An Experimental Examination of the Effectiveness of Framing Strategies to Reduce Mental Health Stigma

The media are often blamed for perpetuating the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, but they can also be used to counter stigmatizing narratives. Drawing on framing theory, this study tested the potency of two framing strategies (deframing and reframing) to reduce mental health stigma, using an online between-subject posttest-only survey experiment (N = 400), conducted in Belgium in November 2017. For people without a personal history of mental illness, deframing (i.e. refuting the stigmatizing narrative) was able to significantly reduce public stigma, while reframing (i.e. introducing a new frame) significantly lowered perceived stigma. For people with a personal history of mental illness, however, the framed texts failed to significantly reduce public stigma, perceived stigma, or internalized stigma. In some cases, these texts even increased their public and perceived stigma. In summary, this study demonstrates that framing can serve as a tool in creating anti-stigma messages, although frames may have different effects on people with and without a stigmatized condition. Finally, it is important to keep the frame's persuasiveness into account, as unpersuasive frames can increase support for the opposing position.