Many military veterans face considerable challenges reintegrating into civilian life. Evidence suggests the general public holds conflicting attitudes toward veterans. This study examines how perceived public attitudes play a role in veterans’ mental health and well-being. Drawing from and extending interactionist theories of self-concept, stigma, and mental health recovery, we develop and estimate models for the relationships between internalized public attitudes toward veterans (perceived public regard), military identity–related self-worth (private regard), and well-being (depression, self-efficacy, and life satisfaction). Using survey data from the Chicagoland Veterans Study, we found that perceived public regard is negatively related to depression and positively related to self-efficacy and life satisfaction. The relationship between public regard and self-efficacy is fully mediated by private regard, and a significant part of the relationship between perceived public regard and both depression and life satisfaction is mediated by private regard. The study suggests avenues for extending theory and research related to military identity and public understanding of veterans as well as other groups where there may be conflicting public sentiment toward them.

许多退伍军人面临重返平民生活的巨大挑战。有证据表明，公众对退伍军人的态度相互矛盾。这项研究探讨了公众的态度如何在退伍军人的心理健康和福祉中发挥作用。借鉴并扩展了自我概念，污名和心理健康恢复的互动主义理论，我们开发并估算了内部对退伍军人的内在态度（感知到的公共关注），与军事身份相关的自我价值（私人关注），和幸福感（抑郁，自我效能感和生活满意度）。使用《芝加哥地区退伍军人研究》的调查数据，我们发现，公众的关注与抑郁症呈负相关，与自我效能感和生活满意度呈正相关。公众关注与自我效能感之间的关系完全由私人关注介导，而感知到的公众关注与抑郁与生活满意度之间的很大一部分关系则由私人关注介导。这项研究为扩大有关军人身份和公众对退伍军人以及可能对公众情绪有冲突的其他群体的理解的理论和研究提供了途径。