Spontaneous Stereotypes About Individuals With Mental Illnesses: What Spontaneous Language Production Tells Us

Abstract

The social exclusion of individuals with mental illnesses remains a major social issue. Building on recent advances in research on social evaluation, two studies measuring the content and affective properties, that is, valence and arousal, of spontaneous stereotypes assessed the relevance of the Big Two model, and its facets (friendliness, morality, ability, assertiveness) for stereotypes associated with mental illnesses. While stereotypes associated with different mental illnesses came out generally negative, the importance of specific facets varied greatly from one mental illness to another, with morality and assertiveness facets emerging as particularly central. Turning to the affective properties, arousal proved especially informative in relation to morality, with immorality characteristics being associated with high arousal. This research contributes to a better understanding of stereotypes about mental illness and highlights the pivotal role of morality and its link to arousal.