Adapting to the stigmatizing label of mental illness: foregone but not forgotten.

In a study ostensibly about memory ability, a condition was created experimentally in which half of the subjects believed that they were participating in the study with mental patients and half believed they were participating with physical injury patients. Behavioral measures of each subject were made as well as having the subjects give self-reports of their perceptions of the other people who were in the study. The results indicated that the label of mental illness was stigmatizing even in the absence of bizarre behaviors. Although subjects interacted with the mental patients normally when in the adaptively unimportant waiting room situation, the subjects scored higher on the adaptively significant memory test when participating in the study with "mental patients." The discussion included consideration for stigma theory, for social adaptation, and for community placement programs.