Madison Quinn – Psychology

Communicating About Mental Illness: Perceptions of Sources With and Without Mental Illness

“Background: Some have argued that the only credible communicator about mental illness is someone who has experienced mental illness. In the present study, we examined whether previous experience of mental (versus physical) illness is perceived as expertise when communicating about the challenges faced by those with mental illness but as bias when arguing on behalf of the group (e.g., against stigma towards those with mental illness).
Methods: The study (N = 87) utilized a within-subjects (2 x 2) design and asked participants to read eight source descriptions. Each description featured a recent college graduate or current college student with a diagnosis of mental or physical illness. Each source was said to advocate or describe a mental-illness-related issue, such as advocating for reduced stigma towards those with mental illness (i.e., advocacy) or communicating the challenges faced by those with mental illness (i.e., description). Participants rated each source on dimensions of trustworthiness, bias, expertise, likability, and credibility.
Results: For both types of messages, a repeated measures general linear model showed that when the source has a background of mental illness, they are seen as more trustworthy (p =.004), expert (p < .001), likable (p approaching .05), and credible (p =.003), but also as more biased (p < .001). When examining the effects of experience on perceptions of source credibility, we found that perceptions of expertise consistently mediated between experience of mental versus physical illness and perceptions of source credibility (for both types of messages — advocacy: B = 0.52, CI [0.29, 0.82], description: B = 0.65, CI [0.24, 1.10]). For the messages describing challenges faced with mental illness, perceptions of trustworthiness (B = 0.2, CI [0.02, 0.43]) and likability (B = 0.14, CI [0.02, 0.30]) also mediated effects of experience on perceptions of source credibility alongside perceptions of expertise.
Conclusions: For both messages, a person with mental illness experience is perceived not only as more expert, likable, and trustworthy, but also as more biased. However, at for the messages examined, their credibility seems to be determined more by these alternative perceptions and not by perceived bias. These results raise a potential issue as to whether there is some type of context where this perceived bias may undermine credibility.”

Research Poster