Increasing Help-Seeking Among People with Depression: An Empirical Assessment of a Static and Trending Norms Approach

<p>The current research examined whether making static and trending norms salient through persuasive messaging could increase help-seeking inclinations (i.e., attitudes, expectations, and intentions) among people with depression. Study 1 indicated that people with depressive symptomatology significantly underestimated the number of people who seek help for depression. Although approximately 66% of U.S. adults with depression met with professionals for help in 2020, on average, participants believed this rate was 35%. Most associations between norm perceptions and help-seeking inclinations were nonsignificant (e.g., perceived static norms were not significantly associated with help-seeking attitudes or outcome expectations; trending norm perceptions did not significantly relate to help-seeking outcome expectations, attitudes, or intentions, nor did depressive symptomatology) or weak (e.g., there was a significant association between a perceived past static norm and help-seeking intentions, r = .12). In Study 2, participants with heightened depressive symptomatology were exposed to one of three messages: a static norm message, a trending norm message, or a comparison message containing no information about norms. Even though the static and trending norms message resulted in significantly greater perceptions of help-seeking prevalence, they did not directly affect help-seeking attitudes, outcome expectations, or intentions. However, relative to the comparison message, the static and trending norm messages had small indirect effects on help-seeking intentions through increased norm perceptions. Results underscore the challenge of persuading people with depression to seek help and indicate that a campaign focusing primarily on reporting descriptive norms of help-seeking may not be the most effective way to increase help-seeking among people with depression.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Psychology, MA

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Master's Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Year dc:date.available

2024

Author dc:creator

• Falco, Christopher

Contributors dc:contributor

• P. Wesley Schultz

• depression
• help-seeking
• social norms
• social norms approach
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/860

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-1887