Mapping Men's Mental Health

The central theme of this paper is that men are at one and the same time both damaged and damage-doing. The process of being damaged through the agency of masculinity predisposes men to exploit, dominate and abuse—not only as boys, as partners and fathers, but as priests, teachers, therapists, lawyers, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists. Mental health services need to see both aspects of this male equation: a focus on male abuse alone leads to punishment, containment and, very likely, the continuation of abuse; a focus on male damagedness alone preserves the ideology of male unaccountability. However, evidence reviewed here suggests that most traditional psychiatric services fail to acknowledge the impact of inequalities on men's mental health as comprehensively as they fail to acknowledge the impact of these inequalities on the mental health of women. This is a significant problem, and we suggest ways that a gendered analysis of masculinity can be used to help address this deficit. This analysis is used to develop a map of men's mental health that not only accommodates traditional categories of mental health difficulty, but other important consequences of the close association between masculinity and sexuality inequality, especially the use of violence and the capacity to do harm. This analytical framework also invites consideration of the invisibility of male distress, the disallowing and desensitizing of ‘vulnerability, and their submersion in a kind of psychology of entitlement. Finally, we consider the implications of this mapping exercise for mental health services and for working with men.     

Concealability beliefs facilitate navigating intergroup contexts

Living in a diverse world requires the ability to navigate intergroup contexts. However, interacting with outgroup members can cause anxiety that leads to lower-quality interactions and avoidance of future contact. One reason people experience this anxiety is the concern that others will judge them on the basis of an identity. These concerns may be reduced among people who believe the identity is unperceivable by others. The belief that one's identity is concealable may therefore reduce intergroup anxiety and ease people's experiences in intergroup contexts. The present work tests this proposition in two studies and finds that individual differences in concealability beliefs are negatively associated with intergroup anxiety and positively associated with the propensity to initiate intergroup contact and with the quantity and quality of people's cross-group friendships. Materials, data, and code for both studies and a pre-registration for Study 2 are available online ( https://osf.io/4cjhg/ ).     

The absence of a future: the effect of past experience and current developmental conflicts on a midlife analysis

The four-year analysis of Mr. T, a highly intelligent, successful professional who entered analysis primarily because of a depression is presented; he had had no previous therapeutic experience but was very curious about analysis. The analytic work led to the discovery of a deeply held unconscious conviction of premature death that was related to interaction among the effects of a traumatic parental divorce during childhood, estrangement from both parents prior to their deaths, and signs of aging and illness in midlife. Before this analytic work the patient was unable to conceptualize, let alone plan for, late-life developmental experiences such as retirement and grandparenthood. Transference-countertransference themes are discussed, as is the importance of an understanding of midlife developmental concepts to successful analytic work with patients in this age group.     

Auditory frequency discrimination in adult developmental dyslexics

Developmental dyslexics reportedly discriminate auditory frequency poorly. A recent study found no such deficit. Unlike its predecessors, however, it employed multiple exposures per trial to the standard stimulus. To investigate whether this affects frequency discrimination in dyslexics, a traditional two-interval same-different paradigm (2I_1A_X) and a variant with six A-stimuli per trial (2I_6A_X) were used here. Frequency varied around 500 Hz; interstimulus interval (ISI) ranged between 0 and 1,000 msec. Under 2I_1A_X, dyslexics always had larger just noticeable differences (JNDs) than did controls. Dyslexic and control JNDs were equal at shorter ISIs under 2I_6A_X, but dyslexics became worse than controls at longer ISIs. Signal detection analysis suggests that both sensory variance and trace variance are larger in dyslexics than in controls.     

Interpersonal leveling,independence, and self‐enhancement: a comparison between Denmark and the US,and a relational practice framework for cultural psychology

We argue that the relational model that people use for organizing specific social interactions in any culture determines whether people self‐enhance. Self‐enhancement is not a functional consequence of the (independent or interdependent) cultural model of self. Across three studies, Danes self‐enhanced considerably less than did Americans but were more independent on the Twenty Statements Test, made more individual attributions about social life, made more autonomous scenario choices, and were more independent on the self‐construal scale. Public modesty did not account for these Danish‐American differences in self‐enhancement. However, Danes practiced interpersonal leveling, preferring equality of outcome more than did Americans. This leveling strongly and inversely predicted self‐enhancement within both cultures and mediated Danish‐American differences in self‐enhancement. In contrast, no independence measure systematically predicted self‐enhancement within both cultures nor mediated the cultural differences in self‐enhancement. This dissociation of independence and self‐enhancement demonstrates that self‐enhancing downward social comparisons are not functionally necessary for an independent concept of self. We conclude that social relationships, not the model of the self, mediate the mutual constitution of psyche and culture. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Form,matter and nominalism (or what is in a name): comments on Robert Pasnau’s “Metaphysical Themes”

Prof. Pasnau’s remarkable book offers an exciting integration of medieval and early modern philosophy. It begins, however, in mediis rebus and so downplays the role that a particularly Nominalist tradition plays in explaining the abandonment of substantial form rise of the mechanical philosophy. This paper attempts to sketch some of that role.     

Late Abrahamic reunion? Religious fundamentalism negatively predicts dual Abrahamic group categorization among Muslims and Christians

Although extensive research has documented the effectiveness of common or dual in‐groups on improving intergroup relations, little is known about how individual‐difference variables affect people's willingness to make such re‐categorizations in the first place. Here, we demonstrate that individual differences in religious fundamentalism predict willingness to categorize in terms of the common Abrahamic religious origins of Christianity and Islam among Christians and Muslims. Study 1 (n = 243 Christians, 291 Muslims) uses multigroup structural equation modeling and Study 2 (n = 80 Christians) an experimental manipulation to show that religious fundamentalism causes lower dual Abrahamic categorization, which, in turn, predicts more positive attitudes toward the respective out‐group, mediating the negative effects of religious fundamentalism on religious intergroup bias. While making the general case that individual differences may play important roles for dual categorizations, these results also highlight the specific positive potential of dual ecumenical categorizations for improving interreligious relations. Research and societal implications are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring implicit intergroup biases

Implicit intergroup biases are automatically activated prejudices and stereotypes that may influence judgments of others on the basis of group membership. We review evidence on the measurement of implicit intergroup biases, finding: implicit intergroup biases reflect the personal and the cultural, implicit measures vary in reliability and validity, and implicit measures vary greatly in their prediction of explicit and behavioral outcomes due to theoretical and methodological moderators. We then discuss three challenges to the application of implicit intergroup biases to real‐world problems: (1) a lack of research on social groups of scientific and public interest, (2) developing implicit measures with diagnostic capabilities, and (3) resolving ongoing ambiguities in the relationship between implicit bias and behavior. Making progress on these issues will clarify the role of implicit intergroup biases in perpetuating inequality.     

What characterizes life story memories? A diary study of Freshmen’s first term

We investigated whether memories are selected for the life story based on event characteristics. Sixty-one students completed weekly diaries over their first term at university. They described, dated and rated two events each week. Three months after the end of the term they completed an unexpected memory test. They recalled three memories from the diary period that were important to their life story. Three randomly selected events scoring low on importance to the life story functioned as control memories. Life story memories were rated higher on goal relevance, emotional intensity, importance and rehearsal in the diary and maintained their higher ratings at the test session, while ratings for control memories dropped off. Life story memories' content was less consistent over time but they were more accurately dated than control memories. The results suggest that event characteristics play an important role for the selection of life story memories.