Ethno-religious variation in perceptions of illness The use of illness as an explanation for deviant behavior

Differences in perception of behavior as signs of "mental" illness among eight ethno-religious groups were examined in a study of over two thousand representative New Yorkers. Perceptions of thirteen vignettes describing varying degrees of deviant or problematic behavior were ascertained and twelve of these were used in constructing a Guttman attitude scale. Ethno-religious differences were then considered by frequency of distribution of scale types. The Puerto-Rican group was found to have the most distinctive distribution.