Objective: Previous studies have found biological conceptualizations of psychopathology to be associated with stigmatizing attitudes and prognostic pessimism. This research investigated how biological and psychosocial explanations for a child’s ADHD symptoms differ in affecting laypeople’s stigmatizing attitudes and prognostic beliefs. Method: Three experiments were conducted online with U.S. adults, using vignettes that described a child with ADHD and attributed his symptoms to either biological or psychosocial causes. Dependent measures gauged social distance and expectations about the child’s prognosis. Results: Across all three studies, the biological explanation yielded more doubt about treatability but less social distance—a result that diverges from previous research with other disorders. Differences in the amount of blame ascribed to the child mediated the social distance effect. Conclusion: The effects of biological explanations on laypeople’s views of ADHD seem to be a “double-edged sword,” reducing social rejection but exacerbating perceptions of the disorder as relatively untreatable.
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