Innovative Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Programs Across the World

Offering practical stigma and discrimination reduction programs in a range of domains including mental health, disability, ethnicity, and sexuality, this book is the answer to "What can we do?" to improve interpersonal relationships by reducing societal stigma towards social groups that are prime targets of prejudice.

In this volume, researchers from four continents share empirically-supported stigma reduction programs that capitalize on creativity and psychological science. The programs capture a range of populations including high school and college students, healthcare providers, war survivors, sexual assault survivors, business professionals, and community members. With a focus on controversial topics in society today including racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, and classism as well as stigma of mental health and body image, innovative and unexpected methods of interventions are brought to life in the collected chapters from world-leading experts. The applications of theater, game playing, text messaging, and social media, as well as new formulations of educational workshops and communication strategies, shed new perspectives on how all of us can use accessible tools to make positive and productive changes on societal attitudes.

This is an essential reading for professionals, academics, and students of psychology, business, HR, mental health, counseling, and social work, especially those interested in stigma reduction.

Preface: An Introduction to Stigma Intervention (Wind Goodfriend)

1. A Social Cognition Model of Bias Reduction (Gordon B. Moskowitz and Joseph A. Vitriol)

Part 1: Mental Health

2. Honest, Open, Proud (HOP): A Program to Combat the Stigma of Mental Illness with Strategic Disclosure (Carla Kundert and Patrick W. Corrigan)
3. Reducing Help-Seeking Stigma through Self-Affirmation (Daniel G. Lannin, David L. Vogel and Patrick J. Heath)
4. The Acceptability and Effectiveness of Mental Illness Anti-Stigma Programs at the High School and University Level (Ryan Golt, Stephanie Zito, Bilun N. Böke and Nancy L. Heath)

Part 2: Ethnicity/Race

5. Twubakane: Contact-Based Programs to Strengthen Social Cohesion in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Trisha Dehrone, Brooke Burrows, Linda R. Tropp, Rezarta Bilali and Ginny Morrison)

Part 3: Sexuality/Gender

6. De-stigmatizing Survivors: Intervening by Changing the Composition of Campus Alerts about Sexual Assault (Elizabeth R. Brown, Jennifer K. Wesely and Curtis E. Phills)
7. Workshop Activity for Gender Equity Simulation (WAGES): An Evidence-Based Experiential Learning Tool for Educating about Gender Bias across Learning and Work Contexts (Jessica L. Cundiff, Leah R. Warner, Kaitlin McCormick-Huhn and Stephanie A. Shields)
8. Effectiveness of a Multidimensional Web-Based Intervention Program to Change Brazilian Health Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Population (Angelo Brandelli Costa and Henrique Caetano Nardi)

Part 4: Weight and Body Size

9. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Interventions that Reduce Weight Stigma Towards Self or Others (Dr. Leah M. Kaufmann and Catherine Bridgeman)
10. Achieving a Reduction in Weight Stigma by Providing a Holistic Education Intervention Targeting Nutrition Knowledge and Bias (Thea Werkhoven)
11. Reducing Weight Stigma in the Workplace (Mikki Hebl, Cassandra N. Phetmisy, Ivy Watson and Felix Y. Wu)

Part 5: Ageism

12. Ageism-Reduction Programs (Sheri R. Levy, Ashley Lytle, Caitlin Monahan, Jamie Macdonald and MaryBeth Apriceno)

Part 6: Poverty

13. The Stigma of Poverty and Race and Interventions to Mitigate Its Effects in Brazil and Senegal (Jorge Jacob and Valerie Purdie-Greenaway)
14. An Experiential Learning Simulation to Reduce Poverty-Based Stigma: Changing the Hearts, Minds, and Actions of the Economically Advantaged (Jonathan Mendel, Stephen C. Wright, Maitland W. Waddell, Odilia Dys-Steenbergen, McKenzie Bahrami and Angela Chin)

Part 7: Teaching Diversity Appreciation

15. An Ally Skill-Building Workshop (Larry R. Martinez, Megan Snoeyink and Kelly Hamilton)
16. The Voices Project: Using Activist Theater in the Classroom to Reduce Racism and Stigma of Mental Health (Alicia Nordstrom)

Dr. Alicia Nordstrom is a professor of Psychology at Misericordia University in Pennsylvania, USA. Her research interests include interventions to reduce stigma, stereotypes, and stress and to promote mental health in college students. Her research has appeared on NPR, TEDxLancaster, and the NYC Broadway Bound Theatre Festival. She is also an actor, director, writer, and producer of theater, sketch, improv, and film.

Dr. Wind Goodfriend is a professor of Psychology at Buena Vista University in Iowa, USA. She has written or edited over 10 books in Social Psychology, including her textbook which won the 2019 Most Promising New Textbook of the Year award from the Textbook and Academic Authors Association. She is an award-winning author, teacher, and researcher.