Beliefs about essences and the reality of mental disorders

Abstract

Do people believe mental disorders are real and possess underlying essences? The current study found that both novices and practicing clinicians held weaker essentialist beliefs about mental disorders than about medical disorders. They were also unwilling to endorse the idea that mental disorders are real and natural. Furthermore, compared with novices, mental health clinicians were less likely to endorse the view that there is a shared cause underlying a mental disorder and that one needs to remove the cause to get rid of the mental disorder. Clinicians were polarized on their views about whether mental disorders are categorical or dimensional. These findings reflect current controversies about mental disorders in the field at large.

Fig. 1

Mean ratings of experts and undergraduates for familiar and unfamiliar mental and medical disorders, natural kinds, and nominal kinds. The scales for the first five questions ranged from −3, strongly disagree, to +3, strongly agree; the scale for Question 6 ranged from −3, culturally invented, to +3, naturally exist. Error bars indicate ±1 SEM. ns = nonsignificant.