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Reducing Social Distance

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Social distance has been applied to give an insight into stigma and negative attitude towards the mentally ill as shown in research conducted by Marie & Miles, (2008), Arboleda-Florez & Sartorius, (2008), Giannakopoulos et al., (2012), Economou,et al., (2014), Murman, et al., (2014). Emory Bogardus (1925), was first credited with implementing social distance in his research on the intergroup relation, and it is still applied today on how group fare and social acceptance (Parrillo & Donoghue, 2013) towards other groups. Based on literature (e.g., Marie & Miles, 2008; Ayazi, Lien, Eide, Shadar, & Hauff, 2014) mental illness is a factor which influence social distance, where individuals will seek to avoid this particular group leading to rejection and fractured identity (Vogel, Bitman, Hammer, & Wade, 2013; Feldman & Crandell, 2007). CONSTRUCT- IN RELATION TO THEORY Contact is a method used to combat negative attitude (Seewooruttun & Scior, 2014), thus reducing social distance. The type of contact made with others plays a key factor in determining whether social distance has a causal effect as drawn from the Attribution Theory (Weiner, 1985), on health care professional (Jorm, & Oh, 2009) towards the mentally ill. …show more content…

Whatley, (1959) sort to examine attitude by the public in Louisiana to the discharged mentally ill persons, and the research indicated stigma and social distance still existed. Whereas Phillips, (1963) did an experimental study and investigated the mentally ill seeking help and results indicates they were rejected. However, Weiss (1986) sort to examine children social distance to the mentally ill through drawings and results indicated that they were less

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