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The purpose of this paper is to obtain perceptions of educated non‐professionals towards people with schizophrenia.

A social distance scale and a schizophrenia knowledge and attitude survey were administered to 330 undergraduates. It was predicted that knowledge and personal family experience would predict tolerance attitudes and social distance comfort towards persons with schizophrenia.

Knowledge about schizophrenia and personal family experience with mental illness had similar effects on tolerance scores. Specifically, those with higher knowledge and family members with schizophrenia reported higher levels of tolerance (i.e. less stigma). Conversely, participants with a family member diagnosed with a mental illness reported less social distance comfort to persons with schizophrenia as opposed to those without mental illness in the family. Finally, gender differences indicated that women held more tolerant attitudes towards schizophrenia compared with men.

Few studies have focused on educated non‐professional perceptions and attitudes towards the mentally ill.