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Toskos, Alexia C.
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Spring 2025
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2025
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9858_Lielle_Sirlin.pdf
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Does using terms that refer to mental illness, such as crazy or insane, to describe negative events contribute to the stigma surrounding mental illness? To test this question, participants in this study first read either a metaphorical or non-metaphorical passage describing either a positive or negative context. The negative passages were about rising food prices at a grocery store, and the positive passages were about falling prices at the grocery store. In the metaphorical condition, prices were described using terms like "crazy" or "insane," and in the non-metaphorical condition they were described as "unbelievable" or "unreasonable." Next, participants completed a desire for social distance measure and mental illness stigma questionnaire to assess the effects of the passage they read. The use of metaphor did not affect attitudes toward mental illness on either measure, nor did it interact with the context of the story. More research is needed to better understand the relationship between metaphor and mental illness stigma.
Keywords: Mental illness stigma, metaphor framing, context effects, mental health.
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