Experiences of HIV-related discrimination and consequences for internalised stigma,depression and alcohol use

Objective: HIV stigma undermines health and well-being of people living with HIV (PLWH). Conceptual work on stigma mechanisms suggests that experiences of stigma or discrimination increase internalised stigma. However, not all PLWH may internalise the HIV discrimination they experience. We aimed to investigate the role of stress associated with events of HIV-related discrimination on internalised HIV stigma, as well as the downstream effects on depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity.

Design: 199 participants were recruited from an HIV clinic in the southeastern United States.

Main study measures: HIV-related discrimination was assessed using items adapted from measures of enacted HIV stigma and discrimination. Participants rated perceived stress associated with each discrimination item. Internalised HIV stigma was assessed using the internalised stigma subscale of the HIV Stigma Mechanisms Scale. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the Centre for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Index. Alcohol use severity was assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.

Results: In serial mediation models, HIV-related discrimination was indirectly associated with both depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity through its associations with stress and internalised HIV stigma.

Conclusions: Understanding the mechanisms through which PLWH internalise HIV stigma and lead to poor health outcomes can yield clinical foci for intervention.     

A Protected Minority? Jews and Criminal Justice: Bologna, 1370–1500

Though Jews arrived late in Bologna, they soon came to form a considerable community, numbering several hundred by the end of the fourteenth century. The existing historiography of this community is strongly characterized by ideas of inclusion and normalization of Jewish relations with Christian society. In contrast, the historiography of Jews in Renaissance Italy is heavily marked by references to their prosecution for alleged crimes. In exploring this contrast, this article examines fifty Bolognese trials involving Jews between 1370 and 1500, covering homicide, violence, theft, and sexual offenses. In order to reveal the particular character of criminal prosecutions of Jews, they are here placed in a comparative analysis with those of a similar group in the city: students.     

Youth Suicide Prevention: A Survey and Analysis of Policies and Efforts in the 50 States

State-level initiatives directed at youth suicide prevention since 1980 were analyzed. During 1992 and 1996, each governor was surveyed regarding his or her state's efforts in youth suicide prevention. Questions pertained to legislation, a mandated or recommended school-based suicide prevention curriculum, funding, a special advisory council, a state plan, the development and dissemination of materials, and assessment. Several states sent examples of their prevention activities, which were reviewed to determine the extent to which they represent conceptually and/or empirically grounded preventive intervention strategies. The number of suicides, suicide rates, and percentage change in rate for youth 15–19 years old were reported by state for the periods 1979–1981 and 1992–1994. The results of a repeated measures 2 × 5 ANOVA revealed that while changes in suicide rates over time were statistically significant, there was no relation between these changes and any of the variables studied. Suggestions for future research on state-level initiatives are presented.     

Mad King George: The Impace of Personal and Political Stress on Mental and Physical Health

Both historians and psychiatrists have tried to explain the recurrent attacks of mental and physical illness experienced by King George III of Great Britain. Although the porphyria hypothesis is widely accepted, this diagnosis assumes that the king's breakdowns were not precipitated by extreme stress. This assumption was tested using single-case historiometric methods. Biographical data were compiled to form two extensive chronologies of the monarch's life, one for stressful events and the other for pathological symptoms. From this information 22 independent judges reliably assessed fluctuations in stress (total, personal, and political) and health (total, physical, and mental) across 624 consecutive months between 1760 and 1811. The cross-correlations were then calculated for the raw, first-differenced, and prewhitened time series. A consistent tendency appeared for the king's health to deteriorate after increases in stress, most frequently with a 9-month delay. The current study demonstrates the utility of applying quantitative techniques to a psychobiographical debate hitherto examined solely by qualitative approaches.     

An Item specific Locus of Repetition Priming

Two principal types of account of repetition priming postulate either facilitation of activation of perceptual representations used in stimulus recognition, or retrieval of specific processing episodes as possible mechanisms by which the effect occurs; these make different predictions concerning the priming of two stimuli presented simultaneously. In Experiments 1-3, subjects made same/different decisions about picture-word stimulus pairs. Recombining the pairings of a subset of items between training and test encounters did not significantly reduce the benefit in response time from repetition, as compared to pairs repeated intact. Subjects were able to remember the pairings (Experiment 4), but this did not influence repetition priming. Instead, the memory representations underlying the priming of each item in a pair were independent. No priming was found between pictures seen at training and words at test, and vice versa (Experiment 5), indicating that representations underlying the repetition effect were domain-specific. In Experiment 6, stimuli were all from within the domain of object pictures. Again, recombining the pairings of items between training and test did not significantly reduce the benefit in response time from repetition, as compared to pairs repeated intact. These results reveal an item-specific locus for repetition priming, consistent with priming occurring within pre-semantic perceptual representation systems involved in item recognition. The findings pose problems for theories that argue that repetition effects result only from retrieval of entire processing episodes.     

Some boundary conditions for a word superiority effect

A word superiority effect was obtained using a fixed stimulus set, positional certainty of the critical letter, mixed trial type, and instructions to fixate the critical letter. Control experiments established that this effect was not due to lateral masking. Further experiments extended the finding of a fixed-set word superiority effect to other stimulus sets, and to lowercase and mixed-case stimuli. The mixed-case word superiority effect is inconsistent with supraletter feature models of word recognition and, instead, lends support to hierarchical codes models. It was demonstrated that an unusually wide spacing of letters can disrupt the formation of word-level codes, and that wide visual angles are not necessarily disruptive as long as normal spacing is maintained.     

GENDER ROLE AND POLITICAL OFFICE

Women are less represented in prestigious national political offices than they are in state and local offices. How this underrepresentation may be related to perceived characteristics of office and candidate are explored in the two studies described here. In Study 1, the "masculinity/femininity" of local, state, and national offices was analyzed; all levels of office were rated as more "masculine" than "feminine." In Study 2, the sex as well as the gender role of a hypothetical presidential candidate was varied. "Masculine" and male candidates were evaluated as being more competent on presidential tasks such as dealing with terrorism; "feminine" and female candidates were rated higher on tasks such as solving problems in our educational system. Men, regardless of gender role, were perceived as being more likely to win a presidential election, and "masculine" tasks were evaluated as being more important than "feminine" presidential tasks. Implications for future female politicians are discussed.