Causal attributions and secrecy in unemployed people with mental health problems

Many people with mental illness struggle with stigma. Secrecy is one coping mechanism to deal with mental illness stigma but has some major pitfalls. In this study with 301 unemployed persons with mental health problems, we assessed whether disease concepts are associated with secrecy. We found that genetic and neurobiological disease models are significantly associated with more secrecy. This might be due to a cognitive bias called genetic essentialism. Critical awareness of biogenetic disease models and programmes helping with disclosure decisions might be helpful.