Stigma by any other name

Abstract

Objective: Some advocates argue that the word "stigma is itself stigmatizing and contributes to further denigratio of people with mental illness. This brief report presents result of a nationwide survey comparing terminology relate to stigma in regard to mental illness Methods: A total of 340 Amazon Mechanical Turk surve takers read variations of a vignette depicting an individua with schizophrenia and then completed a brief stigm measure. The vignette varied in a single sentence i which three different words "stigma," "prejudice," an "reactions"-were used to describe coworkers' possibl attitudes toward the depicted individual Results: Stigma ratings did not differ by vignette group "Reactions" was viewed as significantly less disrespectfu than both "stigma" and "prejudice" (p,.001) Conclusions: Further research is needed to suppor replacing the word "stigma" in public arenas. Current effort to remove the word may unnecessarily distract advocate and policy makers from the primary mission of erasing stigma.