Reminders of an agentic ingroup buffer disease uncontrollability

Chronic illness has negative impacts beyond those on physical health. In particular, because it is often experienced as uncontrollable, chronic illness might reduce people's general sense of personal control and, subsequently, personal well-being. Drawing on recent theory and research, we proposed and tested in four experiments (N_total = 1323) a potential buffer to these negative effects: thinking about an agentic social ingroup in one's life. In Study 1, patients suffering from a chronic illness that was either high or low in medical disease controllability were asked either to think about an agentic ingroup or a personal issue. Low perceived disease-related control was associated with low perceived personal control only when participants' personal self, but not when their ingroup, was salient. In three follow-up vignette studies, we asked participants to take the perspective of a person who suffered from a health problem of low medical disease controllability and attended a self-help group that was described as either high or low in agency. The findings supported the predicted buffering effect: participants who reflected on a target suffering from a low control disease thought that the target would experience more personal control when the agentic (vs. the nonagentic) self-help group was salient. These findings suggest ingroups can serve as a source of personal control in the context of health-related threats to the extent that they are perceived as agentic. Thus, focusing on agentic properties of (health-related) ingroups might be a promising novel strategy when designing effective group-based interventions to cope with chronic illness.     

The Effects of Time Pressure on Controlling Reactions to Persons With Mental Illness

Population surveys suggest that the general public stigmatizes persons with mental illness less than in the past. However, implicit attitude measures find that immediate reactions to mentally ill persons are still negative among both the general public and people diagnosed with mental illness. Time-course data suggest that these reactions may be dynamic, with immediate negative reactions becoming less prejudicial over time. We manipulated time pressures imposed upon social judgments about a mentally ill person. Participants perceived a mentally ill person as dangerous when forced to respond quickly; participants given ample time to respond were less likely to have this perception.     

Trapped Children: Popular Images of Children with Autism in the 1960s and 2000s

The lay public inherits much of its information about disability and mental illness through the media, which often relies on information from popular scientific works. Autism, as it was defined during the dominance of psychogenic paradigms of mental illness, generated certain tropes surrounding it, many of which have been popularized through media representations. Often inaccurate, these tropes have persisted into contemporary times despite a paradigmatic shift from psychogenic to biological explanations and treatments for mental illness. The current article examines images and articles of children with autism from the 1960s and the early 2000s in major news media and scientific literature to highlight the persistence of themes of fragmentation and the imprisonment of children with autism. While these themes have persisted in psychological and media literature, narratives of people with autism and their families often present a different perspective. This results in two divergent 'realities' of autism being disseminated into the general public.     

��Preventative Corrections��: Psychiatric Representation and the Classification of Sexually Violent Predators

This paper examines the representation of mental illness and mental disorder in the Washington Community Protection Act of 1990 (WCPA), the first package of sexual predator legislation passed in the United States. I focus on the public outcry over a violent crime committed by a repeat sexual offender, Earl Shriner, and show how the act was drafted in direct response to this outcry. Following his arrest, there was a public discussion of a) whether the state had a responsibility to cure individuals like Shriner before releasing them, and b) whether sex offenders could be cured at all. The WCPA was a landmark law because it shifted forensic psychology in the use of sexual criminals from an intervention model to a containment model, from a model that sought to separate out those sexual criminals who could be treated to a model that separated out sexual criminals because they could not be treated. I demonstrate here that this shift was made in response to the representation of Earl Shriner as a member of a group classified by legislators as having a coherent, recognizable and untreatable mental disorder that caused them to commit acts of sexual violence.     

心理疾病自我污名:心理康复的一个高危因子

心理疾病自我污名是心理疾病患者内化公众的消极刻板印象、偏见和歧视,形成自我偏见和歧视的现象.心理疾病自我污名会给患者带来一系列的负面影响,是心理康复过程中的一个高危因子.自我污名可能是通过引发患者的消极认知、负面情感和自我歧视行为来危及心理康复过程的.对自我污名的干预应针对患者和社会公众分别加以实施.未来可以从理论构建、测量工具和干预措施的改进,以及去污名与心理康复的融合等方面展开自我污名本土化的研究.     

