An interesting finding lies in the correlation between ethnicity and AMI factors. In our study, as compared to Chinese, both Malays and Indians had higher prejudice and misconception towards mental illness; but they also had less social distancing and less social restrictiveness towards those who were mentally ill. Meanwhile, Indians tended to have higher tolerance and support for community care of people with mental illness. Prejudice and misconception is a factor highly correlated with people’s knowledge of mental illness. In this case, possessing less knowledge of mental illness didn’t necessarily mean that individuals would have more social distancing, less tolerance/support to community care, and more social restrictiveness towards people with mental illness; other factors such as cultural differences might also play an important role in this process. This could be particularly true for Malays. In Islam, the religion practiced by the large majority of Malays in Singapore, mental illness is perceived as a test from God [32, 33], and illness could be treated as an opportunity to remedy disconnection from God or resolve a lack of faith through regular prayer and a sense of self-responsibility [34, 35]. Thus they were more tolerant to mental illness, as reported in other local studies as well [13, 21]. Alternatively, such differences might also be caused by people’s misunderstanding on the scales items. In another study among the same study sample, by providing detailed vignettes on different mental health problems, Malays and Indians tended to view mental illness as weakness but not illness . In our measurement, the wording ‘mental illness’ might have misled the participants while they were answering the questionnaire. Although Malays and Indians scored higher on ‘prejudice and misconception’ in our study, they still tended to view mental illness as weakness subconsciously and thus showed more tolerance to those people. A previous study among rural Indian citizens suggested that Indians were generally willing to be a friend, neighbour or workmate of the mentally ill; and the belief that ‘agreeing mental problems were caused by personal weakness’ was positively associated with their intention to reduce social distance . These two explanations are a bit contradictory and hence, further studies are needed to test and clarify the differences, and to explore the underlying mechanisms. However, both explanations suggest that compared to Chinese, Malays and Indians in Singapore lack knowledge of mental illness, which indicates a need for future informational campaigns.