Anxiety as a stigma: The stereotype of the anxious person in the clinical, health-care professional, and general population

Abstract

The implicit theory or stereotype of anxious personality was assessed in different samples. A list of adjectives was administered for hetero-evaluation to 400 participants, divided into four groups: Patients with anxiety dicorders, general population, doctors, and nurses. Anxious patients were re-administered the list of adjectives for self-evaluation. A descriptive study was conducted using χ2 to discriminate the adjectives used between groups. Two ANOVAs were performed to establish differences between groups from hetero-evaluation and to test the presence of differences between the hetero- and the self-evaluation. Results showed the existence of differences between the clinically anxious group, the group of doctors and the group of nurses in the stereotype of anxious individuals, although no evidence of stigma was found. However, the general population group showed a perceptual bias of anxious individuals, which may indicate readiness to stigmatize these patients.