Open AccessExplicit and implicit attitudes toward people with COVID-19: Need for community mental health services
Author(s) -
YunJung Choi,
Dong Hee Cho
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
social behavior and personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.362
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1179-6391
pISSN - 0301-2212
DOI - 10.2224/sbp.10900
Subject(s) - implicit association test , psychology , implicit attitude , stigma (botany) , covid-19 , mental health , social distance , social psychology , test (biology) , cognition , social stigma , pandemic , clinical psychology , psychiatry , medicine , paleontology , disease , family medicine , pathology , virology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , biology
During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, social stigmatization of people who have been infected with the virus has been observed. This study measured the degree of social stigma by examining implicit and explicit attitudes toward people with COVID-19. Explicit attitudes were measured through self-reporting, taking into account the three components of behavior, cognition, and emotion, and we used the Single-Category Implicit Association Test to assess implicit attitudes. The findings show that explicit attitudes toward people with COVID-19 were positive, whereas implicit attitudes trended toward being negative. The results suggest that mental health services and policies are needed to reduce social stigma and prevent the risk of mental health problems among people who have been infected with COVID-19.