Using Force: Australian Newspaper Depictions of Contacts Between the Police and Persons Experiencing Mental Illness

The media creates and sustains knowledge about socially relevant issues such as crime, mental illness, and policing. Past research suggests that while the media portrayal of the police is undoubtedly complex, their portrayal of people experiencing mental illness remains mainly negative. The depiction of their encounters in the mass media is of considerable interest because of the influential role the media has on public opinion and debate; however, there is a lack of current research in this area. This study aimed to examine media items in the major newspapers across Australia between January 2006 and December 2007 (n = 77) to investigate their portrayal of this interface. The dominant themes encountered in the initial analysis depicted people experiencing mental illness as dangerous and a threat to the public, where the mental health system has failed to manage them adequately. Further analyses found that people experiencing mental illness were stigmatised in a third of the media items reviewed and were represented significantly more negatively in these encounters than the police. Implications of these findings and some suggestions regarding possible strategies that could improve socially responsible media reporting and public discourse on mental illness are proposed.     

Social deviance activates the brain’s error-monitoring system

Social psychologists have long noted the tendency for human behavior to conform to social group norms. This study examined whether feedback indicating that participants had deviated from group norms would elicit a neural signal previously shown to be elicited by errors and monetary losses. While electroencephalograms were recorded, participants (N = 30) rated the attractiveness of 120 faces and received feedback giving the purported average rating made by a group of peers. The feedback was manipulated so that group ratings either were the same as a participant’s rating or deviated by 1, 2, or 3 points. Feedback indicating deviance from the group norm elicited a feedback-related negativity, a brainwave signal known to be elicited by objective performance errors and losses. The results imply that the brain treats deviance from social norms as an error.     

The Traditional Explanation for Resistance Versus Attitude Accessibility

This investigation compared the traditional explanation for the way inoculation confers resistance to influence with an alternative rationale for resistance based on attitude accessibility. Four hundred forty‐three participants took part in the investigation in four phases spanning 54 days. The combined multiple regression and structural equation modeling results suggest that the traditional and alternative explanations for the way that inoculation confers resistance involve separate processes; counterarguing and accessibility appear to be distinct tracks en route to resistance, but the two explanations also are overlapping processes in which elicited threat plays an integral role.     

The psychoanalytic view of phobias. Part IV: General theory of phobias and anxiety.

This is the final part of the work on the psychoanalytic view of phobias. Here we consider general views of phobias, developments and issues in the psychoanalytic theory of anxiety, as it relates to phobias, and take up aspects of some broader theoretical issues, including nosology.     

Objects and attitudes

The concept of an attitudinal object has long been present in psychoanalysis but almost entirely neglected. This omission is integral in the confusion and controversy about the object concept in general. It has left a theoretical gap which the so-called object relations theories have attempted to fill. This paper offers some preliminary suggestions for a psychoanalytic understanding of attitudes as a first level of inference in the study of relationships and their psychological basis.     

The development of the drive object concept in Freud's work: 1905-1915

In 1905 Freud established the idea of an object of an instinctual drive as the basic object concept of psychoanalysis. He also introduced the derivative concepts of object directedness, object choice, and object finding. While taking these steps he simultaneously deemphasized the importance of drive objects in sexual life, contradicted himself on whether drives are autoerotic or object-directed in infancy, and made incompatible statements about whether or not object choice occurs before puberty. Freud's clinical work, reflected especially in the major case reports and a series of papers on fantasy, led to an apparent recognition of complexity in the mental life of children far greater than had been described earlier. The increased attention to and appreciation of mental content in childhood especially augmented Freud's understanding of the role of drive objects, object directedness, and object choice in infancy. This, in turn, led him to postulate a sequence of organizations of sexual life, named according to the zonal drive source plus the mode of object directedness, a process of theory development that continued through 1924. Object choice and, to a lesser extent, object directedness are concepts derived from and dependent upon the concept of drive object. Both require, however, explanatory constructs besides drive constructs. In 1915 Freud defined the term "object" in the context of stating his drive theory. Freud used the term object with several new modifying words during this decade. No new object concept was introduced, however, in this work, although some steps in that direction appeared to be in progress.     

Toward a Tripartite Factor Structure of Mental Health: Subjective Well-Being,Personal Growth,and Religiosity

According to recent research findings, the domain of psychological well-being may be represented by 2 basic factors: subjective well-being (e.g., happiness, life satisfaction) and personal growth (e.g., self-actualization, a sense of meaningfulness). This study tested the hypothesis that in addition to those 2 factors, a 3rd basic factor is necessary to adequately describe the ways in which people search for well-being. That factor is a type of religiosity that is based on other-centeredness and self-renunciation. A sample of 242 undergraduate and graduate students completed 10 measures of psychological well-being that resulted in 21 scales and subscales. Principal components analyses provided initial support for a tripartite model of psychological well-being. Results also suggested that current measures of personal growth may measure either the autonomy or mature social relationships components of the construct.     

Stress regulation and cognitive control: evidence relating cortisol reactivity and neural responses to errors

In this study, we tested the relationship between error-related signals of cognitive control and cortisol reactivity, investigating the hypothesis of common systems for cognitive and emotional self-regulation. Eighty-three participants completed a Stroop task while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Three error-related indices were derived from the EEG: the error-related negativity (ERN), error positivity (Pe), and error-related alpha suppression (ERAS). Pre- and posttask salivary samples were assayed for cortisol, and cortisol change scores were correlated with the EEG variables. Better error–correct differentiation in the ERN predicted less cortisol increase during the task, whereas greater ERAS predicted greater cortisol increase during the task; the Pe was not correlated with cortisol changes. We concluded that an enhanced ERN, part of an adaptive cognitive control system, predicts successful stress regulation. In contrast, an enhanced ERAS response may reflect error-related arousal that is not adaptive. The results support the concept of overlapping systems for cognitive and emotional self-regulation.