Simply labeling someone schizophrenic triples public estimates of their violence risk

Evidence

The public greatly overpredicts violence by the mentally ill. When individuals are asked to judge the violent proclivity of a person in a vignette, 61% rate the individual as likely violent if the person is dubbed a schizo-phrenic, but only 17% do so if the person is dubbed a troubled person (Pescosolido, Monahan, Link, Stueve, & Kikuzawa, 1999). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1275

Categorization

• SEED: A quotable stat for an article on how diagnostic labels drive moral panic and stigma far out of proportion to actual risk.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s earlier themes of moral disengagement and how labels facilitate dehumanization, and to wider literature on mental illness stigma (Link & Phelan).
• SHARE: The 61% vs 17% vignette figure is a precise, single-study statistic a researcher or policy person into stigma would want.