Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Thesis (UNI Access Only)

Keywords

Depression, Mental; Depressed persons--Attitudes; Stigma (Social psychology);

Abstract

Individuals with mental illness have high rates of self-stigma—meaning that they apply negative stereotypes about mental illness to themselves. Much of the self-stigma literature focuses on individuals with serious mental illness who are unemployed, whereas less has focused on individuals with relatively less serious mental illness such as minor or moderate levels of depression and who are employed. Individuals with depression may have increased levels of self-stigma due to disclosing their mental illness in the workplace. The current study hypothesized that disclosure would predict self-stigma in the workplace, and that core self-evaluations (self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, neuroticism, and locus of control) and workplace social support would moderate the predictive association between disclosure and self-stigma. Core self-evaluations and workplace social support significantly predicted self-stigma but did not moderate the association between disclosure and self-stigma. Disclosure was not significantly correlated with total self-stigma. However, disclosure was significantly correlated with two self-stigma subscales, and within exploratory analyses, disclosure significantly predicted these self-stigma subscales. Consistent with past research, depressive symptom severity was significantly positively correlated with self-stigma. Additionally, exploratory analyses revealed no sex differences on any variables. The finding that core self-evaluations and workplace social support predict depression self-stigma in the workplace have the following implications: 1) within a clinical setting, targeting negative thoughts about oneself and improving self-esteem and self-efficacy may help reduce self-stigma, and 2) increased support and resources in the workplace may help reduce self-stigma.

Year of Submission

2020

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Seth Brown, Chair

Date Original

2020

Object Description

1 PDF file (vi, 73 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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