Anne Ferrari, associate professor of Psychology at Mount Saint Mary College, kicked off this semester's Investigating Research on Campus (iROC) series with her talk, "Celebrities in the Classroom," on Thursday, February 3.
Ferrari noted that worldwide, one in four people will be diagnosed with a mental or neurological disorder at some point in their lifetime. This includes college students, who are often feeling the pressures of academic obligations, living away from home for the first time, and more.
One might think the ubiquity of mental illness would create acceptance of treatment, but there's often a stigma associated with "how we perceive mental illness in ourselves and others," said Ferrari. "The more stigma we have, the less likely we are to go out and seek help...The majority of individuals afflicted with a mental illness do not seek treatment and stigma has been posited to be the reason why."
As she taught abnormal psychology courses over the years, Ferrari began discussing her own mental health with the class as a way to better illustrate concepts and further engage students. Ferrari noticed that, as she did so, students would come up to her after class and disclose their own mental health struggles.
"I pondered how my self-disclosures perhaps where helping students come to terms with their own mental illness issues, and I wondered how I could increase that," said Ferrari. "What can I do with this course to reduce the amount of stigma that we all feel surrounding mental illness?"
The answer was simple, but effective: Using examples of popular celebrities who have disclosed their own struggles with mental illness can offer an opportunity to provide a kind of kinship with an individual diagnosed with a mental illness.
Putting a face to specific mental health issues – in this case, people most students are familiar with and look up to – has helped Ferrari's students to reduce stigma toward mental illness and increasing help seeking behaviors.
Ferrari began studying mental illness and stigma in 2014 when she devised an alternative pedagogy for teaching her psychopathology courses. To reduce stigma toward mental illness in her students, she taught each mental illness through the lens of a celebrity who self-disclosed their diagnosis. Using a pretest-posttest design, it was discovered that stigma was reduced in students taught using the celebrity method compared to the control group who were taught using traditional methods. This research was published in 2016 in the journal Teaching of Psychology. In 2019, Ferrari examined whether the stigma reduction obtained in 2016 persisted six months later in students taught using the celebrity method. Analyses revealed that it did, and this research was published in 2020.
The goal of the college's iROC is to provide a forum for Mount faculty, staff, and students to showcase their research endeavors with the college and local communities. Presentations include research proposals, initial data collection, and completed research projects.
Mount Saint Mary College, ranked a Top-Tier University by U.S. News & World Report, offers bachelor's and master's degree programs for careers in healthcare, business, education, social services, communications, media, and the liberal arts.