A look into people’s familiarity with Multiple Personality Disorder and

Dissociative Identity Disorder

By: Emmy Bourne

ENGH 502
5/13/18

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I. Background
I have found no study that specifically looks at people’s attitudes towards Dissociative
Identity Disorder; nor, have I found studies specifically looking at the misrepresentation of the
disorder and its effect on others. There are however, studies that speak to the perceptions and
misperceptions about diseases. A study published in May of 2011 looked at the “misalignment
between perceptions and actual global burden of disease.” They were trying to understand what
ordinary people in “high-income” countries believe are the leading causes of poor health in
developing worlds (Siegel 2011). In order to do that, the researchers compared publicly available
data from a Research America survey which sought to find the “perceptions about the leading
causes of death in developing countries” (Siegel 2011). Siegel’s team found little correlation
between the American public’s perception of the leading killers and the actual disease burden.
The overall pictured showed that,“the perceptions of Americans perceive infectious diseases and
inadequate food” to be the leading cause of death in developing countries (Siegel 2011). While
their study demonstrates the misalignment it does not identify the cause. The study also did not
conduct their own survey, but rather looked at public record of others. It would have been
interesting to see them create one for this study to narrow in on the questions they have been left
with.
A different study published in July of 2002 looked at women’s perceptions of the risks of
age-related diseases. The authors looked to analyze the impact of various sources of information
on the perceptions and misperceptions of women regarding the risk of age-related diseases
(Covello 2002). They held focus groups, issued two national quantitative surveys as well as
media content analysis research. Each survey sampled about one thousand women older than 45
and included both closed and open-ended questions. Their media analysis consisted of a “4-
month comprehensive survey of over 11,000…US newspaper, magazine, television, and radio
stories” (Covello 2002). Their results concluded that,“most of the women respondents held
incorrect beliefs about their risk of heart disease, breast and lung cancer, and osteoporosis.”
Looking closer at the results of the surveys, approximately four-fifths “relied on the general
media (television, newspapers, and magazines) for information on health related issues” whereas
only one-fourth received information about health topics from doctors or nurses (Covello 2002).
This creates huge misperceptions of the diseases. The results of the research done with the
sources of the information (media) found that,“nearly one in five news stories about older
women’s health omits critical facts” and in fact very “few media stories about the health of older
women mentioned other medical studies on the same topic” which the deprives the reader of the
context needed to evaluate said study. The researchers concluded that more training and
information for health care professionals, the media, and women was needed in order to solve the
misperceptions. Their study specifically looked at women who’s ages were aligned with the age-
related diseases. However, it would be interesting, considering their findings suggested that there
are many misperceptions about these diseases, what women of other ages like 25-35 knew about
the diseases mentioned and if the same misconceptions were perceived as well.

II. Research Design:

I wanted to look at people’s attitudes are about Dissociative Identity Disorder. How do
people describe Dissociative Identity Disorder? What words are they using to describe this
disorder and is there a trend with these words? What do they cite as their touchstones for these
descriptions? Is there a connection between the descriptions and the portrayal on pop
culture/media? I want to see how people are describing the disorder and if there descriptions

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differ from the medical descriptions and if so, is there a connection between what the participants
reference for their descriptions.

Methods/Methodology
For my Pilot Study, I created a survey that asked participants to describe Multiple
Personality Disorder (MPD) and if they could recall a moment they remembered hearing/seeing
something about MPD. At the end of the survey, I asked if they were familiar with Dissociative
Identity Disorder (DID) and if they could describe it. I put this question at the end of the survey
to see if the participants were aware that the names reference the same disorder and to see if they
descriptions were similar. I posted the survey to my Facebook page.
After collecting the survey I looked at the answers to specific questions. Specifically, I
looked at the second question which asked participants how they would “describe” Multiple
Personality Disorder, and the second to last question how would they describe “Dissociative
Identity Disorder.” I looked for key words or phrases the participants used and specifically if the
descriptions were the same. Because while the two disorders are related, they-in actuality- are
not similar, hence the reason for the name change from MPD to DID. I also looked at the
questions that asked where participants heard or saw something about MPD to see if there was a
correlation between “how” they were describing it.