Expanding coping goodness-of-fit: religious coping, health locus of control, and depressed affect in heart failure patients

The goodness-of-fit coping hypothesis posits that problem-focused (PF) coping is particularly helpful under high controllability conditions, while emotion-focused (EF) coping is more helpful in low controllability situations. However, little research has examined whether the goodness-of-fit hypothesis applies to religious coping, a distinct set of coping resources and efforts. Further, little goodness-of-fit research has been conducted in the context of life-threatening illness. We tested coping goodness-of-fit for PF and EF as well as religious coping resources and strategies in 202 congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. Multiple regression analyses examined the extent to which each type of coping, health locus of control (HLOC) regarding their CHF, and their interactions related to subsequent depressed affect. Neither religious coping efforts nor religious resources were related to depressed affect. However, when examined in conjunction with internal HLOC, active coping and organized religious commitment were related to less depression for those higher in internal HLOC, while daily spiritual experience was related to less depression for those lower in HLOC. These results partially support the goodness-of-fit hypothesis and indicate a need to consider the perceived controllability of situations when examining the associations of religious coping resources and activities on depressive symptoms in the context of illness.     

The illness perception questionnaire: A new method for assessing the cognitive representation of illness

Abstract

The Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ) is a new method for assessing cognitive representations of illness. The IPQ is a theoretically derived measure comprising five scales that provides information about the five components that have been found to underlie the cognitive representation of illness. The five scales assess identity - the symptoms the patient associates with the illness, cause - personal ideas about aetiology, time-line - the perceived duration of the illness, consequences - expected effects and outcome and cure control - how one controls or recovers from the illness. The IPQ has a specific number of core items but allows the user to add items for particular patient groups or health threats. Data is presented supporting the reliability and validity of the IPQ scales in different chronic illness populations.     

The effects of satiation after first— and second-order appetitive conditioning in rats

Rats received first- and second-order conditioning based on a food unconditional stimulus (US). The effects of postconditioning satiation on the performance of detailed behavioral components of general activity evoked by first- and second-order conditional stimuli (CSs) were then assessed in extinction tests. Satiation reduced the frequency of all components of general activity evoked by first-order CSs but had little or no effects on behaviors evoked by second-order CSs. These results are consistent with earlier suggestions that first-but not second-order conditional responding is mediated by a representation of the US and that a major effect of satiation is to devalue that representation.     

心理疾病污名社会表征公众影响初探

在中国文化背景下对心理疾病污名社会表征的公众影响进行了初步探讨。在全国12个省市对1028名普通公众进行问卷调查。结果发现,心理疾病污名社会表征的不同维度分别对公众接近、帮助心理疾病患者的意愿和专业心理求助意愿产生正面或负面的影响。公众污名感知在社会表征影响行为意愿过程中起中介作用。     

耐挫心理结构的探索：基于大学生群体的测量

采用质性和量化研究方法,探讨耐挫心理的结构及因素间关系。研究1采用质性研究方法,对23名被试进行深度访谈,结果发现：（1）耐挫心理的结构由坚信、乐观、可控和醒悟构成;（2）坚信、可控和醒悟共同影响乐观。研究2采用量化研究方法,基于研究1的耐挫心理结构编制大学生耐挫心理量表,对大学生进行施测。结果发现：（1）耐挫心理四因素结构有良好的拟合指数;（2）醒悟正向预测坚信,进而正向预测可控,最终正向预测乐观;（3）量表有良好的信度和效度。结果表明,耐挫心理的结构包含坚信、乐观、可控和醒悟四个因素;大学生耐挫心理量表符合心理测量学要求,可作为未来研究的工具。     

Precursors and Underlying Processes of Adolescents' Online Self-Disclosure: Developing and Testing an “Internet-Attribute-Perception” Model

This study developed and tested an “Internet-attribute-perception” model that explains how self-disclosure develops in instant messaging (IM) interactions. Following hyperpersonal communication theory, two attributes of computer-mediated communication (i.e., reduced nonverbal cues and controllability) were assumed to be responsible for increased online self-disclosure in IM. However, our model posed that any actual effects of these attributes would depend on users' perceptions of the relevance of these attributes. Furthermore, our model posed that these perceptions would mediate the relationship between personality characteristics (i.e., pri vate and public self-consciousness, and social anxiety) and online self-disclosure. Using structural equation modeling on a sample of 1,203 Dutch adolescents, we found that adolescents' perceptions of the relevance of reduced nonverbal cues and controllability encouraged their feelings of disinhibition, which in turn increased their online self-disclosure. As expected, private and public self-consciousness and social anxiety stimulated adolescents' perceptions of the relevance of reduced nonverbal cues and controllability, but did not directly influence online self-disclosure. The study shows the vital role of users' perceptions of CMC attributes in Internet-effects research.     

