The Influence Of Stigma On High School Students’Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help

Professional psychological help attitude refers to an individual’s inherent psychological tendencyto seek professional psychological help when he cannot deal with some difficulties all by himself. Studieshave shown that attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help can be used to predict human’sprofessional psychological help behavior. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence human’sattitudes toward professional psychological help can maintain human’s mental health. This study exploredthe influence of stigma on high school students’ professional psychological help attitude and regulatoryeffects of mental illness stigma on attitudes toward professional psychological help from the perspective ofself-acceptance.This study, with convenient sampling method, tested500high school students from four full-timehigh schools in Zhengzhou and Kaifeng of Henan Province. The perceived devaluation—discriminationscale, self-acceptance scale, self-stigma for receiving psychological help scale and attitudes toward seekingprofessional psychological help scale were applied to investigate the present situation of professionalpsychological help attitudes among high school students, and its relationship with their self-stigma forreceiving psychological help and self-acceptance. Results are summarized below:1. Overall, high school students have positive attitudes towards professional psychological help.There are demographic differences in the professional psychological help attitudes of high school students.Girls have more positive attitudes than boys. The higher educational level the parents are, the more positivetheir child’s professional psychological help attitude is. This study did not find some significant differencesin grades, art and science, and other aspects of urban and rural areas.2. There is a significant negative correlation between high school students’ professionalpsychological help attitude and stigma. Public stigma of mental illness shows a significant positivecorrelation with their self-stigma for receiving psychological help. The public stigma of mental illnessaffects high school students in attitudes toward professional psychological help through self-stigma forreceiving psychological help.3. Self-acceptance has a role in the regulation of mental illness stigma and professional psychological help attitude. The higher the individual’s level of self-acceptance is, the weaker the impact ofpublic stigma of mental illness on the individual in professional psychological help attitude is; and viceversa.