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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Diagnostic attributions versus labeling
— impact of Alzheimer's disease and major depression diagnoses on emotions, beliefs and helping intentions of family members | | Author(s) | Virginia G Wadley, William E Haley |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 56B, no 4, July 2001 |
| Pages | pp P244-P253 |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Depression ; Diagnosis ; Family care ; Attitude ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Labelling theory suggests that applying disease labels to behaviour may serve to medicalise deviance and produce stigma. In contrast, attribution theory suggests that this practice may evoke sympathetic responses. 221 women undergraduates read vignettes describing an older parent exhibiting inappropriate behaviour in a social situation, with diagnostic label (Alzheimer's disease - AD, major depression, or no label), personal congruence of the behaviour (congruent, incongruent, no information), and parent gender manipulated across participants. Participants rated their emotional responses, attributions, and willingness to help. The AD label, and to a lesser extent the major depression label, produced more sympathy toward the parent, less blame, and greater willingness to help, indicating that the provision of these labels may enable compassionate attitudes and enhanced caregiving toward older people. However, participants reported greater anger and higher personality attributions toward fathers than mothers, suggesting that the influence of parent gender on potential caregivers' reactions warrants further attention. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010814206 A |
| Classmark | EA: ENR: LK7: P6:SJ: DP: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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