‘At Least You’re Not Neurotypical’: Stigma, Mental Illness Disclosure, and Social Capital Among Privileged College Students

ABSTRACT

This mixed-methods study investigated if individuals in high-resource, low-stigma environments experience any benefits from disclosing their mental illness. Participants were recruited from a small Midwestern liberal arts college. Survey data were collected on attitudes toward mental illness on campus (N = 384) that showed low levels of public stigma and moderate levels of self-stigma. Class year and mental health status were predictors of public stigma and campus-specific attitudes toward mental illness, but not self-stigma; race and gender were not significant predictors of either. Screening questions yielded 50 in-depth interviews about stigma on campus, mental illness disclosure, and students’ social capital. Qualitative coding revealed four findings: 1) students reported low levels of public stigma associated with mental illness; 2) white students, but not students of color, reported an inverted status hierarchy that incentivized mental illness disclosure; 3) white students garnered social capital from disclosing their mental illness; 4) mental illness was used by white students as a social buffer against shame over unearned privileges. In high-resource, low-stigma environments, privileged individuals may experience social motivation to publicly disclose mental illness. This has implications for student help-seeking behaviors and poor mental health outcomes on college campuses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

There is no funding to report for this study.

Notes on contributors

Charis Stanek

Charis Stanek is a Clinical Research Coordinator at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She has a B.A. in psychology and sociology from Oberlin College and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.

Greggor Mattson

Greggor Mattson is Professor and Department Chair of Sociology at Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he is also a member of the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Program. He is the author of The Cultural Politics of European Prostitution Reform: Governing Loose Women and of the forthcoming book from Stanford University Press’ Redwood Imprint, Who Needs Gay Bars? Bar-Hopping Through America’s Endangered LGBTQ+ Places.