Nature and/or Nurture: Causal Attributions of Mental Illness and Stigma.

This article examines how different causal explanations of mental illness—genetic (nature), environmental stress (nurture), or a combination of both—affect public stigma toward individuals exhibiting symptoms of alcohol dependence, depression, schizophrenia, or subclinical distress. Using an experimental vignette design with a large, geographically diverse U.S. sample, the study found that environmental explanations reduced expectations of violence, increased optimism about treatment, and decreased desire for social distance, while genetic explanations alone did not significantly reduce stigma and were associated with greater prognostic pessimism in bivariate analyses. The combined nature-and-nurture explanation increased willingness to socially interact but did not reduce fear of violence or support for coercion as effectively as the environmental explanation alone. Additionally, respondents with personal experience of mental illness or contact with affected individuals generally expressed less stigma. The findings suggest that anti-stigma efforts may benefit from emphasizing environmental factors and multifactorial causes of mental illness to foster greater social acceptance.