Generation of stigma toward schizophrenia in university students from the theory of the relational framework: An experimental replication

The present study aimed to carry out an experimental analog to the stigmatizing processes related to schizophrenia, partially replicating the study by Weinstein, Wilson, Drake and Kellum (2008). 65 university students between 18 and 25 years of age (M = 22.45; SD = 2.65) were trained to respond to arbitrary stimuli (triangles or stars) that were related or not to the stigma towards schizophrenia through a match-to-sample procedure (MTS). The impact of this brief conditioning was evaluated with the “Implicit Association Test” (IAT) and the “Questionnaire of students’ attitudes towards schizophrenia” (CAEE). The results suggest that this brief experimental history is enough to generate transfer of stigmatizing functions to initially neutral arbitrary stimuli, t(65)= 2.89, p< .05, d= 0.45, which would be in accordance with the postulates of the relational frame theory.