Expressed emotion and sociocultural moderation in the course of schizophrenia

This study examined whether the sociocultural context moderates the relationship between families' expressed emotion (EE) and clinical outcomes in schizophrenia. In a sample of 60 Mexican American caregivers and their ill relatives, we first assessed whether EE and its indices (criticism, emotional overinvolvement [EOI], and warmth) related to relapse. Second, we extended the analysis of EE and its indices to a longitudinal assessment of symptomatology. Last, we tested whether bidimensional acculturation moderated the relationship between EE (and its indices) and both relapse and symptom trajectory over time. Results indicated that EOI was associated with increased relapse and that criticism was associated with increased symptomatology. Additionally, as patients' Mexican enculturation (Spanish language and media involvement) decreased, EE was increasingly related to relapse. For symptomatology, as patients' U.S. acculturation (English language and media involvement) increased, EE was associated with increased symptoms longitudinally. Our results replicate and extend past research on how culture might shape the way family factors relate to the course of schizophrenia.     

An exploratory examination of the associations among racial and ethnic discrimination, racial climate, and trauma-related symptoms in a college student population

In this study, we examined the association among perceptions of racial and/or ethnic discrimination, racial climate, and trauma-related symptoms among 289 racially diverse college undergraduates. Study measures included the Perceived Stress Scale, the Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version, and the Racial Climate Scale. Results of a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that Asian and Black students reported more frequent experiences of discrimination than did White students. Additionally, the MANOVA indicated that Black students perceived the campus racial climate as being more negative than did White and Asian students. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that when controlling for generic life stress, perceptions of discrimination contributed an additional 10% of variance in trauma-related symptoms for Black students, and racial climate contributed an additional 7% of variance in trauma symptoms for Asian students.     

The medium or the message? Communication relevance and richness in trust games

Subjects communicated prior to playing trust games; the richness of the communication media and the topics of conversation were manipulated. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments. However, the topics of conversation made a significant difference: the amounts sent were considerably higher in the unrestricted communication conditions than in the restricted communication and no-communication conditions. Most importantly, we find that first-movers’ expectations of second-movers’ reciprocation are influenced by communication and strongly predict their levels of investment.     

Aesthetics and Affect: Engaging Energy Communities

ABSTRACT

Engaging publics in participatory events has become a central means to introducing lay people's voices into processes of technoscientific innovation and governance. However, little attention has been paid to the role of aesthetics, especially in terms of opening up potential ways of critically and creatively engaging with technoscientific matters of concern. The terms semblamatic and matters of potentially are proposed as addressing this dimension of aesthetics. Drawing on practice-based design research, a probe workshop with members of energy communities was implemented. Three probe exercises served to open up potential re-articulations of such core themes as energy, communities and futures. Our goals were to examine the whether such probes enabled semblamatic responses and the emergence of matters of potentiality. Findings were mixed. The continued retention of standard meanings of these core themes suggested that such events can be anaesthetic, blunting access to the semblamatic aspects of engagement. Conversely, there was some opening up in which the core themes were creatively re-articulated. The present perspective, with its three novel terms - semblamatic, matters of potentiality, and anaesthetic - might prove useful in alerting scholars to the complex role of aesthetics in the methodological and analytic practices entailed in engagement with publics.     

Influence of properties of layered silicate minerals on adsorbed DNA surface affinity,self-assembly and nanopatterning

We report on the specific interaction between DNA and some mica-family minerals and other layered silicate structures. The interaction depends on mineral surface's crystallography, chemistry and potential. These properties are responsible for a remarkable variety of adsorption mechanisms and can be used to modulate surface self-assembly and nanopatterning of DNA. The controlled deposition of DNA onto non-conductive mineral regions with atomically flat boundaries has very attractive applications in nano-biotechnology (for example, microelectronics, microarrays and sensors). In addition, the extreme affinity discovered for some mineral surfaces, together with their ability to organize the DNA molecules, could be an indication of their catalytic potential. It may also have had relevance in the prebiotic environment, with important implications for the earth and life sciences.     

Do Undergraduate Student Research Participants Read Psychological Research Consent Forms? Examining Memory Effects,Condition Effects,and Individual Differences

Although research has examined factors influencing understanding of informed consent in biomedical and forensic research, less is known about participants' attention to details in consent documents in psychological survey research. The present study used a randomized experimental design and found the majority of participants were unable to recall information from the consent form in both in-person and online formats. Participants were also relatively poor at recognizing important aspects of the consent form including risks to participants and confidentiality procedures. Memory effects and individual difference characteristics also appeared to influence recall and recognition of consent form information.     

Social Networking Sites: Mediating the Self and its Communities

What do social networking sites reveal about the relation between the self and the community? We conceptualise social networking sites as technologies of the self and the community enabling individuals to self‐present and also objectifying the community's evaluation of individuals (through ‘structures of recognition’ such as page views, friends and lovehearts). We analyse the way in which 37 Scottish adolescents used the social networking site Bebo in nonprescribed and creative ways. First, they challenged the single authorship of profiles by co‐creating multi‐authored profiles. Second, they used creative language to obscure meaning from the preying eyes of parents, teachers and potential employers. We conclude by discussing the simplistic assumptions that Bebo makes about the relation between the self and the community. In contrast, newer social networking sites such as Facebook and Google+ are increasingly enabling people to present different facets of themselves to different communities. How people use social networking sites, and how these sites are developing to attract more users, reveals how the multiplicity of human identity is related to the multiple communities that people participate in. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Religious Coping and Quality of Life Among Severely Ill Lung Patients in a Secular Society

This survey study investigated the prevalence of religious beliefs and religious coping and possible associations between religious factors and quality of life (QoL) among a group of severely ill lung patients (lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in Denmark (N = 111). Almost two thirds (64.8%) reported having some belief in God and/or a spiritual power. Patients who reported believing in God and patients who believed in God and a spiritual power reported better QoL than patients who reported that they believed in a spiritual power only. Religious coping was prevalent; for positive religious coping strategies, those used from least to most often, respectively, were invoked 15% to 37% of the time; for negative religious coping strategies the percentages were 3% to 16%. Negative religious coping was associated with lower QoL (β = ?0.320, p < .006), whereas no associations were found between positive religious coping and QoL. Results are discussed in relation to the cultural context of secularized societies like the Scandinavian countries.