A study published in the EvoS Journal: Evolutionary Studies and Higher Education presented results of an online experiment that asked participants how much they would like to interact with a social media profile of a creative individual who also suffers from schizophrenia. Results showed that women were more interested in such interactions than men, particularly in the condition when the creative expression of the target person was unsuccessful. When it was successful, there were no differences between men and women.
Mental health stigma refers to negative stereotypes and prejudice directed toward people with mental health conditions. Individuals with mental illness are often perceived as dangerous, unpredictable, weak, or socially incompetent, even when these assumptions are unsupported. Such stigma can contribute to social rejection, difficulties in employment and relationships, and reluctance to seek professional help. It can also be internalized by affected individuals, reducing self-esteem and worsening social and psychological outcomes.
That said, psychological disorders often do involve characteristics that interfere with everyday functioning. On the other hand, there tend to also be positive traits associated with mental health conditions. From an evolutionary perspective, genetic properties that predispose individuals to certain mental health conditions persist in the population precisely because they come in combinations of traits that can sometimes provide situational advantages, particularly if the mental health condition manifests in milder, subclinical forms.
Anxiety, for example, may heighten vigilance toward threats, while social withdrawal may sometimes reduce exposure to harmful or overwhelming social situations. Psychotic traits (such as delusional thinking or disorganized behaviors) are associated with substantial cognitive difficulties and a strong social stigma, but are also linked to creativity, novel thinking, and heightened emotional sensitivity.
Lead author A. Hicks and colleagues wanted to explore how much the potential benefits of creativity protect individuals with psychotic traits from mental illness stigma. More specifically, they wanted to know how much learning that an individual is successful in creative work and/or that they suffer from schizophrenia would affect participants’ willingness to interact with such a person.
They conducted an online study. Participants were 308 individuals recruited through Prolific Academic. Of these, 167 were women. Their average age was 35 years. Study authors paid them $1.50 for their participation in the study.
Participants viewed a hypothetical Facebook post and were tasked to evaluate the person presented in the post. The posts differed in two ways: whether the person in the post spoke about suffering from schizophrenia or not, and whether the person was successful in their creative work or not (i.e., whether a poem they wrote was accepted for publication or not).
This was done in the form of a post to a writers group made by a person named Taylor Ross. In the post, Taylor Ross says that they want to give a life update and that they are working on their poetry. They also note (depending on the condition) that they are doing well or that they are struggling with schizophrenia, and that one of their poems was published or that it was denied publication. The study specifically utilized a gender-neutral silhouette for the profile picture to prevent gender bias from influencing the results.
Participants rated how much they would like to interact with Taylor Ross by liking or commenting on their post, considering them as a friend, or as a romantic partner. They also completed an assessment of stereotype endorsement by rating how much an individual with schizophrenia differs (in their view) from the general population on 11 positive and 11 negative traits.
Results indicated that women showed a greater interest in interacting with the target (Taylor Ross) than men, regardless of the study condition. Whether Taylor Ross was presented as successful in publishing the poem or not did not have an effect on how much participants wanted to interact with them overall.
When study authors looked only at the variant where Taylor Ross suffered from schizophrenia and was not successful in having their poem published, women showed a greater desire to interact with them than men. In the condition when Taylor Ross was successful, men and women did not differ in their desire to interact.
The average desire to interact with Taylor Ross was closer to the negative pole of the scale (not wanting to interact). Participants who reported having friends with mental illness were more interested in interacting with the Taylor Ross version that was creatively successful and not suffering from schizophrenia, than with the version that was both not successful and not suffering from schizophrenia.
The study contributes to scientific knowledge about the social desirability of people with mental health conditions. However, it should be noted that participants evaluated the target individual (Taylor Ross) only based on a short post, without any background information. This is unlike how people make social judgments in most real-world situations. Results of studies providing a more comprehensive set of information about an individual may differ.
The paper, “Salience of the Benefits of Psychotic Traits Buffers Against Mental Illness Stigma,” was authored by A. Hicks, D. F. Sacco, K. N. Boykin, O. Olabegi, Z. Buckner, and M. Brown.