Evidence for a social „purpose“ of stigma? A systematic review of population studies comparing the stigma of schizophrenia and alcoholism

Background/Objectives: Phelan and co-workers (2008) have brought forward the hypothesis that the stigma of different mental disorders serves different social functions. For example, the stigma of schizophrenia is hypothesized to be rooted in disease-avoidance behaviour (keeping people away), while the stigma of alcoholism assumingly serves the enforcement of social norms (keeping people in). We explore whether the characteristics of public stigma of both diseases support this hypothesis by looking at possible differences with respect to definition as illness, attribution of blame, attribution of unpredictability…