Hedonic Costs, why it's understandable that people discriminate against mentally ill

[HereSince1628]

Ever wonder about how and why mental illness destroys life outside the home? Why, it costs you friends, employment, a place in the church choir, acceptance in the American Legion? Could this really be moving toward the answer? If it is, OMG! The mentally ill are -so- screwed.

Elizabeth Emen's argument in, The Sympathetic Discriminator: Mental Illness, Hedonic Costs, and the ADA 94 Geo. L.J. 399 (2006), is a paper on narrowing legal arguments in order to allow the ADA to protect mentally ill workers--the premise that all accomodations have costs and unless a job requires contact that can result in contagion that precludes a job being done, the ADA for the mentally ill will apply.

But, on its face, this bit of legal advocacy is a painful expose on why discrimination against the mentally ill is understandable, rational, and even deserves sympathy.

The reasoning hangs on recognizing the "reality" that mentally ill people make the people around them feel bad. That production of negative emotions among a workforce represents an emotional cost to fellow employees and for the employer, the so-called hedonic costs. Emens argues this is actually the core reason for discrimination against persons with mental disorders: emotional contagion of others caused by a mentally ill person -is real-. Interacting with a mentally ill person for even a short time will confer bad feelings.

So, the argument goes that traditional reasons for pressing employers to integrate workplaces with mentally ill cannot apply. Unlike fixes for inappropriate discriminatory racial or ethnic stereotypes, inappropriate attitudes cannot be 'fixed' by bringing together a mentally ill person with co-workers in the workplace, because, it seems, the attitude isn't all that inappropriate. Even if education and experience could remove unjustified animosity toward the mentally ill there remains that other reason for discrimination;others fear of and/or actual contamination with negative emotions exuded by the ill person. And emotional contagion is insidious and comes to bear on the persons in the closest relationships with the ill person. The closer a well person is to a person with mentally illness; the more likely the well person will be contaminated with negative feelings.

Wow, is that discouraging or what? Am I suffering hedonic contagion as a consequence of exposure to that argument or is it just a reflection my illness?

[littlemissmartypants]

1. .

And we have the Facebook Experiment to thank for adding to this twisted argument.

[libodem]

2. Hi I HereSince

How are you? I hope we are okay? If I have offered you in the past I hope you will find it in yourself to forgive me. I never quite know how I sound to other people. I'm not that opinionated but I take the occasional stance.

As for the topic "mental illness" covers such a wide range of deficits. It could be a personality disorder or depression or schizophrenia. We had a volunteer once. It would have made an interesting book or movie. The guy was always kind of off. This was in '75. He was in his twenties and had hair to his shoulders. Sometimes he wore skirts to work. No big deal there was some gender dysmorphia. It has been so long now I don't remember all the antics but it disrupted our whole of function, trying to manage this poor lost young soul. We couldn't get rid of him. It was a weird time in my life.

[HereSince1628]

3. Well, the gist of it: we are all "Debbie Downers" and disseminate and cultivate negativity

Last edited Sat Jul 12, 2014, 05:26 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm pretty sure this defense of discrimination could work on other discrimination as well...discrimination works best when a person buys into whatever negative stereotyping feature discrimination is built around.


I don't subscribe to the following notions but they are things I've experienced others say and they demonstrate how emotional cost could be connected to them essentially becoming vindication for people who wish to discriminate...

Fat people are lazy. Having a lazy coworker is bad for moral, which would be an emotional cost under this sort of argument.

People who don't use standard English are 'ignorant'. Having dumb people on the team is tough for team members. Can't that also be an emotional cost?

As well as the flip side...People who use advanced academic English are arrogant, having arrogant people on the team is tough for team members. No one likes a 'smarty pants',

Gay men on the crew make the other men fear they'll be 'hit on'. Wouldn't that be disruptive and an emotional cost?

A man in a dress disrupts, so emotional costs accrue from transsexuals/transvestites who disrupt when they are "made" by co-workers?

Is the concept of contagion/contamination of the workplace by the mentally ill really all that different from the way bigots/chauvinists look at other targeted groups?

Does a rationale that can be stretched to fit many forms of discrimination really represent a rationale to sympathize with discrimination, or is it really just a rewording of what after all is at the root of discrimination?

[libodem]

4. What astute examples

This line of thought must have been extrapolated from the idea of the 'suicide contagion'. Especially in high school kids make pacts and sometimes carry it out. Other kids may mimic the behavior because of all the attention. This must have ended up, to including the work place as a theory?

Work environments can be some of the most toxic, abusive, authoritarian, nightmare, scenarios to negotiate without throwing the mentally ill under the bus. It can really take one mean jerk to ruin everyone's existence.
The helpless feeling of having no power in your life to effectively change your environment can leave your whole work force depressed. Seems like the people who become managers have a power need to work out.