The Effects of Word Choice on Percerptions of Mental Illness

How does word choice affect a person’s perception of people who have a mental illness? If a person uses more politically correct language does that mean they are more understanding of people who have a mental illness or does it mean that people who use less politically correct language are more understanding of people with a mental illness. There have been plenty of studies carried out by researchers that have looked into word choice and its role on how it affects a person’s perception. For instance, in a study done by Angermeyer and Matschinger (2003) they conducted a survey that was done in Germany to see how word choice such, as labeling impacts a person’s perception of people who have schizophrenia either negatively or positively. They concluded in their hypothesis that it would negatively affect a person’s perception of people who have schizophrenia. In their study they had 5,025 participants who were eighteen years of age or older, were living in Ge rmany, and had citizenship in Germany. They concluded from their results that labeling does indeed negatively affect a person’s perception of people who have schizophrenia. Another study by Angermeyer, Buyantugs, Kenzine, and Matschinger (2004) replicated a study conducted in Germany that found labeling mental illness negatively impacted people’s perception of people with schizophrenia. The researchers decided to instead replicate the study in Novosibirsk which is located in Russia and Ulaanbaatar which is located in