Wolkenstein Larissa, Meyer Thomas D
Department of Clinical and Developmental Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Psychol Psychother. 2008 Mar;81(Pt 1):15-31. doi: 10.1348/147608307X218274.
Despite the known effects of stigma on people suffering from affective disorders, no study so far has investigated and compared attitudes of the general public towards depression and mania. Furthermore, we were interested if it makes a difference if one asks a sample about its own attitudes or the assumed opinions of 'others'.
We used an experimental and randomized design.
People were faced either with a case vignette describing a man with current symptoms of depression or mania. Randomly people (N=387, age 16-34 years) were asked for their own attitudes or for the attitudes of the public in general.
Attitudes towards an individual with a current manic episode turned out to be significantly more negative than towards a person with current depression. Interestingly, the attitudes of the general public were reported to be more negative than the personal attitudes.
While depression is still associated with negative attitudes, this first study looking at manic symptoms as well finds that this seems to be even more so for manic episodes indicating bipolar disorder. It seems recommended to concentrate efforts to reduce stigmatization of the mentally ill more intensively on the bipolar spectrum of affective disorders. Furthermore, testable hypotheses have to be derived why individuals attribute less favourable attitudes to the general public when compared with their own attitudes. The question is if there is a general bias towards social desirability when people are asked for their opinion.
尽管已知污名对情感障碍患者有影响，但迄今为止尚无研究调查和比较公众对抑郁症和躁狂症的态度。此外，我们感兴趣的是，询问样本自身的态度或“他人”的假定意见是否会产生差异。
我们采用了实验性随机设计。
让人们面对一个描述患有当前抑郁或躁狂症状男性的病例 vignette。随机询问人们（N = 387，年龄 16 - 34 岁）自身的态度或公众的总体态度。
结果表明，对当前有躁狂发作个体的态度比对当前患有抑郁症个体的态度明显更负面。有趣的是，据报告公众的态度比个人态度更负面。
虽然抑郁症仍然与负面态度相关，但这项首次同时研究躁狂症状的研究也发现，对于表明双相情感障碍的躁狂发作，情况似乎更是如此。似乎建议将减少对精神疾病污名化的努力更集中在情感障碍的双相谱系上。此外，必须得出可检验的假设，解释为什么与自己的态度相比，个体认为公众的态度更不友好。问题在于，当询问人们的意见时，是否存在对社会期望的普遍偏差。
