Comparing undergraduates’ stigma toward peers with criminal records and mental health disorders

Stigma remains a significant barrier to educational attainment for individuals with criminal records or mental illness, yet little is known about how college students perceive peers with these stigmatized backgrounds. Undergraduates (N = 307) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions to assess attitudes toward peers with: (a) no disclosed background (control), (b) a mental health diagnosis, or (c) a criminal record. They completed a version of the Situational Attitudes Scale (SAS), wherein they read a series of short vignettes and rated their emotional reactions (e.g., anger, fear) to each scenario. Participants also responded to open-ended questions about societal and personal attitudes toward individuals in their assigned condition. SAS scores were statistically similar between the control and mental illness conditions, whereas the criminal background condition scored significantly lower than both. Sentiment analysis of open-ended responses revealed a nuanced pattern: responses to the criminal background condition were rated significantly less positive than the other two, whereas the mental illness condition was also rated lower than the control. Respondents in the Control and Mental Illness conditions rated their own treatment of their target groups more positively than society (possibly a false uniqueness effect), whereas sentiment was similar across prompts for the Criminal condition. Stigma toward students with criminal backgrounds may differ in both form and intensity than toward other groups. These results underscore the value of combining direct and indirect measures of stigma to capture subtle but meaningful variations in how bias is expressed. Given the critical role of educational attainment as both a social determinant of health and a protective factor against recidivism, addressing campus climate is essential—not only to support students with stigmatized backgrounds, but also to advance equity and well-being within academic institutions and the communities they serve.