Numerous countries, communities, and organizations have conducted campaigns aimed at reducing the stigma of mental illness. Using an online experiment, we evaluate the relative effectiveness of three types of campaign messages (information about the biological origins of an illness, information about the psycho-social origins of an illness, and inspirational information about the competence of those with an illness) for reducing the perceived stigma (how I think others feel) and personal stigma (how I personally feel) tied to two illnesses (depression and schizophrenia). Drawing on expectation states theories (EST), affect control theories (ACT), and past research, we expected all three messages to reduce both types of stigma, with their relative effectiveness following this order: competence > psycho-social > biology. We find that the messages are more effective at reducing personal stigma than perceived stigma and that the competence message reduces both types of stigma more effectively than the other messages. More specifically, we find that (1) none of the messages reduce the perceived stigma of depression, (2) only the competence message consistently reduces the perceived stigma of schizophrenia, (3) only the competence message reduces personal stigma toward individuals with depression, and (4) all three messages reduce personal stigma toward individuals with schizophrenia and do so equally well. The findings provide support for propositions in EST and ACT and suggest that stigma-reduction campaigns that focus on the competence and capabilities of individuals with a mental illness will be more effective than those that focus on information about the origins of mental illness.

Research on the effect of an offender’s occupational prestige on criminal sentencing shows mixed results, with some studies showing a positive association between prestige and sentence severity and others showing a negative association. We revisit this question using an online vignette experiment. Drawing on affect control theory and its computer program, Interact, we hypothesize that an offender’s occupational prestige will increase the recommended sentence and that post-crime, or transient, impressions of the offender’s potency will mediate this effect. We find support for both hypotheses: Occupational prestige increases the recommended sentence, and post-crime impressions of the offender’s potency mediate this effect. The mediation is partial when potency is measured with semantic differentials, and it is complete when potency is measured with a set of explicit, denotative items. We also explore the mediational role of post-crime impressions of the offender’s evaluation and activity. Although offender activity does not function as a mediator, offender evaluation plays a minor mediational role when offender potency is also controlled. We also find an interaction between post-crime offender evaluation and potency, with participants recommending a lighter sentence for offenders they see as both weak and evaluatively neutral. We discuss the empirical, theoretical, and methodological implications of these findings and outline avenues for future research.

We introduce this two-part special issue that celebrates David Heise and his pathbreaking theories: affect control theory (ACT), affect control theory of the self (ACTS), and affect control theory of institutions (ACTI). These interlocking, multi-level, mathematically based theories explain a range of social processes, including impression formation, social interaction, trait and mood attributions, emotional experiences, emotion management, and identity adoption, and they do so in multiple languages and cultures. The 15 articles in this two-part issue test, apply, and develop the theories in new and innovative ways. After briefly summarizing each theory and Bayesian affect control theory (BayesACT), we highlight the key findings from each of the articles that follow.

Many studies suggest that people discriminate against individuals with a mental illness. Despite these generally robust patterns, however, variability in the results from laboratory experiments examining competence-based discrimination leaves questions about the specific diagnoses that elicit the discrimination and gender differences in the discriminatory behavior. Therefore, we revisit this question with a design aimed at clarifying some of the ambiguities. We examine the effects of two diagnoses (schizophrenia and depression) and a nonpsychiatric health problem (the need for leg surgery). As with other laboratory studies, we examine if and how a teammate’s psychiatric diagnosis affects participants’ willingness to accept the teammate’s problem-solving suggestions in a two-person task group. But we go beyond the previous studies by crossing the teammate gender with participant gender and by exploring the robustness in our results by examining the moderating role of numerous participant attributes (e.g., education, social desirability, parents’ education, age, political liberalism, three gender ideology scales, trust in others). We find that participants discriminate against teammates with both types of psychiatric diagnoses but not against teammates with the nonpsychiatric health problem and that this pattern is highly robust: The processes are almost entirely unrelated to teammate gender and participant attributes, including participant gender. Together, these results suggest that both schizophrenia and depression elicit competence-based discrimination, that these processes differ very little by participants’ demographic and attitudinal attributes, and that the status beliefs underlying this discrimination may be fairly uniform.