Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Mental illness -- Public opinion; College students -- Attitudes;
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine how nondisabled college students would perceive disabled college students who were depicted as being successful. Undergraduate students at the University of Northern Iowa were studied to determine the attitudes they maintained toward a hypothetical individual. One-half of the 253 subjects received a story about an individual who had been a patient at the State Mental Health Institute, Independence, Iowa. The other one-half of the subjects received a story about an individual who had never been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment. Aside from this aspect, both stories were identical. Subjects evaluated both hypothetical individuals on the basis of how internally controlled, controlled by powerful others, and controlled by chance subjects believed those individuals to be. The major hypotheses of this paper were: 1. Subjects would perceive a successful nondisabled college student as being more internally controlled than a successful disabled college student. 2. Subjects would perceive a successful nondisabled college student as being less controlled by powerful others than a successful disabled college student. 3. Subjects would perceive a successful nondisabled college student as being less controlled by chance than a successful disabled college student. The major findings were: 1. The ex-patient was perceived as being significantly less internally controlled than the nonpatient. 2. The ex-patient was perceived as being more controlled by powerful others than the non-patient, but the difference was not significant. iii 3. The ex-patient was perceived as being significantly more controlled by chance than the non-patient. 4. Subjects perceived themselves as being more internally controlled, less controlled by powerful others, and less controlled by chance than the ex-patient college student. 5. Subjects perceived themselves as being less controlled by chance and powerful others than the nonpatient and being equally as internally controlled as themselves. The major conclusions were: 1. The experience of being hospitalized for psychiatric treatment seemed to become part of a person's social identity that persisted over time. This ex-mental patient stigma seemed to persist despite evidence that the person could function successfully in the mainstream college community. 2. No favorable social identity seemed to be attributed to the non-patient despite his successful performance. 3. For the disabled college student, subjects tended to emphasize in their responses the environmental contingencies which led to the disabling condition. Subjects did not tend to emphasize in their responses the disabled person's responses to the disabling condition. iv 4. For the non-disabled college student, subjects tended to emphasize in their responses the personal actions taken by that person to overcome his disabling condition. Subjects did not tend to emphasize in their responses the environmental contingencies leading to the disability. 5. Subjects' responses to a disabled person seemed to involve a complex attributional process which evaluated environmental contingencies and personal responses to those contingencies. This attitudinal process may play a central role in subjects' attitudes toward disabled individuals and warrants further empirical investigation.
Year of Submission
1981
Degree Name
Specialist in Education
Department
Department of School Administration and Personnel Services
First Advisor
Robert L. Frank
Second Advisor
Harley E. Erickson
Third Advisor
Robert T. Lembke
Date Original
1981
Object Description
1 PDF file (104 leaves)
Copyright
©1981 Robert Herman Stensrud
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Stensrud, Robert Herman, "Attitudes of non-disabled college students toward other successful college students with histories of psychiatric hospitalization through the attribution of locus of control" (1981). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 1453.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/1453
Comments
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