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Religious Beliefs About Mental Illness Influence Social Support Preferences

Research demonstrates that social support facilitates recovery from a mental illness. Stigma negatively impacts the social support available to persons with mental illness (PWMIs). We investigated how religious beliefs about mental illness influenced the types of social support individuals would be willing to give PWMIs. Christian participants indicated their denominational affiliation and their religious beliefs about mental illness. We then asked participants to imagine a situation in which their friend had depression. Participants indicated their willingness to give secular and spiritual social support (e.g., secular: recommending medication; spiritual: recommending prayer). Christians’ beliefs that mental illness results from immorality/sinfulness and that mental illnesses have spiritual causes/treatments both predicted preference for giving spiritual social support. Evangelical Christians endorsed more beliefs that mental illnesses have spiritual causes/treatments than Mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians, and they endorsed more preference for giving spiritual social support than Roman Catholic Christians.