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The lay concept of “mental disorder” among American undergraduates
Author(s) -
Haslam Nick,
Giosan Cezar
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.1158
Subject(s) - psychology , convergence (economics) , classification of mental disorders , prevalence of mental disorders , clinical psychology , mental health , chinese classification of mental disorders , psychiatry , psychotherapist , social psychology , sadistic personality disorder , personality disorders , personality , economics , economic growth
Lay concepts of “mental disorder” were investigated in a pilot study of beliefs about 68 conditions, 47 of which corresponded to DSM‐IV mental disorders. Undergraduates who had no formal education in abnormal psychology rated the conditions on features proposed in technical definitions of “mental disorder” and judged whether the conditions were mental disorders. The features composed three dimensions—social deviancy, harmful dysfunction, and peculiarity—the last two of which were strongly and independently associated with judgments of mental disorder ( R = 0.83). Lay and DSM‐IV understandings of “mental disorder” showed moderate convergence. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 479–485, 2002.