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Category: Analysis

Description: A quantitative research project investigating the relationship between self-reported peer contact and self-stigma in people with mental illness. Recent evidence highlights the potential for peer contact to reduce self-stigma in people with mental illness as intergroup contact does public stigma against this group. However, the chronology of this relationship has yet to be established, and there are questions regarding features of peer interactions which may strengthen their effects, such as the stereotypicality of contacted peers; the similarity of mental health condition between interacting peers; the context, content, and valence of interactions; and the closeness of the relationship between peers. In the present study, adults with mental illness reported on the frequency and characteristics of interactions with others with mental illness, and their self-stigma at three timepoints. As per the preregistration, the data was to bee analyzed using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models, but regrettably an insufficient number of participants completed all three waves of the study. Thus, the analyses were conducted on the data provided at T1 (N = 1,100), which is provided.