Media presentation of the mental health bill and representations of mental health problems

This paper discusses the findings of a study that examined the way in which the Mental Health Bill of June 2002 was presented in the British national and local media over a 3‐year period. A Lexis Nexis search yielded 256 articles, which were then analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Overall, and perhaps contrary to what might have been expected given previous studies' conclusions regarding the media's negative portrayal of mental ill health, most articles tended to present a negative view of the Bill as unnecessarily repressive, and consequently were more sympathetic towards mental heath service clients, although this was not the case for tabloid articles. However, this paper then considers the more implicit representations found within the articles. It focuses particularly on the continued linking of mental ill health and violence, and also on the way in which the mental health service user might be portrayed as passive and rather pitiful as an alternative to violent and dangerous. It is suggested that the continued use of such images may stem from the fact that mental health problems have long been constructed as ‘Other’, and are therefore deeply engrained in our society. The implications of this for anti‐stigma campaigns are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

公务员心理健康研究进展

作为一个特殊的职业群体,公务员心理健康问题正日益得到多方关注,本文通过对公务员心理健康研究现状进行总结分析,发现目前公务员心理健康研究中存在的问题,对未来开展相关研究及如柯改善公务员心理健康状况提出建议。     

群体性事件形成的心理机制分析

我国正处在社会转型时期,由各利益主体之间的磨擦而引发的群体性事件日益增多,诱发群体性事件的原因也复杂多样。如果从人类行为发生的内在机理看,它们主要遵循刺激——反应机制。导致群体性事件的发生既有直接诱因,也包括弱势群体的大量存在等社会诱因,而各种认识的偏差则是群体性事件的主观心理性因素。我们只有通过改变条件或作用方式,正确调整社会心理,使群体性事件丧失其发生的前提,才能达到预警预防群体性事件的目的。     

心理定势发生机制的模型建构

心理定势作为个体的一种预备状态,是先前的活动倾向对后来活动的影响,前苏联格鲁吉亚学派围绕它建立了较为完备的传统心理定势理论。而该文则希冀超越传统社会心理学的视角,以信息加工的心理学视角,使用图式理论重新阐释心理定势现象发生的内在作用机制,尝试建构“定势现象的图式激活过程理论模型”。     

Positive and Negative: Infant Facial Expressions and Emotions

One path to understanding emotional processes and their development is the investigation of early facial expressions. Converging evidence suggests that although all infant smiles index positive emotion, some smiles are more positive than others. The evidence stems both from the situations in which infants produce different facial expressions and from naive observers' ratings of the emotional intensity of the expressions. The observers' ratings also suggest that similar facial actions—such as cheek raising—lead smiles to be perceived as more positive and lead negative expressions (cry-faces) to be perceived as more negative. One explanation for this parsimony is that certain facial actions are associated with the intensification of both positive and negative emotions.     

中学生生活事件、应对方式及焦虑的关系研究

为了探讨中学生生活事件,应对方式及焦虑之间的关系,对兰州市九所中学共1964名中学生进行了问卷调查。结果发现;(1)影响中学生心理健康的主要生活事件依次为学习压力、人际关系问题、受惩罚。(2)中学生对各种生活事件的应对方式与其焦虑程度有关。(3)应对方式是作为生活事件与心理健康的中介变量而存在并发挥作用的。     

An Exercise in Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Treating Emotional Distress in Melanoma Patients

This study presents a retrospective assessment of a psychological intervention examined for its potential cost-effectiveness if implemented into standard care. It discusses (1) the cost of instituting a psychological intervention for distressed melanoma patients, (2) the effectiveness of that intervention for reducing distress when compared with a standard care group, and (3) the costs of providing the treatment as compared to costs of physician time to answer distress-driven questions as part of standard care. Although the per-minute cost of providing the psychological intervention was marginally greater than standard care, providing the intervention was significantly cheaper in terms of distress reduction. Inclusion of 60% payer reimbursement rates for the intervention further suggested that incorporating a psychological intervention into standard medical care for melanoma patients would potentially generate revenue.     

女大学生心理健康的测试与培养

本研究抽选198名在校女大学生,采用SCL-90临床症状精神量表测试。结果表明女大学生在人际关系、情绪等方面比正常成人分值略高;课题组通过设计多种心理训练活动,力图培养女大学生的良好心理健康,并为此已有初步成绩。     

Emotional intelligence: A meta-analytic investigation of predictive validity and nomological net

This study used meta-analytic techniques to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and performance outcomes. A total of 69 independent studies were located that reported correlations between EI and performance or other variables such as general mental ability (GMA) and the Big Five factors of personality. Results indicated that, across criteria, EI had an operational validity of .23 (k=59, N=9522). Various moderating influences such as the EI measure used, dimensions of EI, scoring method and criterion were evaluated. EI correlated .22 with general mental ability (k=19, N=4158) and .23 (Agreeableness and Openness to Experience; k=14, N=3306) to .34 (Extraversion; k=19, N=3718) with the Big Five factors of personality. Results of various subgroup analyses are presented and implications and future directions are provided.     

Activating a mental simulation mind-set through generation of alternatives: Implications for debiasing in related and unrelated domains

Encouraging people to consider multiple alternatives appears to be a useful debiasing technique for reducing many biases (explanation, hindsight, and overconfidence), if the generation of alternatives is experienced as easy. The present research tests whether these alternative generation procedures induce a mental simulation mind-set (cf. Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000), such that debiasing in one domain transfers to debias judgments in unrelated domains. The results indeed demonstrated that easy alternative generation tasks not only debiased judgments in the same domain but also generalized to debias judgments in unrelated domains, provided that participants were low in the need for structure. The alternative generation tasks (even when they were easy to perform) showed no evidence of activating a mental simulation mind-set in individuals high in need for structure, as these individuals displayed no transfer effects. Implications of the results for understanding the role of the need for structure, ease of generation, and mental simulation mind-set activation for debiasing are discussed.