The Impact of Linguistic Form of Labels on Desire for Social Distance in Mental Health

Matt Geoffrey Mallinson; Anastasia Giannakopoulou; Andrew James Clements

doi:10.1007/s11469-022-00967-y

The Impact of Linguistic Form of Labels on Desire for Social Distance in Mental Health

Matt Geoffrey Mallinson, Anastasia Giannakopoulou, Andrew James Clements

Work & Organisation

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The American Psychological Association, among other influential bodies, make recommendations on language for describing people with mental health conditions. The present studies test the impact of the recommended language on stigma. In Study 1, participants (n = 294) were asked to complete measures of desire for social distance from individuals given a diagnostic label in either person-first possessive, identity-first noun, or identity-first adjective forms. Familiarity with the diagnoses was considered as a potential influence on the outcome. The 3*2 (linguistic form * experience) factorial design was repeated for three diagnoses - schizophrenia, anorexia and alcoholism. In Study 2, the research was replicated with a sample recruited from the UK population via social media (n = 230). Factorial ANOVA was used for analysis. In contrast with previous literature, the studies found neither an effect of linguistic form (hypothesis 1) nor an interaction effect with familiarity (hypothesis 2). Research on this topic is in an early stage and, above all, it remains important to use language, which shows respect when talking to or about others.

Original language	English
Journal	International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
Early online date	2 Dec 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-022-00967-y
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 2 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

Person first language
identity first language
mental health
essentialism
labelling
stigma

Access to Document

10.1007/s11469-022-00967-yLicence: CC BY 4.0

Mallinson et al_Impact of Linguistic Form of Labels_s11469-022-00967-y
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 1.06 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

@article{960d2f695d5549fe851d523456ff9a91,

title = "The Impact of Linguistic Form of Labels on Desire for Social Distance in Mental Health",

abstract = "The American Psychological Association, among other influential bodies, make recommendations on language for describing people with mental health conditions. The present studies test the impact of the recommended language on stigma. In Study 1, participants (n = 294) were asked to complete measures of desire for social distance from individuals given a diagnostic label in either person-first possessive, identity-first noun, or identity-first adjective forms. Familiarity with the diagnoses was considered as a potential influence on the outcome. The 3*2 (linguistic form * experience) factorial design was repeated for three diagnoses - schizophrenia, anorexia and alcoholism. In Study 2, the research was replicated with a sample recruited from the UK population via social media (n = 230). Factorial ANOVA was used for analysis. In contrast with previous literature, the studies found neither an effect of linguistic form (hypothesis 1) nor an interaction effect with familiarity (hypothesis 2). Research on this topic is in an early stage and, above all, it remains important to use language, which shows respect when talking to or about others.",

keywords = "Person first language, identity first language, mental health, essentialism, labelling, stigma",

author = "Mallinson, {Matt Geoffrey} and Anastasia Giannakopoulou and Clements, {Andrew James}",

note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} The Author(s), 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.",

year = "2022",

month = dec,

day = "2",

doi = "10.1007/s11469-022-00967-y",

language = "English",

journal = "International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction",

issn = "1557-1874",

publisher = "Springer",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Impact of Linguistic Form of Labels on Desire for Social Distance in Mental Health

AU - Mallinson, Matt Geoffrey

AU - Giannakopoulou, Anastasia

AU - Clements, Andrew James

N1 - Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

PY - 2022/12/2

Y1 - 2022/12/2

N2 - The American Psychological Association, among other influential bodies, make recommendations on language for describing people with mental health conditions. The present studies test the impact of the recommended language on stigma. In Study 1, participants (n = 294) were asked to complete measures of desire for social distance from individuals given a diagnostic label in either person-first possessive, identity-first noun, or identity-first adjective forms. Familiarity with the diagnoses was considered as a potential influence on the outcome. The 3*2 (linguistic form * experience) factorial design was repeated for three diagnoses - schizophrenia, anorexia and alcoholism. In Study 2, the research was replicated with a sample recruited from the UK population via social media (n = 230). Factorial ANOVA was used for analysis. In contrast with previous literature, the studies found neither an effect of linguistic form (hypothesis 1) nor an interaction effect with familiarity (hypothesis 2). Research on this topic is in an early stage and, above all, it remains important to use language, which shows respect when talking to or about others.

AB - The American Psychological Association, among other influential bodies, make recommendations on language for describing people with mental health conditions. The present studies test the impact of the recommended language on stigma. In Study 1, participants (n = 294) were asked to complete measures of desire for social distance from individuals given a diagnostic label in either person-first possessive, identity-first noun, or identity-first adjective forms. Familiarity with the diagnoses was considered as a potential influence on the outcome. The 3*2 (linguistic form * experience) factorial design was repeated for three diagnoses - schizophrenia, anorexia and alcoholism. In Study 2, the research was replicated with a sample recruited from the UK population via social media (n = 230). Factorial ANOVA was used for analysis. In contrast with previous literature, the studies found neither an effect of linguistic form (hypothesis 1) nor an interaction effect with familiarity (hypothesis 2). Research on this topic is in an early stage and, above all, it remains important to use language, which shows respect when talking to or about others.

KW - Person first language

KW - identity first language

KW - mental health

KW - essentialism

KW - labelling

KW - stigma

UR - https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11469-022-00967-y

U2 - 10.1007/s11469-022-00967-y

DO - 10.1007/s11469-022-00967-y

M3 - Article

SN - 1557-1874

JO - International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction

JF - International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction

ER -

The Impact of Linguistic Form of Labels on Desire for Social Distance in Mental Health

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this