The Relationship Between Essentialist Beliefs And Noun Labels Applied To People With Mental Disorders: The Moderator Role Of Empathy

With the progress and development of social economy,how to improve the living conditions of people with mental illness is a problem that needs to be paid attention to.The WHO pointed out that the most critical factor to hinder the rehabilitation of people who has mental illness is social prejudice and discrimination against these people.The impact of the abuse of noun labels on mental illness groups is persistent and serious,so the reasons for the formation of noun labels and the affecting factors deserve our attention.Therefore,this study considered the essentialism of cognitive,used the method of questionnaire combined with experimental study,discussed the influence of essential beliefs of college students on the noun labels and moderating effect of sympathy.Study 1a and 1b were randomly selected 490 non-medical students and 245 medical students,they were tested by mental essential belief scale and noun label scale to investigate and verify the relationship between essential beliefs and noun labels.The results showed that after controlling for age,gender and stigma attitudes,it was found that the essential beliefs could significantly predict the noun labels.This shows that the essential belief is an important factor for the noun labels.As a result of sympathy can reduce the negative attitude of the social public on the psychological disease groups,individuals who with attitude of sympathy will have tolerance,supportive attitude and behavior for the psychological disease groups.Therefore,study two used priming method,by activating the sympathy to investigate the impact of essential beliefs on noun labels in different levels of sympathy,in this study,we focus on the moderating effect of sympathy between them.And 86 College students were randomly selected and assigned to activate group and control group,participants in activate group were asked to watch a set of pictures which can induce sympathy in 2 minutes.And participants in control group were asked to watch a set of geometry images which are neutral and irregular in 2 minutes.The results showed that there was significant negative correlation between sympathy and noun labels,and sympathy can significantly regulate the relationship between essential beliefs and noun labels.This study tells us that in addition to pay attention to the impact of essential beliefs on mental illness noun labels,but also pay attention to the effect of sympathy in reducing noun label use process.It can helps to prompt the public to increase understanding of dangers of abuse of noun labels,and improve the negative attitude to mental illness groups.