Representation, Attitudes, and Behavior: Analyzing the Spatial Dimensions of Community Response to Mental Disability

Anecdotal evidence indicates that community opposition has become intensified and more focused on human service facilities over the past decade. The irrational, selfish, and exclusionary tendencies often associated with the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome do not reflect the complexity inherent in local responses to controversial human services, such as mental health care facilities. In this paper I instead develop a framework incorporating the broader structure of social relations to explain local response to mental disability. In this framework I posit that marginalized representations of mental disability based in a continuum of stigma lead to rejecting attitudes and behavior. The first national survey of attitudes toward controversial human services conducted in the USA ( N = 1326) provides the data for exploring the spatial dimensions of resident acceptance and rejection. Results of a multivariate analysis indicate that the spatial dimensions of community response are linked to both the structure of attitude dimensions and the spatial location of respondents. The national survey points to three principal attitude types concerning mental disability: social restrictiveness, liberal support, and a NIMBY-type response. The rejection types of attitudes (social restrictiveness and NIMBY) tend to be reflective of attitudes in the Midwest and South, whereas the acceptance attitude type (liberal support) is more reflective of the Pacific region. Regional variations are also important in describing behavioral differences (for example, whether respondents oppose facility siting or not). This analysis provides opportunities for understanding the stigmatization of mental disability, and provides clues about the possible levers which might be used in specific places to promote a more positive representation of mentally disabled individuals.