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Michèle Denise Birtel

Michèle Denise Birtel
Centre for Mental Health

Dipl.-Psych. PhD
www.michelebirtel.com

About

45
Publications
42,003
Reads
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1,435
Citations

Publications

Publications (45)
Article
Individuals with substance abuse may suffer from severe public and internalized stigma. Little is known about how social support can reduce stigma and improve mental health and well-being for them. This research examined how perceived stigma influences individuals in treatment for substance abuse, and whether internalized stigma and shame are mecha...
Article
While previous research has demonstrated the negative impact of stigma in individuals with mental health problems, little is known about cross-cultural differences in experiences and explanations of mental health, in particular in young people, despite the first episode of psychosis often occurring in adolescence. Aim of this study was to examine c...
Article
Full-text available
Stigma from health professionals and the general population can be a barrier in health care for people with mental illness. The aim of this study was to compare experiences with and perceptions of people with mental illness between general ward nurses and the general population in the United Kingdom as well as to examine the associated mechanisms....
Article
Objectives: Numerous facets of public and internalized mental illness stigma have been established. This study focuses on the stigma of being associated with someone with depression and cultural differences between a Western and an Eastern culture. The aim was to compare White British and South Asians living in the United Kingdom regarding their c...
Article
Full-text available
Alexithymia, that is, difficulties in recognizing, communicating, and processing one's own emotions, is associated with poorer interpersonal relations. Emotional processes are key drivers and mechanisms of prejudice and its reduction, and alexithymia is thought to influence individuals' empathic responses. This research examined the relationship be...
Article
Full-text available
With mounting evidence of the harmful societal consequences of affective polarization, it is crucial to find ways of addressing it. Employing a randomized controlled trial, this study tested the effectiveness of an intervention based on theories of intergroup contact and interpersonal communication in reducing affective polarization in the context...
Preprint
Full-text available
With mounting evidence of the harmful societal consequences of affective polarization, it is crucial to find ways of addressing it. Employing a randomized controlled trial, this study tested the effectiveness of an intervention based on theories of intergroup contact and interpersonal communication in reducing affective polarization in the context...
Preprint
Full-text available
With mounting evidence of the increase and harmful societal consequences of affective polarization, it is crucial to find ways of addressing it. This proof-of concept study tested the effects of a theory-based intervention on affective polarization in the context of Brexit. Sixty Leaver-Remainer dyads were randomized to engage in either a facilitat...
Article
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public...
Article
Full-text available
During a pandemic, it is vital to identify factors that motivate individuals to behave in ways that limit virus transmission (i.e., anti‐COVID‐19 behaviour). Fear has been suggested to motivate health‐oriented behaviour, yet fear of the virus (i.e., fear of COVID‐19) could have unintended consequences, such as an increase in anti‐immigrant prejudic...
Article
Full-text available
At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied ma...
Preprint
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behavior change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public h...
Article
Positive intergroup contact reliably reduces prejudice, yet little is known about the metacognitive processes involved in recalling prior contact experiences and their impact on outgroup tolerance. The present research examined whether contact interventions that rely on the recollection of past contact experiences can be susceptible to ease of retr...
Article
Full-text available
Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and str...
Preprint
Positive intergroup contact reliably reduces prejudice, yet little is known about the meta-cognitive processes involved in recalling prior contact experiences and their impact on outgroup tolerance. The present research examined whether contact interventions that rely on the recollection of past contact experiences can be susceptible to ease of ret...
Article
Full-text available
A field study was conducted with majority and minority group members to test whether the effects of optimal contact conditions and of intergroup contact generalize across situations, and extend to the support of intergroup equality in terms of agreement with social policies benefitting the minority group. Participants were 163 Italian and 129 immig...
Article
Full-text available
Globally the rates of breastfeeding duration are extremely low and postnatal mental health issues are common. As a result, it is important to examine the emotions that underlie these matters. Across two studies (one correlational study N = 160 and one experimental study N = 118), we examined participants’ experiences of shame and guilt when feeding...
Article
Full-text available
Negative affect associated with autobiographical events fades faster over time than positive affect. This Fading Affect Bias (FAB) has been established in the individual and interpersonal domains. Two studies tested the FAB in intergroup relations with Muslims ( N= 76 White British non-Muslim) and opposite gender ( N = 242 women and men) as target...
Preprint
In the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital to identify factors increasing behaviors that limit the transmission of COVID-19 (i.e., anti-COVID-19 behavior) and factors protecting against the negative consequences of the pandemic on societies (i.e., prejudice). A simultaneous investigation of a change in anti-COVID behavior and prejudice during the pandem...
Article
Full-text available
Breastfeeding has many known benefits, but rates vary globally. We propose two main reasons why psychological theory and interventions have not been successful to date in explaining breastfeeding behaviours. Specifically, prior research underestimates the importance of 1) specific emotions and 2) wider injunctive influences (i.e., societal and mora...
Article
Disasters can impact upon individuals, families, and communities in multiple ways. Research has mainly focused on risk and protective factors relating to the child (individual level) and the family (interpersonal level), not taking into account the processes at the level of social groups. The present review aims to (a) review psychological research...
