An internet survey of emotional health,treatment seeking and barriers to accessing mental health treatment among Chinese-speaking international students in Australia

The present internet survey examined the demographic characteristics of Chinese-speaking international students in Australia, psychological distress levels as measured by the Kessler-10 (K-10) Item scale, help-seeking history and preferences, as well as treatment barriers. Of the 144 respondents, 54% reported high psychological distress (mean K-10 score?=?23.96; SD?=?9.03). However, only 9% of those who were highly distressed reported they had sought mental health services in the past year. While the majority preferred help from informal social networks, they tended to favour mental health services over traditional culture-specific forms of help. Common barriers to accessing mental health services reported by respondents with high psychological distress included costs or transportation concerns, limited knowledge of available services, time constraints, the perception that symptoms were not severe enough to warrant treatment, language difficulties and lack of knowledge of symptoms of psychological distress. Although the majority preferred face-to-face treatments over internet treatments, a considerable percentage of respondents were willing to try either treatment modality. Chinese-speaking international students are a high risk group for developing psychological distress, yet they tend to underuse mental health services. Education about the effectiveness of face-to-face and online treatments may increase treatment seeking by this population.     

Did Somebody See It? Applying the Verifiability Approach to Insurance Claim Interviews

We examined the application of the verifiability approach to insurance claim interviews. The verifiability approach states that truth tellers and liars differ from each other in terms of the number of details they give that can be verified. Eighty‐three true and false insurance claim statements, related to damage, theft, or loss, were coded in terms of ‘witnesses’ (was the incident witnessed by others) and ‘verifiability’ (the number of perceptual and contextual details provided that could be checked by the investigator). We found that the majority of liars, compared with half the truth tellers, described unwitnessed incidents. This difference between the groups allowed for the detection of liars only. Discrimination between liars and truth tellers based on the verifiability of details was not possible. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parasocial Relationships with Media Personae: Why They Matter and How They Differ Among Heterosexual,Lesbian, Gay,and Bisexual Adolescents

Parasocial relationships are social bonds audiences develop with media personae. Parasocial relationships may be particularly meaningful for those who experience obstacles developing real-life social bonds. The objective of this study was to examine parasocial relationships among a relationally vulnerable population by surveying lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adolescents (n = 106). Heterosexual adolescents (n = 321) were surveyed for comparison purposes. Results suggest that LGB adolescents have more other-gender favorite media personae than heterosexual male adolescents. LGB adolescents were more likely to select LGB media personae as their favorites, particularly if they lacked real-life LGB friends. Repeated media exposure, perceived similarity, and attraction were positively correlated with parasocial relationship strength for all adolescents, but loneliness contributed to parasocial relationship strength for LGB adolescents only. LGB adolescents were more likely to report their favorite media personae as important sources of information on a range of issues related to socialization. Though previous research suggests that parasocial relationships supplement real-life social relationships, parasocial relationships may be compensatory for LGB adolescents attempting to fill a relational void left by the absence of real-life LGB peers. Scholars must better dissect parasocial relationships with media characters when considering media’s influence on special populations like LGB adolescents.     

Moral (dis)engagement with anthropogenic climate change in online comments on newspaper articles

Anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is widely acknowledged to be morally significant, but little is known about everyday moralising around ACC. We addressed this gap via quantified thematic analysis of 300 online comments to British newspaper articles on ACC, drawing on Bandura's moral disengagement theory. Moral disengagement through denial of ACC was widespread. Other disengagement strategies, such as palliative comparison and diminishing agency, occurred less often. There was also some moral engagement, most often through assertions of the existence of ACC and/or its harmful effects. Moral disengagement was significantly more common in comments on right wing than left wing newspapers, whereas the opposite was true of moral engagement. Although Bandura's framework provided a useful starting point to make sense of ACC moralising, it did not capture moral concerns that extended beyond its “harm/care” remit. In particular, many “denial” comments included a “dishonesty” discourse, whereby ACC proponents were accused of deception for ulterior motives. To classify this discourse as moral disengagement obscures its engagement with a different set of moral issues around trust and honesty. We suggest that Bandura's theory represents one possible “moral landscape” around ACC and could be extended to encompass a broader range of moral concerns.     

