Representations of Mental Health Among Middle‐Aged Urban Chinese Men

Little is understood by the ideas that urban Chinese population holds about mental health. Insufficient research and recognition of mental illnesses, and a dearth of social resources for mental health support and promotion limit understandings of how daily life stresses restrict the quality of life of China's urban population. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 15 middle‐age urban men, we map out men's accounts of how they battle to cope with the demands of everyday social, political, and familial pressures. The study reveals that the representations of mental health are shaped by notions of control over emotions, adherence to Confucian philosophy, familial obligations, and the need to demonstrate social obedience and conformity. Data also suggest that the participants represent stable family support along with healthy social interactions as important enabling factors of positive mental health, whereas pressures of modernity are regarded as significant disruptive factors in mental health. The theory of social representations guides the process as well as analytic interpretations of this research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Studying Technology and Ecclesiology in Online Multi-Site Worship

This study brings together research approaches from media studies and practical theology in order to study and understand the relationship between online technological features of multi-site worship and the larger offline worshipping community to which it is connected. From the perspective of media studies we reflect on how new media technologies and cultures are allowed to shape online worship spaces and how larger institutional traditions and structures are allowed to shape technologically mediated church events. From the perspective of practical theology we use the notion of inculturation as a lens for a better understanding of the specific ways in which Christian worship practices adapt, change, and respond to the new cultural setting which emerges from the online worship context. Together, these approaches illuminate the interplay between digital technology and ecclesiological tradition in shaping multi-site church worship practices.     

Antipsychotic dose modulates behavioral and neural responses to feedback during reinforcement learning in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is characterized by an abnormal dopamine system, and dopamine blockade is the primary mechanism of antipsychotic treatment. Consistent with the known role of dopamine in reward processing, prior research has demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia exhibit impairments in reward-based learning. However, it remains unknown how treatment with antipsychotic medication impacts the behavioral and neural signatures of reinforcement learning in schizophrenia. The goal of this study was to examine whether antipsychotic medication modulates behavioral and neural responses to prediction error coding during reinforcement learning. Patients with schizophrenia completed a reinforcement learning task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The task consisted of two separate conditions in which participants accumulated monetary gain or avoided monetary loss. Behavioral results indicated that antipsychotic medication dose was associated with altered behavioral approaches to learning, such that patients taking higher doses of medication showed increased sensitivity to negative reinforcement. Higher doses of antipsychotic medication were also associated with higher learning rates (LRs), suggesting that medication enhanced sensitivity to trial-by-trial feedback. Neuroimaging data demonstrated that antipsychotic dose was related to differences in neural signatures of feedback prediction error during the loss condition. Specifically, patients taking higher doses of medication showed attenuated prediction error responses in the striatum and the medial prefrontal cortex. These findings indicate that antipsychotic medication treatment may influence motivational processes in patients with schizophrenia.     

“Satan Has Afflicted Me!” Jinn-Possession and Mental Illness in the Qur’an

Mental health stigma in Muslim communities may be partly due to a commonly held belief among some Muslims about the supernatural causes of mental illness (i.e. jinn-possession brought on by one’s sinful life). A thematic analysis was carried out on four English translations and the Arabic text of the Qur’an to explore whether the connection between jinn-possession and insanity exists within the Muslim holy book. No connection between spirit-possession and madness or mental illness was found. Pagans taunted and labelled people as jinn-possessed only to ostracize and scapegoat. Linking the labelling of people as jinn-possession to a pagan practice may be used to educate Muslims, so they can reassess their community’s stigma towards the mentally ill.     

The composition of reasons

How do reasons combine? How is it that several reasons taken together can have a combined weight which exceeds the weight of any one alone? I propose an answer in mereological terms: reasons combine by composing a further, complex reason of which they are parts. Their combined weight is the weight of their combination. I develop a mereological framework, and use this to investigate some structural views about reasons. Two of these views I call “Atomism” and “Wholism”. Atomism is the view that atomic reasons are fundamental: all reasons reduce to atomic reasons. Wholism is the view that whole reasons are fundamental. I argue for Wholism, and against Atomism. I also consider whether reasons might be “context-sensitive”.     

