Unable to Recall: The Effects of Stigma on Memory Reconstruction

It is widely known that the stigmatization of individuals with mental illnesses leads to the labeling of those individuals as dangerous, and often elicits alarm and fear. Stigma affects the self-esteem (Link, 1987), social functioning (Penn and Martin, 1998), and emplo

Though not significant, our results pose an interesting question as to the classification of stigma. We approached the concept of stigma as a whole, though there are varying reasons for rejecting mentally ill individuals. One is a perception that mentally ill individuals are dangerous and unpredictable, therefore interacting with them involves personal risk. A second reason is the perception that the mentally ill are incompetent, either in work or home-related settings. Though not as immediate as perceived dangerousness, accidents in the home or workplace may put others in danger, thus calling into consideration personal risk factors. Perceived incompetence regarding an individual?s occupational abilities can result in job discrimination because of concern about the financial integrity of the company. Another reason for rejection is the perception that mentally ill individuals are unable to attend to self-care needs. Though this may result in an undesirable presentation, it does not involve personal risk to others. In approaching stigma as a whole, the severity of these different factors may have been lumped together, which resulted in our lack of significance. Though individuals may have low stigma that would allow educational attempts to override prejudices concerning self-care needs, the other personal risk factors may have been too great. If this is so, it might explain why some education attempts have had success and others have not. Focusing on one particular prejudice against the mentally ill may have more success in changing that belief, than focusing on stigmatization in general.

There are a few areas of stigma that future research may want to examine. As aforementioned, there have been inconsistencies in research regarding the efficacy of anti-stigma campaigns. Our study as well as others have grouped all stigmas in order to test the nature and prevalence of stigma. Future research could examine differential types of stigma, such as dangerousness, competency, and self-care, as well as the severity of each type of stigma and their prevalence in our society.

As the dangers of stigma have become more realized by both the mental health industry and the general public, there have been many campaigns to increase awareness about mental illness. A study conducted by Penn et al. (1994) showed that stigmatization may be reduced by increasing contact between the public and those individuals with mental illnesses. This study also suggested that education about the ?myths and realities of mental illness? would aid in decreasing stigmatization (Penn et al., 1994). According to Corrigan and Penn (1999), there are currently three fronts to the anti-stigma campaign: protest, contact, and education. Many organizations (e.g., the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the American Psychological Association) are working not only to erase the negative images of mental illnesses, but also to strive to educate the public about mental health so as to prevent those images from developing. While some research has shown that educational programs are effective means of decreasing public stigma, other studies have shown that brief educational sessions sometimes do not work (Thorton and Wahl, 1996; Wahl & Lefkowitz, 1989).

We gave participants information needed to participate in the experiment and then had them sign informed consent forms. We told participants that were part of an experiment examining their perceptions of the emotional states of individuals with mental illness. They then received a questionnaire (see appendix A) that contained a portion of the Opinions about Mental Illness Scale, which was used to identify them as holding high or low levels of stigma.

Our study attempts to look at the role of stereot

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