The Influence of Linguistic Agency and Causality Attribution in Support-seeking about Depression on Perceived Stigma and Support Messages

Abstract

This experiment examined how two language features—linguistic agency and assignment of causality—of online support-seekers’ messages regarding depression influenced viewers’ perceived stigma and features of their support messages. Participants (N = 254) read and responded to an online support-seeking post about depression. Our results revealed that personal stigma toward a depressed individual was lower when the individual disclosed a biological cause for the depression and assigned agency to depression than agency to human. Additionally, when agency was assigned to depression with a biological rather than non-biological cause, more positive emotion words were utilized in participants’ response posts. Cognitive process words were used more often in response to messages with non-biological causality than biological causality.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.