Public Attitudes and Feelings of Warmth Toward Women and Men Experiencing Depression During the Perinatal Period

Objective:Depression is a major public health concern and often goes untreated. In response to a growing body of research documenting stigma as a barrier to depression care, this study focused on examining public stigma toward potentially vulnerable subpopulations.Methods:Participants (N=241) were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and randomly assigned to provide anonymous ratings on attitudes and feelings of warmth toward pregnant women and expectant fathers experiencing depression, mothers and fathers experiencing postpartum depression, or women and men experiencing depression during nonperinatal periods.Results:Participants reported significantly more negative attitudes about depressed men than women, and male participants reported significantly more negative attitudes than female participants toward depressed individuals. Similarly, participants felt significantly less warmth toward depressed men than women, and male participants expressed significantly less warmth than female participants towar...