Darcy Haag Granello
The Ohio State University, USA
Title: The Power of Language: How Words Can Affect Tolerance and Stigma
Biography
Biography: Darcy Haag Granello
Abstract
Individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses are profoundly affected by stigma. Stigma has been identified as more debilitatingrnand isolating than the mental illness itself and mental health stigma is a significant barrier to help-seeking. Worldwide, people with mental illness are, as a group, devalued and feared by society. Media stories consistently associate mental illness with danger and violence with the result being lowered levels of ascribed humanity to the individuals with mental illness described within the stories. The use of pre-modified nouns (e.g., ‘the mentally ill’) is a commonly-used approach to describingrnpeople with mental illnesses. In this series of studies, the use of pre-modified nouns was compared to post-modified or personfirstrnnouns (e.g., person with mental illness) among U.S. college students, adults in a community sample and professionalrn mental health counselors. Among all groups studied; people who received survey that used the term “the mentally ill” hadrnsignificantly lower tolerance scores than those who received the survey using the term “people with mental illnesses”. Findingsrnfrom these studies demonstrate that using person-first language is not just an example of political correctness, but can havernprofound effects on stigma and tolerance. When individuals in all three groups saw the term ‘the mentally ill’ compared withrnthe term ‘person with a mental illness’, they were more likely to believe the people described were dangerous, violent andrnneeded coercive handling, that they were inferior people who needed to be treated like children and to distance themselvesrnfrom interactions with the people described. Those are some powerful reactions and they deserve a powerful response.