III. Results
During the first round of this Pilot Study, a total of 20 participants completed the survey.
The participants were between the ages of 18-24 and over 50% were students. Sixteen of the
twenty participants answered that they knew of MPD and had recalled hearing about it. Only 9 of
those 16 answered that they knew of DID. The results of the first round showed no discrepancies
between the descriptions of MPD and the descriptions of DID. When asked to describe MPD, all
answers were nearly textbook definitions. For example, “a person has two or more personalities”,
“a disease affecting individuals ability to regulate their personality and identity, often displaying
dramatic shifts in morals or articulation”, and “a disorder where, sometimes as a way to cope
with extreme trauma, the mind creates a/multiple personalities that are different from the persons
age, gender, etc.” There were also several answers that pointed out that MPD was now known as
DID. Despite this fact, only 9 of the 16 participants answered “yes” when asked if they were
familiar with DID. Five of those nine answered that DID was “the same as MPD.” Originally I
had expected more of a discrepancy between the descriptions. Over 50% of the participants were
students and this was due to the fact that the survey link was shared to my own personal
Facebook account. I concluded that the lack of discrepancy was due to this fact since all of the
participants would have been personal/academic friends of mine. Because of this I decided to
conduct a “second” pilot study. A change to the design of the survey was also changed. In the
first round, the first question of the survey asked if participants were familiar with MPD, then the
last question asked if participants were familiar with DID. In round 2, the two questions were
swapped. I did this because the results in the first round showed that the majority of people may
already know and have heard of MPD, but I wanted to see if the general public had knowledge of
DID because that is what the disorder is now and that’s what people need to understand and
know about since the two diseases are related but not inherently the same.
This time the survey link was posted to my professor Dr. Heidi Lawrences’ Facebook as
well as sent out to my Fathers colleges who work in Homeland Security. About 42 new
participants completed the survey making a total of 62 participants and the results were

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 drastically different. This round gave a much larger range of ages, with a now majority of
participants ranging in ages 35-over 40 and 64.71% not being a student. As shown in Table 1,
there was a high discrepancy in those who were familiar with DID than those who were not in
comparison to the previous study.

Table 1:

Q4: Where do you recall

hearing/seeing about it [DID/MPD]?

A book 5

A television show 10

A movie 7

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 Other 14 A clearer distinction of perception was seen when looking
at the second round of answers when participants were asked to
describe MPD and DID. Specifically, Q2 which asked participants to describe DID. A majority
of answers were on a similar shelf as the first round. For example, “a person who has distinct
personalities that they switch between”, “when a person dissociates into another personality to
protect their self”, and “I think it’s MPD, if I remember correctly.” Like the descriptions of MPD
in the first round of the pilot study, these descriptions mirror a textbook or “Google” definition.
Other entries showed confusion. Some described DID as “a psychological diagnosis for people
who have types of black outs”, “a lack of empathy”, “ [not] recogniz[ing] themselves in pictures,
no sense of their body as theirs” , “and rapid change in perception to environment.” All of the
answers when asked to describe MPD described it as being the “same as DID, just the outdated
term”, “similar to DID”, or “the pop culture version of DID.” Both the first and second rounds of
the pilot study show that participants are able to make a distinction/connection between MPD
and DID.
Q1: Are you familiar Q4: Can you recall Q10: Are you
In both rounds of the pilot study, the
with Multiple a moment where familiar with participants recalled hearing/seeing something
Personality Disorder? you heard/saw Dissociative about DID/MPD from a range of outlets. Table
something about Identity Disorder
MPD? 2 shows the options given and the amount
chosen.
Yes 46 33 35

No 2 6 25 Table 2:

The “Other” option had a text entry for participants to indicate where they recall
hearing/seeing about the disorder. A majority of answers were “Abnormal Psychology Class”,
“AP Psychology Class”. “A friend”, or “casual conversation. Other answers include “my
cousin”, “medical journal”, “a student told me he had it and I looked it up”, and
“documentaries.”

