed measures of their desired social distance from the character and the perceived dangerousness of the character. All respondents completed measures of political conservatism, social desirability, and anomia as well. Results: As total contact increased, the perceived dangerousness and desired social distance from the vignette character decreased, as did the perceived dangerousness of people with mental illnesses in general. However, the contact types did not consistently predict the vignette stigma measures. Conclusion: While more research is needed to clarify and extend these findings, this study provides strong evidence for the importance of different contact types in reducing stigmatizing attitudes and the potential usefulness of incorporating contact into any stigma reduction intervention. Declaration of interest: None.