1. Contact sans contact: An experiential mental health stigma-reduction approach
Chloe Farahar | School of Psychology |
Problem & Question
Solution
Hypothesis
Mental health. Still taboo – stigma
Direct & indirect intergroup contact to reduce stigma is not always feasible, practical, or applied:
Provoke anxiety
Geographical separation
Inaccessible populations
Lack experience of interaction (indirect contact)
Q. Can a novel Experiential Intergroup Contact (EIC) significantly reduce mental health stigma?
Experiential Intergroup Contact is…
A…simulated form of intergroup contact using a positive script about the target outgroup in question [mental health experienced] that reclassifies the ingroup actors and the non-present outgroup members under a superordinate category during group rehearsals, and affords experiential sensory cues of the outgroup.
It is hypothesised a-priori that Experiential Intergroup Contact will significantly reduce rehearsal group participants’ mental health stigma, more so than individual participants reading the script alone, or controls.
Methodology
Participants
Materials
Design
College/school students (N = 88+)
Those with mental health experiences rated on self-stigma
Stigmaphrenia© (2012; Script for Experiential Intergroup Contact)
Longitudinal Randomised Control Trial
Between-participant conditions
EIC
Imagined intergroup contact
Psycho-education
Control
Within-participant time factor T1 T2 T3
Measures
Procedure/Layout
Pre- & post-manipulation measures of explicit stigmatising:
Attitudes
Affect
Behaviour
E.g:
Peer Mental Health Stigmatization Scale (McKeague, Hennessy, O'Driscoll, & Heary, 2015)
Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980):
Empathy
Perspective-taking
Fantasy ability
Intended Behaviour (from the Reported & Intended Behaviour Scale; Evans-Lacko, et al., 2011)
Time
Descriptions T1
Pre-manipulation questionnaire, random assignment to condition, condition participation T2
Post-manipulation questionnaire (directly following manipulation) T3
Post-manipulation questionnaire (two months later)
EIC Condition Layout
Session
Description of session
Session 1 - One hour
Randomised character role-assignment
Silent-read through of script
Drama games to relax
Group read-through
Session 2 - One hour
Group read-through X 2
Session 3 - One hour
Goal – audio recording of a scene
ALERT!
Delegate activity: Rehearse with a fellow delegate – pick up a script & rehearse your lines (3 actors needed)!
Future Use
By combining:
Social Psychology + Theatre
I have created a:
simple, scripted, and effective
stigma-reduction method
that can be adapted according to age, demographics, and eventually even the target group of contact
My PhD research is an attempt to find out:
If my form of contact works empirically during a
longitudinal study
in order to identify the long-term effects of Experiential Intergroup Contact
My method will help me to:
Hone the script, its message and the process so that it can be used in schools to reduce public as well as self-stigma
It is my hope to make the use of words like ‘weirdo’, ‘psycho’, and ‘nutter’ a thing of the past.
Picture: Oxford & Buckinghamshire NHS ‘stamping out stigma’ campaign, 2008
Stigmaphrenia© performed in the:
UK (Kent; 2013)
USA (NC & WI; 2014)
Canada (ON; 2017)