Social Learning Theory (SLT) explains how the media and/or role models affect discrimination against employees with mental health diagnoses in the workplace. Behaviours can be acquired through direct experience or through the observation and imitation of others (often called observational learning or modeling). The Bobo Doll experiments (Bandura, Ross and Ross, 96) demonstrated a role model being violent to an object and a child imitating this. This can be applied to the workplace as a role model could be a boss or another employee who discriminates against those with mental health and so other employees imitate this. Other role models can be found in the media. Research has shown that media is a influential force in shaping the image of mental illness, for example news reporters often emphasis the violent, delusional and irrational behaviour of people with mental health illness to sensationalize headlines and attract attention (Coverdale, Nairn and Claasen, 2002).
Research examining newspapers, movies and television finds a largely consistent picture, indicating that individuals with mental illness are hardly ever portrayed in a positive light, for example in the recent movie Split (207) where the main character was a murderous schizophrenic, this demonstrates that images of danger and unpredictability dominate. Whe
n examining media statistics, one in four mentally ill characters kill someone and half are portrayed as hurting someone, making the mentally ill group the most likely to be involved in violence in media (Diefenbach, 997). Despite these statistics being outdated they are still relevant as shown in a recent American survey where 46% believed that individuals with mental illness were far more dangerous than the general population (Barry et al 203). This demonstrates the television industry do little to convey that people with mental health illnesses can become productive members of society, and so productive members of a work environment. This stigma impairs the self-esteem; help-seeking behaviours and general recovery of those with mental health diagnosis. SLT is a contemporary issue as a result of social media, this is due to employees having easy access to social media sites such as the news, Facebook and Twitter which impact their behaviour and ideas causing discrimination. Beck (967) explains this by saying peopleΒs interpretation and thoughts regarding a specific situation influence their emotions and behaviours hence reading a news article describing a person with a mental health diagnosis being violent could cause a person in the workplace to change their behaviours towards an employee with the same diagnosis.