The power of prejudice compels you: How mental illness stigma influences threat perception and threat-mediating responses

The proposed study will examine mental illness stigma using a socio-evolutionary framework; specifically, the research will investigate how individuals diagnosed with stigmatized psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, OCD subtype of excoriation disorder, and alcohol use disorder) are perceived as posing qualitatively different threats in intergroup processes. This psychological framework posits that threat perception elicits distinct emotional responses, which are subsequently accompanied by corresponding behavioral tendencies. Using an experimental design, the proposed study aims to determine whether three distinct threat-emotion-behavior profiles can be identified when applied to perceiving various stigmatized psychiatric populations.