Normalizing Anxiety on Social Media Increases Self-Diagnosis of Anxiety: The Mediating Effect of Identification (But Not Stigma)

Figures & data

Table 1. Measures from study one

	Alpha	M	SD	Range
Descriptive Norms	.730	3.16	0.97	1–5
Personal Stress	.888	3.16	0.97	1–5
Identification	.887	5.91	2.38	0–10
Liking	.825	5.71	2.18	0–10
Anxiety	.843	2.46	0.77	1–5
Self-Diagnosis	.891	1.93	0.80	1–5

Table 2. Correlations from study one

	Post Normalized	Liking	Identification
Self-Diagnosis	.101*	.203**	.456**
Identification	.108**	.546**
Liking	.091*

*= correlation significant at the .05 level (two-tailed)

** = correlation significant at the .01 level (two-tailed)

Figure 1. Mediated effect of normalization on self-diagnosis through identification with model.

Figure 2. Mediated effect of normalization on self-diagnosis through liking of the model.

Table 3. Correlations from study two

	Post Normalized	Stigma	Self-Diagnosis
Stigma	−.067
Self-Diagnosis	.188*	−.163**
Identification	.268**	.008		.407**

*= correlation significant at the .05 level (two-tailed)

**= correlation significant at the .01 level (two-tailed)