Caring for Someone with Depression: Attitudes and Clinical Practices of Australian Mental Health Workers

Many people who support a person with depression report struggling with the carer role and being dissatisfied with the inclusivity and lack of support provided by clinicians. However, little is known about what influences the support provided to Australian carers of people with depression. To investigate this, 119 Australian mental health workers completed a self‐report questionnaire to gather information on their attitudes towards, barriers experienced and current clinical practices when working with carers of people with depression. Participants' attitudes towards family members and carers were generally positive. Reported inclusive clinical practices varied. Participants identified a number of barriers to inclusive practice that were predominantly organisational in nature. Participants who perceived more barriers reported providing more clinical interventions. Attitudes and barriers were associated with the inclusive clinical practice of participants who worked with mental health consumers, but not participants who worked with family members and carers. Even among this sample of self‐selecting clinicians, there was room for significant improvement in rates of carer inclusive practice. Further research should explore not only what inhibits but also what enables the participation of family members and carers in the care and treatment process for people with depression.     

Let’s be healthy together: Relational motivation for physical health is more effective for women

Four studies examined the role of relationally-autonomous reasons in health behavior (RARHs) and how gender moderates their association with health outcomes. Study 1 (n = 160) involved the development of a measure of RARHs. The results of a factor analysis distinguished RARHs from other types of health reasons. In Study 2, participants (n = 284) completed a survey assessing their relational reasons prior to taking assessments of their body composition and fitness level. In Study 3, participants (n = 577) completed an online survey assessing RARHs, self-construal and health behaviors. The results of Studies 2 and 3 showed that RARHs positively predicted healthy outcomes for females only. In Study 4, participants (n = 72) were asked to complete an online survey, attend an orientation session, keep track of their exercise and nutrition over the course of a week, and attend a follow-up session. The results revealed that having an exercise partner was positively associated with RARHs, and that this in turn predicted reported effort and progress outcomes at the follow-up session for females only. Implications for theories of motivation and gender differences are discussed.     

Suicide by cop in film and society: dangerousness, depression, and justice

Provoking police officers to kill oneself or "suicide by cop" (SBC) has received scholarly as well as public attention. The extent to which film representations of SBC reflect SBC in society in relation to danger, depression, and other features was assessed in this study. Data on cinematic portrayals of SBC are from 16 American films; corresponding data on SBC in the real world are taken from 19 empirical studies. While the demographic features of SBC in the real world are largely reflected in film, major differences exist on motivations and incident characteristics. Motives for cinematic SBC were unlike SBC in society, wherein, respectively, 0% vs. 35% had attempted suicide in the past, 6% vs. 47% were chronically depressed, and 77% vs. 7% had recently killed someone. Cinematic SBC events disproportionately involve murderous, dangerous persons who are not depressed, and their deaths convey a sense of justice. While such media distortions can be profitable and entertain the audience, they also contribute to public misunderstandings of the nature of deviance and hinder the development of effective suicide and violence prevention programs.     

Secondary transfer effects of interracial contact: the moderating role of social status

The contact hypothesis asserts that intergroup attitudes can be improved when groups have opportunities to interact with each other. Recent research extending the contact hypothesis suggests that contact with a primary outgroup can decrease bias toward outgroups not directly involved in the interaction, which is known as the secondary transfer effect (STE). The present study contributes to growing research on STEs by investigating effects among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White undergraduate students (N = 3,098) attending 28 selective colleges and universities. Using hierarchical linear modeling, our results reveal numerous positive STEs among Asian, Black, and Hispanic college students. No significant STEs were observed among White students. Mediated moderation analyses support an attitude generalization mechanism, because STEs were explained by changes in attitudes toward the primary outgroup. This research speaks to equivocal findings in the extant STE literature and highlights directions for future research on social cohesion and bias reduction.     

Gender Differences in Body Size Dissatisfaction Among Individuals With Low,Medium, or High Levels of Body Focus

The authors designed the present study to test whether women reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction than did men even when the 2 genders were matched on a measure of degree of body focus. Sixty undergraduates (30 men, 30 women) were screened on attention-to-body-shape scores and divided into high, medium, and low body-shape-focus groups. The participants also completed questionnaires that provided information on age, education, vocabulary ability, levels of depression, and body-image assessment. The groups did not differ (ps > .05) on age, education, vocabulary ability, or levels of depression. However, women in all 3 body-shape-focus categories indicated a larger discrepancy between their real vs. ideal body images (p < .01) than did the men. In the high-body-focus group, there was an 11:1 ratio between women's and men's reported real-ideal body-shape discrepancies. Women showed greater body dissatisfaction than did men, even when the genders were matched on a measure of body focus.     

Gut or Game? The Influence of Moral Intuitions on Decisions in Video Games

Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.     

Action mechanisms for social cognition: behavioral and neural correlates of developing Theory of Mind

Many psychological theories posit foundational links between two fundamental constructs: (1) our ability to produce, perceive, and represent action; and (2) our ability to understand the meaning and motivation behind the action (i.e. Theory of Mind; ToM). This position is contentious, however, and long‐standing competing theories of social‐cognitive development debate roles for basic action‐processing in ToM. Developmental research is key to investigating these hypotheses, but whether individual differences in neural and behavioral measures of motor action relate to social‐cognitive development is unknown. We examined 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children's (N = 26) EEG mu‐desynchronization during production of object‐directed action, and explored associations between mu‐desynchronization and children's behavioral motor skills, behavioral action‐representation abilities, and behavioral ToM. For children with high (but not low) mu‐desynchronization, motor skill related to action‐representation abilities, and action‐representation mediated relations between motor skill and ToM. Results demonstrate novel foundational links between action‐processing and ToM, suggesting that basic motor action may be a key mechanism for social‐cognitive development, thus shedding light on the origins and emergence of higher social cognition.     

Respecting the LDS/Mormon Minority on Campus: College Students’ Attitudes Toward Latter‐Day Saints

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐Day Saints remain a minoritized and marginalized population in the United States at large, a pattern mirrored on the majority of college and university campuses across the United States. This study addresses how social identities, institutional contexts, and intergroup dynamics within the postsecondary education environment contribute to cultivating college students’ attitudes toward LDS/Mormons and Mormonism. Using data collected from 13,584 college students attending 52 institutions across the country, the study employs multilevel modeling to examine these relationships. The analyses highlight the importance of productive interreligious contact in a supportive institutional context for shaping out‐group attitudes. Affirming the interplay between social identity and intergroup contact, effects on out‐group attitudes vary to some extent by religion/worldview. Implications for research and practice are discussed.