Measuring Trivialization of Mental Illness: Developing a Scale of Perceptions that Mental Illness Symptoms are Beneficial.

Much of the extant research on representations of mental illness in the media have focused on stigmatization. The negative effects of these stigmatizing portrayals on individuals with mental illness are serious. However, recent scholarship has identified another phenomenon in the mediated portrayal of mental illness whereby these conditions are trivialized.

Examining Differences in Audience Recall and Reaction Between Mediated Portrayals of Mental Illness as Trivializing Versus Stigmatizing.

Researchers have documented the ways in which media stigmatize mental illness. However, media also portray mental illness trivially when diseases are mocked, oversimplified, shown to be less severe than in actuality, or represented as beneficial to an individual. Trivialization of mental illnesses could potentially lead audiences to be less likely to seek help or less likely to support related policy efforts.