Managing a stigmatized identity—evidence from a longitudinal analysis about people with mental illness

Previous research about coping with the stigma of mental illness mostly relied on cross‐sectional or qualitative research designs. In the present study, the consequences of ten identity management strategies for mental illness stigma were observed in a longitudinal design. Cross‐lagged analyses were used to describe the influence of the strategies on the frequency of stigma experiences and on mental health in a two‐wave panel of people with mental illness (n = 367, 79% repeated response rate). Selective disclosure and information seeking emerged as adaptive identity management strategies, whereas overcompensation and withdrawal led to lower mental health. Results were mostly unaffected by demographic and psychiatric variables. The results support an empowerment model of stigma resilience that portrays stigmatized people as active constructors of their social world.     

Improving comprehension and communication of risks about health

Many patients have severe difficulties grasping several numerical concepts that are related to their health, such as, for instance, the risk of suffering various diseases. Visual aids have been proposed as a promising method for enhancing risk communication and comprehension. In medical practice, however, not all patients benefit from visual aids. In a study conducted on a probabilistic, representative national sample in the United States, we identified a group of patients for whom visual aids are most useful: Those who have low numeracy but high graphical literacy skills. These patients have high scores in three abilities involved in graph comprehension: (1) the ability to read the data, (2) the ability to read the relations between the data, and (3) the ability to read beyond the data. Our results can have important implications for medical practice and for risk communication about health.     

How (far) can rationality be naturalized?

The paper shows why and how an empirical study of fast-and-frugal heuristics can provide norms of good reasoning, and thus how (and how far) rationality can be naturalized. We explain the heuristics that humans often rely on in solving problems, for example, choosing investment strategies or apartments, placing bets in sports, or making library searches. We then show that heuristics can lead to judgments that are as accurate as or even more accurate than strategies that use more information and computation, including optimization methods. A standard way to defend the use of heuristics is by reference to accuracy-effort trade-offs. We take a different route, emphasizing ecological rationality (the relationship between cognitive heuristics and environment), and argue that in uncertain environments, more information and computation are not always better (the ??less-can-be-more?? doctrine). The resulting naturalism about rationality is thus normative because it not only describes what heuristics people use, but also in which specific environments one should rely on a heuristic in order to make better inferences. While we desist from claiming that the scope of ecological rationality is unlimited, we think it is of wide practical use.     

Opfer-überzeugungen

The public interest in ??new?? clinical symptoms is described exemplified by burnout, mobbing and trauma. In the background self-explanations by patients as well as interests of therapists can be recognized. Both can be understood as an expression of subconsciously reflected contemporary convictions. Post-traumatic stress syndrome and the sequelae of abuse, which are probably diagnosed too often in guideline correct psychotherapy, throw up questions on the appropriate therapy and possible injurious side effects. The social background to the psychotherapeutic fascination with trauma will be discussed.     

The hot hand exists in volleyball and is used for allocation decisions

The "hot hand" belief in sports refers to the conviction that a player has a higher chance of making a shot after two or three successful shots than after two or three misses (resulting in "streaks"). This belief is usually considered a cognitive fallacy, although it has been conjectured that in basketball the defense will attack a "hot" player and prevent streaks from occurring. To address this argument, we provide the first study on the hot hand in volleyball, where the net limits direct defensive counterstrategies, meaning that streaks can more likely emerge if a player is hot. We first establish that athletes believe in the hot hand in volleyball (Study 1A). Analyzing the top 26 first-division players, we then show that streaks do exist for half of the players (Study 1B). Coaches can detect players' performance variability and use it to make strategic decisions (Study 2A). Playmakers are also sensitive to streaks and rely on them when deciding to whom to allocate the ball (Study 2B). We conclude that for volleyball the hot hand exists, coaches and playmakers are able to detect it, and playmakers tend to use it "adaptively," which results in more hits for a team.     

The Janus face in group psychotherapy

Combined therapy offers the practitioner a rich data field for observation and research. Seeing the same patient in the group and in individual analytic therapy raises certain questions such as how differently does the patient present him- or herself, what does the difference or lack of difference mean, and is it prognostically meaningful. Based on ego theory, the author hypothesized that different therapeutic environments ought to evoke different levels of response. This adaptive quality was thought to be prognostically significant and indicative of a greater possibility for structural change. A small clinical sample showed a tendency in that direction.