Mental health issues in the workplace: A contact intervention for the reduction of stigma at work

Abstract

One of the biggest priorities of organizations nowadays is to create an inclusive environment for all employees. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of contact in behavioral intention and attitudes towards employees with mental health issues and identify the role of empathy and self-confidence in these associations. In the current project, there were three conditions (a. roleplay combined with induction of empathy and self-confidence, b. a plain role-play and c. a personal story). It was hypothesized that the conditions that included role-play (contact) would have significantly higher scores in the dependent variables. Also, empathy was expected that it would be correlated with contact, behavioral intention and attitude and then it would mediate the relationship between contact and the two dependent variables. Furthermore, self-confidence is being examined on the role of the moderator between contact and the dependent variables. In the Method, all the important information for the intervention is presented. The analysis disconfirmed the first hypothesis, with the third condition having only significant differences with the first condition regarding behavioral intention scores only. Also, regarding the second hypothesis, the only significant correlation was empathy with behavioral intention, which led to the fact that there was no significant mediation of empathy to the relationship between contact and the dependent variables. As for the moderator effect, significant results were found, with self-confidence moderating the relationship between contact and behavioral intention. For the relationship between contact and attitude, there were no significant results, but they were almost marginal. In the discussion section, an explanation of the results, further research, limitations, strengths and implications are presented.