Schema-Consistency Bias and Mental Illness: The Cultural Transmission of Stereotypes

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. Mental Health Stigma

Abstract

Previous research has shown that schema-consistency bias, or the tendency for individuals to remember stereotype-consistent information that aligns with one’s preexisting schemas about a given identity, contribute to the cultural reproduction and reification of stigmas and stereotypes. This paper seeks to replicate earlier findings that demonstrate the cultural transmission of stereotypes (Hunzaker 2016) while also examining the transmission of mental health stereotypes. Mental illnesses are highly stigmatized and stereotyped identities, therefore examination into how these stereotypes become culturally entrenched is an important aspect of ultimately reducing mental illness stigmatization. Using Amazon Mechanical Turk participants, I conducted an experiment in which respondents had to read and retell a short story. The next round of participants read only the retold story, and produced their own retelling of the narrative. Using hypothesis-blind coders, I will code the retold narratives and identify how frequently stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent information gets transmitted. At present, data collection has been completed and coding will begin within the month. Full results and analysis will be completed by April 2019. In line with previous work, I hypothesize that 1) on average, stereotype-consistent information will be retained through retellings of the narrative, and 2) some stereotype-consistent information will be retained and transformed through subsequent retellings.

Author

• Susan Jacobs, Duke University