Putting a label on someone: impact of schizophrenia stigma on emotional mimicry, liking, and interpersonal closeness

ABSTRACT

Affiliation is both an antecedent and a consequence of emotional mimicry (i.e. imitating a counterpart’s emotional expression). Thus, interacting with a disliked partner can decrease emotional mimicry, which in turn can further decrease liking. This perpetuating circle has not been investigated in the context of mental health stigma yet. The present study tested the influence of the label “schizophrenia” on liking, interpersonal closeness, and emotional mimicry. In an online experiment (n = 201), participants recruited from the general population saw several videos of actors displaying emotional expressions. Actors were described with one of four labels: “schizophrenia”, “healthy”, “diabetes”, and a negative adjective (e.g. “hot-tempered”). Emotional mimicry was measured using OpenFace 2.2. Liking and interpersonal closeness were assessed with questionnaires. Overall, compared to other labels, participants reported less liking and interpersonal closeness to the actor with the schizophrenia label. However, no effect on emotional mimicry was found. The decreased liking of the schizophrenia actors was explained by a lack of knowledge about schizophrenia and the explicit stigma of schizophrenia. Our study contributes to the literature by highlighting the need to reduce the stigma of schizophrenia.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• imitation
• social interaction
• mental illness
• stereotypes

Acknowledgment

Thank you to Agneta Fischer for providing the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set. Thank you to Catherine Simon and Josephine Revol for helping to find participants.

Author’s contributions

MP, SR, LM and PS developed the research idea. MP, TK, HM, US, TF, SR, LM, and PS participated in the development of the methodology. MP collected and analysed the data. MP wrote the original draft, which was extensively reviewed and revised by SR, LM, US, HM, TK and PS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the French Ministère de l’Education Nationale , de l’Enseignement Supérieur.