Public attitudes towards mental illness--the effects of behaviour, roles and psychiatric labels

A questionnaire to assess various elements of public attitudes towards the mentally ill was given to 108 subjects. 5 hypotheses were tested. Public attitudes towards mental illness are more rejecting than accepting. Social rejection increases with increasing severity of disturbance in behaviour. Public attitudes towards the mentally ill are related to social class as measured by occupational status and to age of the respondent. Rejection of the mentally ill is decreased by the availability of a non-deviant alternative label. Attitudes of the general population towards the mentally ill will be influenced by the label of mental illness as well as by behaviour indicative of mental illness. All the hypotheses were confirmed with one exception - negative public attitudes were not found to be related to social class as measured by occupational status. Public attitudes towards the mentally ill are more diverse than previous research would imply. Possible future research directions are discussed.