The Short-Term Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Psychiatric Patients: Evidence for Differential Emotion and Symptom Trajectories in Belgium

The spread of COVID-19 and the implementation of various containment strategies across the world have seriously disrupted people’s everyday life, and it is especially uncertain what the psychological impact of this pandemic will be for vulnerable individuals, such as psychiatric (ex-)patients. Governments fear that this virus outbreak may prelude a major mental health crisis, and psychiatrists launch critical calls to flatten an upcoming mental ill-health surge. Here, we aim to add nuance to the idea that we are heading towards a mental health pandemic and that psychiatric populations will unavoidably (re)develop psychopathology. Despite being subjected to the same challenges posed by COVID-19, we argue that people with a history of psychiatric illness will psychologically deal with this adversity in different ways. To showcase the short-term differential impact of COVID-19 on patients’ mental health, we present the day-to-day emotion and symptom trajectories of different psychiatric patients that took part in an experience sampling study before, during, and after the start of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and associated lockdown measures in Belgium. Piecewise regression models show that not all patients’ psychological well-being is affected to a similar degree. As such, we argue that emphasizing human resilience, also among the more vulnerable in society, may be opportune in these unsettling times.     

An a priori solution to the replication crisis

Possibly, the replication crisis constitutes the most important problem in psychology. It calls into question whether psychology is a science. Existing conceptualizations of replicability depend on effect sizes; the larger the population effect size, the greater the probability of replication. This is problematic and contributes to the replication crisis. A different conceptualization, not dependent on population effect sizes, is desirable. The proposed solution features the closeness of sample means to their corresponding population means, in both the original and replication experiments. If the researcher has specified the sampling precision desired, it is possible to calculate the probability of replication, prior to data collection, and without dependence on the population effect size or expected population effect size. In addition, it is not necessary to know population means or standard deviations, nor sample means or standard deviations, to employ the proposed a priori way of thinking about replicability.     

The Catholic Church and the crisis: the case of Portugal

This article investigates the role of the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal in the aftermath of the economic and financial crisis. Through a focus on the case of Lisbon, we explore how the crisis resulted in increased collaboration between religious organizations and the public administration. The crisis in fact changed the opportunity structure of the Portuguese Catholic world, which has reacted basically in three different ways. Firstly, the Episcopal Conference has pointed out the relevance of subsidiarity in the welfare field—and, more broadly, as a principle of societal organization—in the attempt to re-negotiate its role and relevance within Portuguese society, drawing on the activity and the reputation of the Catholic organizations. Secondly, Caritas and the National Commission of Justice and Peace have been quite vocal in denouncing the shortcomings of the Government and the effects of the austerity measures, calling for equality and justice and putting pressure on the Episcopal Conference as well as the central government. Thirdly, local organizations—including religious organizations, such as Caritas—have been gaining a new important role in the coordination and provision of welfare services, as the crisis accelerated the trends towards subsidiarity and governance.     

Being authentic is the new image: a qualitative study on the authenticity constructions and self-images of Christian millennials in Africa

The article is a qualitative study that focuses on the authenticity and self-constructions of Christian millennials in Africa. While exploring how 15 respondents manifested their authentic self-behaviours using a case study design, the hallmark of the study was to observe the common coping mechanism of self-regulation, adopted by respondents to deal with their internal crisis. This coping strategy was employed as they remained true to self by creating new “authentic” images of themselves in the forms of the borderline self, the promissory self, the hyphenated self, and the religious self. By implication, looking at the issue of authenticity from an African context has produced an African conceptualisation of authenticity. I argue that African authenticity can be understood by interpreting Africa’s voices of self-expression and images of self-definition, resonating within various African contexts in hope for some kind of cathartic and authentic living experience.     

