Should I share my diagnosis? How our attitude towards other people is colored by knowledge of their psychiatric classifications

Abstract. Individuals with a psychiatric classification regularly face the dilemma of whether to share their diagnosis with others. This was the starting point for our study. We investigated whether affective, cognitive and behavioral attitudes differed between people who did and did not know the psychiatric classifications of a young woman sharing a short personal story. Participants watched a real-life video vignette and filled in a short questionnaire on their attitudes towards her. In the final dataset of 1605 participants, we found differences in cognitive and behavioral attitudes. Participants with knowledge of her classifications preferred more social distance than people without it. Moreover, we found that people with personal experience of psychiatric classification held more positive attitudes than people without. For someone dealing with mental health issues, these are important considerations in deciding whether to share one’s classifications. Ultimately, open communication about mental health should lead to less social distance, not more.