Social media posts can negatively affect perceptions of psychological well being therapy

Analysis has proven that social media can negatively affect individuals’s psychological well being. However can it have an effect on individuals’s beliefs about psychological well being therapy?

Sure, in accordance with researchers at Union. In one of many first research to look at the affect of social media on individuals’s perceptions of psychological well being care, researchers found that viewing just some social media posts that mock psychological well being therapy can have a profound affect on some individuals’s attitudes towards therapy.

The examine seems within the newest subject of the journal Social Media + Society.

For the examine, 186 contributors seen 10 tweets. The gender breakdown was 67 % male, 32 % feminine. For half of the contributors, 5 of the tweets derogated mental-health therapy (e.g., “My good friend is feeling unhappy once more immediately. It is not despair or bipolar — these aren’t actual. STOP WHINING”) The opposite contributors seen tweets that had nothing to do with psychological well being therapy.

Individuals have been then requested for his or her opinions about therapy. The derogatory posts had no impact on male contributors or amongst feminine contributors who held conventional views towards gender roles of femininity. Nonetheless, girls who didn’t maintain such conventional views of femininity have been affected by the detrimental posts. They reported extra stigma in opposition to mental-health therapy.

The analysis reveals that even publicity to temporary social media posts that derogate psychological well being therapy can have massive impacts on what individuals take into consideration mental-health therapy, at the very least amongst a subset of the inhabitants.”

George Bizer, professor of psychology

He was chair of the division and co-author of the examine, together with Sarah Competiello ’21 and Catherine Walker, affiliate professor of psychology.

In keeping with the Nationwide Institute of Psychological Well being, about 51.5 million adults within the U.S. skilled a psychological well being situation in 2019. Of these, lower than half, or 23 million, obtained skilled psychological assist. One of many components that will stop individuals from in search of assistance is the stigma surrounding psychological well being.

Prior analysis reveals that there’s an affiliation between excessive ranges of psychological well being stigma and detrimental attitudes towards help-seeking. Restricted analysis, nevertheless, has explored the extent to which social media content material might play a task in growing detrimental attitudes towards psychological well being therapy.

Bizer stated researchers have been shocked to study that ladies who do not maintain conventional views of gender roles towards femininity seen the derogatory posts in another way.

“This was essentially the most attention-grabbing a part of the examine,” Bizer stated. “We’re unsure why, however the outcomes counsel that males is perhaps typically much less malleable by way of their attitudes towards psychological well being therapy, and that ladies who do maintain conventional views would possibly typically be comfy in search of help, and these views might have shielded individuals from the detrimental posts. However that is all hypothesis at this level.”

Finally, Bizer stated, “the examine gives extra perception into how social media can affect us and the way individuals could also be impacted in another way as a perform of their gender and character.”

Bizer joined Union in 2005; Walker joined in 2015.