Children's Perceptions of Mental Illness: A Partial Test of Scheff's Hypothesis*

Abstract

Scheff's proposition that “stereotyped images of mental disorder are learned in early childhood” was tested in a study of seventy‐five (75) elementary school children. Interviews indicate that children were familiar with simple concepts associated with mental illness, i.e., crazy, nuts, and cuckoo, but that few children knew more sophisticated terms or psychiatric labels. The children tended to see the concepts they were familiar with in terms of residual norm violations, which partially supports Scheff's hypothesis. Contrary to Scheff's expectations, however, adults were most frequently cited as primary agents of socialization and other children were rarely cited as sources of information. The children viewed media as less important than suggested by Scheff in providing images of mental illness and violence. The data suggest, contrary to the proposition tested, that elementary school‐age children have amorphous conceptions of psychiatric deviance and findings in this study raise questions regarding the widespread applicability of the labeling perspective to pre‐adolescent children.