The effects of intertrial interval and instructional format on skill acquisition and maintenance for children with autism spectrum disorders

We replicated and extended the study by Koegel, Dunlap, and Dyer (1980) by examining the effects of 3 intertrial‐interval (ITI) durations on skill acquisition in 2 children with autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, we compared the effect of short (2 s), progressive (2 s to 20 s), and long (20 s) ITIs on participants’ mastery of tacts or intraverbals presented in massed‐trial and varied‐trial instructional formats. We also measured (a) stereotypic and problem behavior during the ITI, (b) maintenance of skills, and (c) responding to novel adults and settings. Results showed that short ITIs in a varied‐trial format produced the most efficient acquisition of skills; however, most ITI durations produced more efficient skill acquisition in a varied format compared to a massed format. The trial format and ITI duration associated with the lowest levels of stereotypic and problem behavior during the ITI and responding during maintenance and novel adult and setting probes differed across participants.     

Still standing out: children's names in the United States during the Great Recession and correlations with economic indicators

Continuing a long‐standing trend in the U.S. Social Security Administration database of first names (N = 358 million), American parents were less likely to choose common names for their children between 2004 and 2015, including the years of the Great Recession (2008–2010). These trends were similar in California (severely affected by the recession) and Texas (less affected). Over a longer time period (1901–2015), cyclical economic indicators were either not correlated with common names (e.g., stock market performance) or worse economic times predicted fewer common names. The results are consistent with increasing individualism, with limited support for the idea that economic threat leads people to embrace uniqueness and no real support for the idea that economic deprivation leads to more communal name choices.     

Effects of a violation of an expected increase or decrease in intensity on detection of change within an auditory pattern

An infrequent physical increase in the intensity of an auditory stimulus relative to an already loud frequently occurring “standard” is processed differently than an equally perceptible physical decrease in intensity. This may be because a physical increment results in increased activation in two different systems, a transient and a change detector system (signalling detection of an increase in transient energy and a change from the past, respectively). By contrast, a decrease in intensity results in increased activation in only the change detector system. The major question asked by the present study was whether a psychological (rather than a physical) increment would continue to be processed differently than a psychological decrement when both stimuli activated only the change detector system. Participants were presented with a sequence of 1000 Hz tones that followed a standard rule-based alternating high-low intensity pattern (LHLHLH). They were asked to watch a silent video and thus ignore the auditory stimuli. A rare “deviant” was created by repeating one of the stimuli (e.g., LHLHLLLH. The repetition of the high intensity stimulus thus acted as a relative, psychological increment compared to what the rule would have predicted (the low intensity); the repetition of the low intensity stimulus acted as a relative, psychological decrement compared to what the rule would have predicted (the high intensity). In different conditions, the intensity difference between the low and high intensity tones was either 3, 9 or 27 dB. A large MMN was elicited only when the separation between the low and high intensities was 27 dB. Importantly, this MMN peaked significantly earlier and its amplitude was significantly larger following presentation of the psychological increment. Thus, a deviant representing an increment in intensity relative to what would be predicted by the auditory past is processed differently than a deviant representing a decrement, even when activation of the transient detector system is controlled. The psychological increment did not however elicit a later positivity, the P3a, often thought to reflect the interruption of the central executive and a forced switching of attention.     

Remembering all that and then some: recollection of autobiographical memories after a 1-year delay

We have previously shown that repeated retrievals of remote autobiographical memories over the course of one month led to an overall increase in reported detail (Nadel, Campbell, & Ryan, 2007). The current study examined the retrieval of those same memories 1 year later in order to determine whether the level of detail remained stable or whether the memories returned to their original state. Participants reported even more details than they had recalled at least 1 year earlier, including new details that were reported for the first time. This finding was consistent across both multiple and single retrieval conditions, suggesting that the critical factor leading to the increase in recall was the passage of time. These findings provide evidence for long-term effects of repeated retrieval on memory content.