Presenter: Rebecca Howard
Faculty Mentor: Brianna Delker, Sara Hodges
Presentation Type: Oral
Primary Research Area: Science
Major: Psychology, English
Combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses are becoming more prevalent, but fewer than half of veterans diagnosed with PTSD seek treatment. Stigmatizing attitudes toward military veterans with combat- related PTSD prevents veterans from seeking treatment. Fictional literature may serve as an efficient, accessible way to increase personal experience with, and empathy toward, individuals diagnosed with a mental health disorder. In prior research, increased levels of empathic engagement with fictional literature (i.e., “transportation” into the text) has been associated with increased reports of empathy for others. In this study, undergraduate participants (N=450) were randomly assigned to read one of three passages: a fictional literature passage about PTSD, a nonfiction passage about PTSD, or a fiction control passage (i.e., not about PTSD). Afterwards, self-report surveys assessed stigmatizing attitudes toward people with PTSD, empathic concern for the character in the vignette, and transportation into
the text. We hypothesized that the fictional PTSD (vs. nonfiction PTSD) passage would decrease stigmatizing attitudes toward people with PTSD. We also hypothesized that the fictional PTSD (vs. fiction control) passage would increase empathic concern toward the character in the vignette and that this effect would be mediated by increased transportation into the text. Analysis of covariance revealed that the fictional PTSD passage was associated with more pity toward people with PTSD than the nonfiction PTSD passage, F(1, 243) = 5.16, p = .024. Empathic concern for the character was greater with the fictional PTSD passage than the fictional control passage, F(1,211) = 77.45, p < .001. Transportation into the text partially mediated the effect of the fictional passages on empathic concern, B = .15, SE = .03, 95% CI [.10, .22].