Risk and Protective Processes Predicting Rural African American Young Men's Substance Abuse

Informed by a life course perspective, this study tested a cascade model linking harsh, unresponsive parenting during childhood to young African American men's substance abuse via precocious transitions, economic instability, and future orientation. The moderating influence of community disadvantage and romantic partner support on the hypothesized pathways was also examined. At the baseline, the sample included 505 African American men between ages 19 and 22 years from high‐poverty rural communities. Follow‐up data were collected 18 months after baseline. Using structural equation modeling, we identified harsh, unresponsive parenting influenced precocious transitions in adolescence, which in turn increased economic instability during young adulthood. Economic instability was associated with a reduction in future orientation, a proximal influence on increases in substance abuse. Also, residence in a disadvantaged community amplified the influence of precocious transitions on economic instability and the influence of economic instability on future orientation. Involvement with supportive romantic partnership evinced a protective effect, attenuating the influence of precocious transitions on economic instability and the influence of economic instability on a future orientation. This study expands understanding of young adults’ substance abuse by demonstrating the risk and protective processes linking substance abuse to developmental factors across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.     

Re-Conceiving God and Humanity in Light of Today's Evolutionary-Ecological Consciousness

The anthropocentric orientation of traditional understandings of Christian faith and life, further accentuated by the existentialist terms in which theology was articulated in mid-century by Tillich and others, produced theologies no longer appropriate in today's world of evolutionary and ecological thinking about human existence and its embeddedness in the web of life on planet Earth. This problem can be addressed with the help of several new concepts that enable us to understand both humanity-in-the-world and God in ways in keeping with these present conceptions, thus providing a more intelligible and illuminating way of understanding Christian faith and life today.     

个体危机干预中的伦理学问题

在现代社会中,越来越多的人陷入了不同程度的心理危机中,个体危机干预技术正在得到越来越广泛的应用。个体危机干预是一种短程的心理治疗,在危机干预过程中,对干预对象的隐私权、知情同意权等问题尚未形成相应的伦理规范。为促进危机干预工作的健康发展,对这两个方面的伦理学问题加以讨论,尝试提出一些能够指导个体危机干预工作实践的伦理规范。     

Idiosyncratic deals: Testing propositions on timing, content, and the employment relationship

This study tests propositions regarding idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) in a sample of N = 265 hospital employees using structural equation modeling. Timing and content of idiosyncratic employment arrangements are postulated to have differential consequences for the nature of the employment relationship. Results confirm that i-deals made after hire have greater impact on the employment relationship than those made ex ante. Developmental i-deals are positively related to perceiving employment as a social exchange rather than an economic exchange, whereas work hour i-deals show the opposite pattern. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

中学生心理危机与社会支持、应对方式的关系

采用问卷对广州市初高中学生共795名进行调查,探讨中学生心理危机与社会支持、应对方式之间的关系.结果: (1)社会支持、问题解决、幻想、发泄、退避、忍耐对危机脆弱性有显著预测作用;主观支持、问题解决、退避对自我压弹力有显著预测作用.(2)社会支持在自我压弹力、危机脆弱性上的主效应显著.结论:中学生社会支持、应对方式对预防心理危机有重要作用.     

Reference-dependent expected utility with incomplete preferences

An important reason why people deviate from expected utility is reference-dependence of preferences, implying loss aversion. Bleichrodt [Bleichrodt H. (2007). Reference-dependent utility with shifting reference points and incomplete preferences. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51, 266-276] argued that in the empirically realistic case where the reference point is always an element of the decision maker’s opportunity set, reference-dependent preferences have to be taken as incomplete. This incompleteness is a consequence of reference-dependence and is different in nature from the type of incompleteness usually considered in the literature. It cannot be handled by existing characterizations of reference-dependence, which all assume complete preferences. This paper presents new preference foundations that extend reference-dependent expected utility to cover this case of incompleteness caused by reference-dependence. The paper uses intuitive axioms that are easy to test. Two special cases of reference-dependent expected utility are also characterized: one model in which utility is decomposed into a normative and a psychological component and one model in which loss aversion is constant. The latter model has been frequently used in empirical research on reference-dependence.