Hybridized Indigenous Healing in the Kyrgyz Republic: Helping Survivors of Violence

ABSTRACT

Harmful consequences of civil unrest in 2010, in the Southern region of the Kyrgyz Republic in Osh, continue to have an impact on communities to the present day. One of the most significant effects has been numerous undiagnosed cases of rape and other types of gender-based violence (GBV) that occurred during the interethnic conflict. The true prevalence rate of GBV cases is still unknown. For example, according to official data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (2011), there were only seven cases of rape during the conflict; however, crisis center reports documented 322 rapes (Molchanova, 2016 Molchanova, E. (2016). Okazanie psihologicheskoi pomoshci licam, postradavshim ot genderno-gonasiliya vo vremya krizisov i chrezvichainih situacii. Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic: AltynPrint Publishing House.  [Google Scholar]). Cultural norms dictate that women who experience GBV hide their “shame,” which is why only a small percentage of victims with PTSD symptoms resulting from GBV seek out services from professionals, such as from crisis centers, psychologists and psychiatrists, and police. Indigenous healers are often the first and only stop for help-seeking. However, the influences of diverse religious beliefs and practices as well as the development of Western-style helping methods in the Kyrgyz Republic have shaped the practice of traditional healing. This hybridization, which is a process of including religious and even medical practices into traditional healing, started in the middle of the 1990s, and now, the extensive networks of traditional healers in the Kyrgyz Republic often combine traditional rituals with Islamic prayer, herbal treatment, massage, and other techniques. This article explores the hybridization of indigenous healing in the Kyrgyz Republic as a consequence of a variety of social transformations, and, as a result of polymorphism, the complexity and clinical variability of posttraumatic symptoms in Kyrgyz cultural settings.     

Fluctuating confidence: the dynamic consequences of true/false affirmatives and denials on how a listener appraises their personal past

The present study examined the mnemonic consequences of true/false denials and affirmatives on how a listener appraises their personal past. To this end, participants (listeners) rated the extent to which they were confident certain events occurred during their childhood. They rated these events both before and after a confederate (speaker) denied or affirmed the occurrence of four different childhood events each, for a total of eight “rehearsed” events. For each set (denials and affirmatives) of events, half were true and half were false. In turn, this created four types of events (two each): true denials, true affirmatives, false denials, and false affirmatives. Additionally, half of the participants were told that the speaker was provided independent information about the veracity of the event’s occurrence (“expert” condition). Overall, listeners were less confident in the occurrence of false denial events, but more so when they believed the speaker to be more knowledgeable of the listeners memories, more confident in false affirmative events and, counter intuitively, more confident in the occurrence of true denial events. These results underscore the importance of a nuanced approach to the mnemonic consequences of true and false denials and affirmations in the course of social interactions.     

Mimicry and Investigative Interviewing: Using Deliberate Mimicry to Elicit Information and Cues to Deceit

We examined the effect of deliberate mimicry on eliciting (accurate) information and cues to deceit. Mimicry is considered to facilitate cooperation and compliance in truth tellers, whereas liars are constrained to provide detail. We therefore expected truth tellers to be more detailed than liars, particularly after being mimicked. A total of 165 participants told the truth or lied about a meeting they attended. During the interview, an interviewer mimicked half of the participants. Truth tellers were more detailed than liars, but only in the ‘mimicry present’ condition. Truth tellers also gave more accurate units of information than liars, and the difference was most pronounced in the ‘mimicry present’ condition. Mimicry as a tool for eliciting information and cues to deceit fits well with the emerging ‘interviewing to detect deception’ literature, particularly in the ‘encouraging interviewees to say more’ approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Mediating Role of Self-Discrepancies in the Relationship Between Media Exposure and Well-Being Among Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Adolescents

Extant research suggests that exposure to depictions of sexuality in the media may influence the well-being of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adolescents. Far less is known about the underlying processes that may explain this relationship. Self-discrepancy theory was utilized to predict that relationships between media exposure and well-being among LGB adolescents would be mediated by self-discrepancies in identity. A national survey of 573 LGB adolescents revealed that exposure to gay- and lesbian-oriented media was positively related to the well-being of LGB teens. The relationship between gay- and lesbian-oriented media exposure and well-being was mediated by self-discrepancies in identity for LGB adolescents low in sexual identity commitment. This finding suggests that increased exposure to gay- and lesbian-oriented media could decrease uncommitted LGB teens' perceived differences between their actual selves and their ideal selves, which, in turn, could increase their well-being. A positive relationship between mainstream media exposure and well-being was not mediated by self-discrepancies. The discussion focuses on the role of media in the identity development and sexual socialization of LGB adolescents.