A Systematic Review of the Literature Exploring Illness Perceptions in Mental Health Utilising the Self-Regulation Model

Psychologists have utilised a range of social cognition models to understand variation in physical health and illness-related behaviours. The most widely studied model of illness perceptions has been the Self-Regulation Model (SRM, Leventhal, Nerenz, & Steele, 1984). The illness perceptions questionnaire (IPQ) and its revised version (IPQ-R) have been utilised to explore illness beliefs in physical health. This review examined 13 quantitative studies, which used the IPQ and IPQ-R in mental health in their exploration of illness perceptions in psychosis, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, depression and adolescents experiencing mood disorders. Across these studies the SRM illness dimensions were largely supported. Mental illnesses were commonly viewed as cyclical and chronic, with serious negative consequences. Perceptions regarding chronicity, controllability and negative consequences were associated with coping and help seeking, while engagement with services and help seeking were also related to illness coherence beliefs. Treatment adherence was linked to beliefs that treatment could control one’s illness. Whilst a major limitation of the reviewed studies was the use of cross-sectional designs, overall the applicability of the SRM to mental health was supported. The IPQ and IPQ-R were shown to be valuable measures of illness perceptions in mental health, offering implications for clinical practice.     

Discriminative facility in the face of threat: Relationship to psychological distress

Abstract

This study explored whether discriminative facility in dealing with threatening situations is negatively associated with distress. Discriminative facility entails the ability to (1) “accurately” appraise the controllability of stressors and (2) use more problem-focused relative to emotion-focused coping with controllable stressors and at the same time more emotion-focused relative to problem-focused coping with uncontrollable stressors. We conducted a preliminary study to obtain “accurate” appraisals of the controllability of two stressors. In the main study, college students (N = 109) provided information regarding their appraisal of the controllability of the two stressors, how they coped with these two stressors, and their level of both stressor-specific distress and general distress. The relationship between coping strategy (problem- vs emotion-focused) and stressor-specific distress was found to be a function of the controllability of the stressor. Specifically, with controllable stressors, the high use of problem-focused coping was associated with less distress than the high use of emotion-focused coping. The opposite was found to be the case with uncontrollable stressors. More importantly, discriminative facility was negatively related to general distress. The results suggest that discriminative facility in the appraisal of and coping with stressors is an important mediator in the experience of psychological symptoms as a result of stress.     

Potentiation and overshadowing in preweanling and adult rats

Four experiments compared the aversion acquired by 18-day-old and 60-day-old rats to a flavor that was either tasted alone or in combination, simultaneously or successively, with another flavor when paired with illness. The purpose was to study temporal variables and theoretical issues pertinent to potentiation and overshadowing while investigating ontogenetic differences in these phenomena. When either the preweanlings or the adults were presented a simultaneous compound flavor (sucrose/coffee) followed by lithium chloride-induced illness, greater sucrose aversions were found than for animals conditioned on sucrose alone--that is, potentiation. Preweanlings demonstrated greater potentiation than did adults, whether the conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) delay was 0 or 1 hr. This potentiation was eliminated by nonreinforced presentations of the alternative CS element. Potentiation was not seen when the two flavors were presented successively as the CS; instead, overshadowing occurred. Tests of configuring by extinction procedures indicated a tendency for these animals to form a configured representation of the simultaneous compound solution. This disposition for configuring tended to be more pronounced for preweanlings than for adults. Ontogenetic differences in response to configuration, CS saliency, and generalization decrement seem consistent with at least one model of potentiation and the ontogenetic differences in potentiation seen in the present experiments.     