The second most popular answer was “television show.” The answers given were the
ones anticipated. They included: “Law and Order”, “United States of Tara”, “Criminal Minds or
CSI type show”, “The News channel”, and “Sybil” which was a popular tv series in the 1970’s
depicting a woman’s life with DID. Books mentioned were “Psychology textbook” ’s, and “A
Fractured Mind” which tells about a man’s struggle with MPD. Only one participant mentioned
the most recent movie “Split with James Mcavoy” which came out in January of 2017.

IV: Lessons Learned

There is always room for improvement. In the future there are some quick edits that I
would make to certain questions. Judging by the answers given for Question 5:Where do you
recall seeing/hearing about MPD? I would add a School/Class option instead of maybe a book
and even a Conversation option since many of the participants mentioned they had heard it from
a “friend” or “during a conversation.”
I think I would also expand on the Television show/movie question. It would be
interesting to know if these participants think that the television/movies are accurately portraying
the disorder. Or to have them describe the episode and how the actor was portraying the disorder.

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 Swapping the questions that asked participants how they would describe MPD and DID
was the right call. In doing so a clear discrepancy was shown in participants knowledge about
what DID is. It was reflected in both the first round of the pilot study as well as the second that
many who knew MPD did not know DID. It was also reflected that it seems age may play a role
in a person’s familiarity with both disorders. While many of the 18-25 year olds who participated
in the first round of the pilot study were familiar with both disorders, the second round which
had participants ranging from 35-over 40 were not as familiar with DID as they were MPD. That
is something to look into moving forward.

V. Anticipated impact of the project

This project will help by showing a further explanation of how people understand
Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is one thing to look at what
people know of the disorders, but this study will help showcase how people describe the
disorder. Since the disorder itself is surrounded by controversy, learning and understanding how
people are talking about it, what words are they using, what references are they recollecting
when they talk about it, can perhaps provide clarification.

VI. Full Project Proposal

For the full project, I would like to continue to send out the survey to reach a larger
audience. If age does play a role, it would be interesting to test this by submitting the survey to
different platforms that were used by a specific age group. For example, Reddit is frequently
used by 18-25 and 26-30 year old. While finding another willing participant to share the survey
to their Facebook wall or via email would help with reaching out to older participants to see if
the misconceptions have a generational gap. Similar to the Covello study, I think a media content
analysis would be beneficial in order to see how DID is discussed on different media types.
Since many of the participants remember seeing DID from popular TV shows, do those TV
shows accurately portray and describe the disorder? Or are they providing audiences with
misrepresentation and false information which is leading to misconceptions/perceptions about
the disorder. For the media content research, I would look into those Television shows and News
reports. The Television shows would include those mentioned in the Pilot study: Law and Order,
CSI, and Criminal Minds. However, looking into other ones may also be beneficial.

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 Work Cited

Covello, Vincent T. and Richard G. Peters. "Women's Perceptions of the Risks of Age-
Related Diseases, Including Breast Cancer: Reports from a 3-Year
Research Study." Health Communication, vol. 14, no. 3, July 2002,
pp. 377-395. EBSCOhost,
mutex.gmu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=7025407&site=ehost-live.

Garretson, Judith A. and Scot Burton. "Effects of Nutrition Facts Panel Values, Nutrition
Claims, and Health Claims on Consumer Attitudes, Perceptions of
Disease- Related Risks, and Trust." Journal of Public Policy &
Marketing, vol. 19, no. 2, Fall2000, pp. 213-227. EBSCOhost,
mutex.gmu.edu/login?url=http://
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=ufh&AN=4446953&site=ehost-live

Siegel, Karen R., et al. "Misalignment between Perceptions and Actual Global Burden of
Disease: Evidence from the US Population." Global Health Action, vol. 4,
no. 1, Jan. 2011, pp. 1-3. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3402/gha.v4i0.6339.

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 Simone Reinders AAT, Willemsen ATM, Vos HPJ, den Boer JA, Nijenhuis ERS (2012)
Fact or Factitious? A Psychobiological Study of Authentic and Simulated
Dissociative Identity States. PLOS ONE 7(6): e39279.
https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0039279

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