How we think about depression: The role of linguistic framing

Descriptions of emotional disorders vary according to cultural and historical context. Framing mental illness as a disease – as opposed to being a consequence of psychosocial factors – has been proposed as a strategy to fight stigma in recent years. Here we combine two studies, a corpus analysis and an experimental survey, to explore this issue in the case of Spanish. First, we conducted a corpus analysis to investigate the patterns of linguistic framing of depression – including disease-like descriptions and metaphorical frames – using data from Latin American countries. Two main patterns were identified: (1) depression is frequently framed as a brain disease. In line with medicalization trends observed worldwide, this pattern has increased over time. (2) The data showed that depression is also metaphorically construed as a place in space or as an opponent. Second, we investigated whether the instantiation of subtle linguistic cues influences people's perception of a description of a hypothetical case of depression. A survey experiment conducted among Colombian students revealed that when depression was framed as a disease, the participants’ perception of the depressed person's responsibility was reduced. Moreover, disease-like descriptions and metaphorical frames influenced participants’ initial interpretations of the role of social causal factors.