2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work in progress paper considers intergroup contact theory to explore how increased awareness of mental health resources and heightened contact with people living with MHCs among engineering undergraduate students reflect in lower levels of stigma of Mental Health Conditions (MHCs). Large scale interventions have shown the positive effect of campus initiatives and the availability of resources for mental health in reducing stigma among college students. However, research has shown that engineering students tend to have lower proclivity to seek help for their MHCs when needed. Stigma of MHCs is known to negatively influence help seeking attitudes. Reducing stigma through exposure and contact has the potential to enhance help seeking. Through the use of established instruments we collected stigma, contact and awareness measures in a survey (n=1,151) and we explored the relationships between MHCs stigma and (1) Knowledge of MHCs, measured as the number and strength of relationships with people living with MHCs and (2) Awareness of campus resources related to mental health. Through correlation analyzes we found consistently significant negative correlation between stigma and both measures. Analyzed through the lens of contact theory, these results support the view that exposure to knowledge about MH can reduce stigma, which on its own could have the potential to enhance students help-seeking attitudes. We discuss the implications of these results, and future work in this space of inquiry.