The bicycle and the dream of a sustainable city: An explorative comparison of the image of bicycles in the mass-media and the general public

This paper explores the representation of the bicycle by comparing data from various mass media sources and the general public in Italy. In study 1, a number of commercial advertisements published on paper magazines and aired by the major TV channels, as well as 405 articles published by the major online newspapers were content analysed in order to identify the main concepts and evaluations characterising the representation of bikes in the media. In study 2, 94 Rome residents were interviewed on their beliefs regarding the pros and cons of using the bike in the city and their perceived social approval. Results showed several points of overlap between the two representations, although different themes and structures emerged as well.     

Rethinking psychological approaches towards health promotion

The purpose of the present study was to test the factorial and discriminant validity of the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R), a measure of illness representations based on Leventhal, Meyer and Nerenz's Self-Regulation Theory, in a cervical screening context using confirmatory factor analysis. Six hundred and sixty women, who had attended a colposcopy clinic and were invited to re-attend, completed the IPQ-R. Data were analysed using covariance structure analysis. The adequacy of an a priori confirmatory factor analytic model that included seven dimensions of the cognitive illness representation: identity, timeline-acute/chronic, serious consequences, personal control, treatment control, illness coherence, and causal attributions, and one emotional representation factor was tested against the observed data. After the elimination of two items responsible for large standardised residuals and with low factor loadings, the model adequately accounted for covariances among the IPQ-R items according to multiple criteria for goodness-of-fit. Factor inter-correlations supported the discriminant validity of the constructs and the factors exhibited satisfactory composite reliability. A theoretically predictable pattern of relationships among the representation dimensions was evident. In particular, the control-related constructs and the illness coherence dimension were negatively related to other illness representation constructs. The present study provided confirmatory evidence using a robust hypothesis-testing framework to support the proposed structure of the illness representation dimensions in a cervical screening context.     

Learned helplessness deficits: Uncontrollable outcomes or perceived failure?

An experiment is described showing that learned helplessness deficits are produced by prior exposure to uncontrollable outcomes rather than perceived failure. Although the controllability manipulation did produce differences in perceived success or failure, similar differences were also induced by means of instructional feedback. These latter differences, within the controllable and uncontrollable groups, were not associated with poorer performance by subjects given failure feedback. Moreover, the instructional feedback did not influence subjects' perceptions of controllability or uncontrollability. The results confirm that helplessness deficits cannot be explained as reactions to task failure.This research was supported by Research Grant A28015473 from the Australian Research Grants Scheme.     

Conservatism and Perceptions of Poverty: An Attributional Analysis1

Attribution theory was used to relate causal explanations for poverty to affect and behavioral intentions. In Experiment 1, student subjects rated 13 causes of poverty on importance, the attribution of controllability, blame, affects of pity and anger, and judgments of help-giving (personal help and welfare). Two individual differences, conservatism and the belief in a just world, were also assessed. A principal components analysis categorized the causes into three types: individualistic, societal, and fatalistic. Conservatism correlated positively with a belief in the importance of individualistic causes, controllability, blame, and anger, and it correlated negatively with perceptions of the importance of societal causes, pity, and intentions to help. No systematic effects of the belief in a just world emerged. A structural equation analysis revealed that personal help is emotionally determined, whereas welfare judgments are directly related to attributions of responsibility and political ideology. Experiment 2 revealed a similar pattern of results using a nonstudent sample.     

Attitudes towards obesity in the Swedish general population: The role of one's own body size,weight satisfaction,and controllability beliefs about obesity

This study examined the associations of different socio-demographic and psychological factors with attitudes towards obesity. Individuals with different weight status (N = 2436) were drawn from an annual population-based survey in Sweden, and data on attitudes towards obesity (ATOP) and predictor variables were assessed in 2008. The strongest predictor of ATOP was controllability beliefs about obesity (β = 0.83). Thus, greater controllability beliefs about obesity predicted more negative attitudes. Sex and weight satisfaction were also independently associated with ATOP. However, there was no, or only a weak, association between weight satisfaction and ATOP among individuals with normal weight or overweight. And the higher the weight satisfactions of individuals with obesity, the more positive were their attitudes. It seems that stigma-reduction strategies in the general public should address the uncontrollable factors in the aetiology of obesity. However, more research is needed to understand the underlying causes of people's attitudes towards obesity.