ArticleCognitive research: principles and implications2018
Neuroscientific explanations and the stigma of mental disorder: a meta-analytic study.
Article in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stigma in substance-based and behavioural addictions: A systematic review.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Pooled it
- Influence of Biogenetic Explanations of Mental Disorders on Stigma and Help-Seeking Behavior: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of Korean medical science · 2023Pooled it
- A neurodevelopmental model of eating disorder risk in midlife to older adulthood.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Psychiatric diagnosis on the edge: is there evidence of benefit?European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Recognizing Structural and Social Determinants of Health in the Diagnosis and Care of Dementia.Dementia (London, England) · 2026Article
- What can complex systems theory reveal about social inclusion.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2026Article
- Learning Mechanisms in Alcohol Use Disorders.Addiction biology · 2026Review
- Neurobiological illness models of schizophrenia and stigma reduction: has that ship sailed?Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- Unmasking therapy-speak.Theoretical medicine and bioethics · 2025Article
- The DCIDE framework: systematic investigation of evolutionary hypotheses, exemplified with autism.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Are Knowledge and Interpersonal Contact Cures for Alzheimer's Stigma? Data From Caregivers Offer Clues.Stigma and health · 2025Article
- Views Among the General Public on New Anti-Obesity Medications and on the Perception of Obesity as a Failure of Willpower.Obesity science & practice · 2025Article
- Are You a Closet Dualist? Evidence From Brief Implicit Association Task.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025Article
- Philosophy of psychiatry: theoretical advances and clinical implications.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2024Article
- Treatment of dissociative identity disorder: leveraging neurobiology to optimize success.Expert review of neurotherapeutics · 2024Review
- Languaging psychopathology: neurobiology and metaphor.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Review
- Should we promote alcohol problems as a continuum? Implications for policy and practice.Drugs (Abingdon, England) · 2024Article
- Applying an ELSI lens to real-world data and novel genomic insights for personalized mental healthcare.Frontiers in genetics · 2024Review
- Lab Meets World: the Case for Use-Inspired Basic Research in Affective Science.Affective science · 2023Review
- Is the mainstream construction of mood disorders resistant to systemic thinking?Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Genetic and other biological explanations appear to have mixed blessings for the stigma of mental disorder. Meta-analytic evidence shows that these "biogenetic" explanations reduce the blame attached to sufferers, but they also increase aversion, perceptions of dangerousness, and pessimism about recovery. These relationships may arise because biogenetic explanations recruit essentialist intuitions, which have known associations with prejudice and the endorsement of stereotypes. However, the adverse implications of biogenetic explanations as a set may not hold true for the subset of those explanations that invoke neurobiological causes. Neurobiological explanations might have less adverse implications for stigma than genetic explanations, for example, because they are arguably less essentialist. Although this possibility is important for evaluating the social implications of neuroscientific explanations of mental health problems, it has yet to be tested meta-analytically. We present meta-analyses of links between neurobiological explanations and multiple dimensions of stigma in 26 correlational and experimental studies. In correlational studies, neurobiological explanations were marginally associated with greater desire for social distance from people with mental health problems. In experimental studies, these explanations were associated with greater desire for social distance, greater perceived dangerousness, and greater prognostic pessimism. Neurobiological explanations were not linked to reduced blame in either set of studies. By implication, neurobiological explanations have the same adverse links to stigma as other forms of biogenetic explanation. These findings raise troubling implications about the public impact of psychiatric neuroscience research findings. Although such findings are not intrinsically stigmatizing, they may become so when viewed through the lens of neuroessentialism.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.