Lauren Rohe
PSYCH1810
Roche
October 22, 2010
Author: Ruscio, John
Article: “Diagnosis and Behaviors They Denote”
Stigmatization is a big issue then psychology profession faces every day. The theory of labeling can cause an effect on the individual and the society together. The author of this article, John Ruscio is a psychologist who examined a few cases to show how labeling is a challenge for others. Do the mentally ill suffer from social rejection from stigmatization? These case studies give a few examples on the few from both perspectives. He makes good points from his examples, and then in the end shows his perceptions and his advice on how to change this social problem.
Pseudo patients and Pseudoscience
There were eight mentally stable patients that pretended to act insane and fake their symptoms to be checked into a mental hospital. After diagnosed with schizophrenia, the patients stopped faking their symptoms. When the hospital staff could see the patients “sanity”, they were discharged after a 19 day stay from the mental hospital. The observations from inside of the hospital showed that the labels from the psychologist will remain with the patient for the rest of their life. The “insane are not always insane”, and occasional behavior, will still receive a label of illness in mental hospitals.
Patients, Job Applications, and Psychological Disturbance
A group of psychologists were asked to watch a muted video tape of an interview occurring. One group was told that the interviewee was a mental illness patient, as the other group was told that the interviewee was a job applicant. When the interview was done, the group with the patient had much more negative responses, then the group with the job applicant. With the beginning label information being told to the psychologists it gave them a bigger window to judge the interview from their