Beautiful Minds Can Be Recovered Summary

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Corrigan, Powell, & Michaels are aware that “the media are often identified as partially responsible for increasing the stigma of mental illness through their negatively focused representations” (179). Through this study, the authors strived to “evaluate the benefits of reading a positive, neutral or a negative journalism article that discusses mental illness” (Corrigan et al. 179). Unfortunately, people who have a mental illness tend to be described as violent and stories about people who have a mental illness usually appear on the front pages of news articles; newspaper stories either challenge or promote stigma. Overall, the authors discovered that “not all journalistic stories have positive effects on attitudes about mental illness” (Corrigan et al. 179). This study explores the influence of two types of newspaper stories for their …show more content…

180). 151 adults took part in the study. 66.7% of the research participants were men; the mean age was 32.7; 71.4% of the participants were married, and 65.2% had a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. There were three conditions that the research participants could be assigned to: Beautiful Minds Can Be Recovered is a piece from The New York Times that discusses the success that people who have serious mental illness have had with recovery; Sometimes the State’s Dead Must Teach is a piece from The Oregonian that “told the tragic story of Billy Owens, a convict with mental illness who stabbed himself to death in a prison cell surrounded by guards untrained to address his symptoms” (Corrigan et al. 180); and a control story titled Maintaining Good Dental Care Habits. The research participants were required to complete “measures of stigma and affirming attitudes before and immediately after reading the stories” (Corrigan et al.

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