Article
The secondary transfer effect (STE), defined as contact with a primary outgroup improving attitudes towards a secondary outgroup uninvolved in contact, has mainly been studied with reference to direct contact and considering attitude generalization as the main mediating mechanism. Using a majority (422 Italians) and minority (130 immigrants) adoles...
Preprint
Full-text available
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating global health crisis. Without a vaccine or effective medication, the best hope for mitigating virus transmission is collective behavior change and support for public health interventions (e.g., physical distancing, physical hygiene, and endorsement of health policies). In a large-scale international co...
Article
Public stigma towards people with mental health problems has been demonstrated in Western societies. Little is known about non‐Western cultures and whether cultures differ in their perceptions of people with mental health problems. Aim of this study was to examine cultural differences in prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination towards people wit...
Article
A growing body of research has shown that imagined intergroup contact can improve outgroup attitudes. The aim of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of a multifaceted form of imagined contact in counteracting bullying in school children, and additionally to test the underlying processes of this effect. Two hundred and fifteen Italian...
Article
This research examined the impact of a change in school diversity on school children's intergroup relations. A longitudinal survey tracked 551 White British and Asian British students (Mage = 11.32) transitioning from elementary (time 1) to secondary (time 2) school in an ethnically segregated town in the United Kingdom. We estimated a multivariate...
Article
We examined the effectiveness of an imagery‐based strategy designed to reduce prejudice in pre‐schoolers in Italy. Three studies involving different target groups (disabled children, Black children) were conducted within Italian pre‐schools. Children (4‐6 years) were asked to imagine and draw meeting an outgroup member (Studies 1 and 2) or to imagi...
Article
Full-text available
Extended intergroup contact has received growing support for its positive effect on intergroup relations. Previous research has focused on cognitive factors associated with extended contact, such as perceived group norms and inclusion of the other in self. In the present review, we examine the affective outcomes of extended contact. In particular,...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: Prior research has examined various components involved in the impact of public and internalized stigma on people with mental health problems. However, studies have not previously investigated the subjective experiences of mental health stigma by those affected in a non-statutory treatment-seeking population. Design: An in-depth qual...
Article
This study explored the experiences of newly arrived and settled Eritrean immigrants currently in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten newly arrived (<one year) and ten settled (>seven years) participants, recruited through an Eritrean café and using snowball sampling. Thematic analysis identified three themes: (1) Wanting f...
Article
Full-text available
Recent studies have demonstrated that simply imagining a positive interaction with an outgroup member reduces prejudice, especially if the outgroup member is typical of the whole outgroup. In this research, we tested how a multicultural vs. colorblind mindset might impact the efficacy of imagined contact with a typical or atypical outgroup member....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Allport (1954) conceptualises tolerance as a personal value and distinguishes between Warm Tolerance (e.g., approving of other people), Cold Tolerance (e.g., enduring things we dislike) and limits of tolerance (e.g., intolerance of intolerance). Since these early ideas, little psychological research has attempted to further investigate the concept...
Article
Full-text available
We propose that key concepts from clinical psychotherapy can inform science-based initiatives aimed at building tolerance and community cohesion. Commonalities in social and clinical psychology are identified regarding (1) distorted thinking (intergroup bias and cognitive bias), (2) stress and coping (at intergroup level and intrapersonal level), a...
Article
Full-text available
Recent research has shown that integrating social and clinical psychological perspectives can be effective when designing prejudice-interventions, with psychotherapeutic techniques successful at tackling anxiety in intergroup contexts. This research tests whether a single, brief loving-kindness meditation intervention, without containing any refere...
Article
How can we learn to love again? To act with empathy instead of anger? To change unpleasant or even hateful feelings towards persons who may be viewed as outgroups? For example, people from black and ethnic minorities, older people, those who are gay or lesbian, or people with mental illness? How can we learn to approach these people with compassion...
Article
Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new indirect contact strategy for promoting tolerance and more positive intergroup attitudes. We asked whether the positive effects of imagined contact are contingent upon characteristics that define the experience of intergroup relations. Specifically, we tested whether precontact intergroup...
Chapter
In this chapter we outline a new technique for tackling prejudicial attitudes and promoting more positive intergroup relations. Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp and Turner, 2009) is a simple, inexpensive and effective technique for changing the negative attitudes that different groups hold about one another. It represents both a novel experimenta...
Article
One of the ways in which therapists treat anxiety disorders is to expose patients to a fear-evoking stimulus within a safe environment before encouraging more positive stimulus-related thoughts. In the study reported here, we adapted these psychotherapeutic principles of exposure therapy to test the hypothesis that imagining a positive encounter wi...
Article
Could simply imagining positive interactions promote tolerance between different social groups? This imagined contact hypothesis (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is just one example of a range of psychological interventions that capitalize on people’s capacity for mental simulation. The approach is controversial, perhaps because imagery appears somewhat insu...

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