Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Abstract

Rural residents tend to seek help for psychological concerns at lower rates than urban residents (Caldwell et al., 2004; Kirby et al., 2019) despite similar rates of mental illness (Morales et al., 2020). Elevated stoicism and a preference for self-reliance may explain this decrease in help-seeking behaviors, as people in these communities may have a more self-reliant and stoic self-image and therefore be less willing to seek help. Thus, I designed a study to investigate whether rural identity correlated with self-reliance, stoicism, or attitudes toward psychological help-seeking and whether the relation between rural identity and help-seeking attitudes was mediated by stoicism or selfreliance. In the current study, 318 Iowa residents (74.8% women, 89.6% white), recruited online through Facebook and Prolific, completed questionnaires examining self-reliance, stoicism, rural identity, and attitudes toward help-seeking. Contrary to the hypotheses, rural identity was not significantly correlated with self-reliance, stoicism, or attitudes toward help-seeking; however, there were significant negative correlations between selfreliance and attitudes toward help-seeking and between stoicism and attitudes toward help-seeking. In addition, the hypothesized roles of self-reliance and stoicism as mediators of the relation between rural identity and attitudes toward help-seeking were not significant. Campaigns to increase psychological help-seeking could be designed to better reach individuals who are stoic and self-reliant. Future studies should examine these factors in populations beyond Iowans.

Year of Submission

2024

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Elizabeth Lefler

Date Original

5-2024

Object Description

1 PDF (ix, 104 pages)

Language

en

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