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Asian Americans and European Americans’ stigma levels in response to biological and social explanations of depression

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Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

Mental illness stigma is prevalent among Asian Americans, and it is a key barrier that prevents them from seeking psychological services. Limited studies have experimentally examined how Asian Americans respond to biological and social explanations of mental illness. Understanding how to educate and communicate about mental illness effectively is crucial in increasing service utilization among Asian Americans.

Purpose

To assess how genetic, neurobiological, and social explanations for the onset of depression affects Asian American and European American’s mental illness stigma.

Methods

231 Asian Americans and 206 European Americans read about an individual with major depression and were randomly assigned to be informed that the cause was either genetic, neurobiological, social, or unknown. Various stigma outcomes, including social distance, fear, and depression duration were assessed.

Results

Consistent with prior research, Asian Americans had higher baseline levels of stigma compared to European Americans. Greater social essentialist beliefs predicted positive stigma outcomes for Asian Americans, such as a greater willingness to be near, help, and hire someone with depression, but genetic essentialist beliefs predicted negative stigma outcomes, such as fear. In addition, a social explanation for the etiology of depression led to lower stigma outcomes for Asian Americans; it decreased their fear of someone with depression and increased the perception that depression is treatable. For European Americans, both genetic and social essentialist beliefs predicted a greater perception of depression treatability.

Conclusion

Although genetics do play a role in the development of depression, emphasizing a social explanation for the origin of depression may help reduce stigma for Asian Americans.

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Notes

  1. Qualtrics Panel partners with 20 online panel providers to supply a network of diverse and quality respondents. It utilizes hundreds of profiling attributes to target potential respondents (e.g., Asian Americans). Qualtrics Panel partners randomly select respondents for surveys where respondents are highly likely to meet the requested criteria. Each sample from the panel base is proportioned to the general population and then randomized before the survey is deployed. The response rate for this study was 15 %, and included a higher percentage of college students and females.

  2. This study was part of a larger project that included other measures (e.g., Mind and Body Dualism Scale for Asian Americans) for validation and exploratory purposes. The additional measures were administered after this study, therefore, they should not affect these reported results.

  3. Three questions that assessed for perceived danger were also created. The composite (α = 0.36) had low reliability, thus it was excluded from data analysis.

  4. Manipulation check questions included one regarding participants’ agreement with the given explanation. Very few participants (18 Asian Americans and 9 European Americans) strongly disagreed or disagreed with the given explanation. Despite very few participants disagreeing with the given explanation, when asked what they believed to be the actual cause of J.S’s depression, the majority of the Asian Americans (62.1 %) reported that it was due to environmental factors such as life stress. The majority of European Americans believed it was either due to environmental factors (43.2 %) or neurobiological reasons (41.2 %). Because these questions were assessed after the experimental manipulation and the majority of participants still agreed with the manipulation, participants were not excluded nor replaced into a different condition.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the University of Oregon’s Graduate Education Committee Research Award. Special thanks to Drs. Azim Shariff and Bobby Cheon for their helpful suggestions, and to Dr. Elliot Berkman for helping with data analysis.

Conflict of interest

There is no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Zhen Hadassah Cheng

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Correspondence to Zhen Hadassah Cheng.

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Cheng, Z.H. Asian Americans and European Americans’ stigma levels in response to biological and social explanations of depression. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 50, 767–776 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-014-0999-5

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