Citizenship and Community Mental Health Care

Citizenship is an approach to supporting the social inclusion and participation in society of people with mental illnesses. It is receiving greater attention in community mental health discourse and literature in parallel with increased awareness of social determinants of health and concern over the continued marginalization of persons with mental illness in the United States. In this article, we review the definition and principles of our citizenship framework with attention to social participation and access to resources as well as rights and responsibilities that society confers on its members. We then discuss our citizenship research at both individual and social‐environmental levels, including previous, current, and planned efforts. We also discuss the role of community psychology and psychologists in advancing citizenship and other themes relevant to a citizenship perspective on mental health care and persons with mental illness.     

(Dis)comfort in the city: How young travellers in London negotiate mobility within the city

Conflicting claims are made about the extent to which Travellers in Britain remain outsiders in urban society (McGarry 2017; Sibley 1981). This paper sheds light on this question by addressing a neglected aspect of Traveller mobility, namely the day-to-day traversing of urban spaces beyond their (typically segregated) trailer sites. Focusing on public transport, it draws on eighteen months of ethnographic research with young people from Traveller backgrounds from a London-based youth group to understand the nature of the encounters they have as they go out and about in the city. The paper is interested in the place of affect in these encounters, and more generally, affect's role in shaping – or failing to shape – young Travellers' behaviour. The paper considers discomfort experienced through the mobility of young Travellers; it argues that young Travellers are encouraged by their elders to discipline and regulate emotional responses in encounters with non-Travellers and that this constitutes evidence of their continuing outsider status.     

People's positions regarding social security's health insurance programs: The case of Romania

BackgroundIn Romania, the passage from a culture in which healthcare were freely available to a culture in which people must contribute financially, at least in part, has generated controversies among the population. We examined and mapped the views of people living in Romania regarding social security's health insurance programs.MethodsA convenience sample of 271 adults aged 18–80 who lived in big cities in Romania or in the rural areas around these cities were presented with realistic vignettes that depicted a health insurance program and asked to rate its goodness. The vignettes were created by combining orthogonally the levels of five factors: amount of employers’ contribution to the program, amount of workers’ contribution, extent of coverage of ordinary medical and dental care, extent of coverage of chronic or severe illness, and identity of health insurance recipients.ResultsFive qualitatively different positions were found. They were called Private insurance (8%), Health insurance only for contributors (14%), Health insurance for contributors and for everyone with severe or chronic illness (12%), Health insurance for everyone (29%), and Any insurance program is better than nothing (37%).ConclusionOverall, most participants (78%) favored a health insurance program that would protect all citizens in case of severe or chronic illness or injury, and 66% favored the protection of all citizens in all cases.     

Les psychologues dans le champ de la santé mentale : les perspectives en promotion de la santé mentale positive

Literature findingsMental health promotion is still insufficiently known by psychologists and few of them work in this field, in part because it is based on public health concepts and data. Furthermore, its approach is focused on positive health – as opposed to deficit models – which proposes interventions consisting in developing human competencies and strengths as a means of preventing potential future mental illnesses.DiscussionThe present stake, in the field of mental health, thus requires a paradigmatic change in psychologists which would enable to move from mainly curative interventions to actions oriented towards individual and collectives’ potentialities. This article presents a synthesis of mental health determinants as well as national and international public policies aiming at developing health promotion.ConclusionIt concludes on how psychologist could become major actors in this field.     

How do familiarity and fatal accidents affect acceptance of self-driving vehicles?

Expected benefits of disruptive technologies such as self-driving vehicles may only materialize if they are publicly accepted. Acceptance increases when implementation is experienced as initial concerns become unfounded and individuals become familiar with the new technology. Fatal accidents, however, negatively affect acceptance. This paper examines citizens' acceptance of self-driving vehicles by contrasting pre- and post-implementation of a self-driving shuttle in Switzerland and before and after the first fatal accident involving a self-driving vehicle in Arizona (USA) in 2018 gaining high media attention. To gauge acceptance, a panel survey using a random sample of 1408 Swiss residents was used. The results indicate that news about the fatal accident abroad exerts a stronger effect on acceptance than experiencing a self-driving bus trial. Latent scepticism causes acceptance to decrease in the event of an accident but only lasts short term. However, acceptance levels are stable and at high levels, which also explains the comparably low familiarity effects. As public acceptance is necessary for technology transitions, this article provides policymakers practical insights on how citizens form preferences towards traffic automation and related policy regulations. More specifically, results show how attitudes change over time while residents experience a trial and the first fatal accident with the technology at hand.     

Self-determined self-other overlap: Interacting effects on partners’ perceptions of support and well-being in close relationships

Self-other overlap, an important dimension of interpersonal closeness, is linked to positive interpersonal and well-being outcomes in relationships with romantic partners and friends. Three studies applied principles from self-determination theory to examine whether individual differences in self-determined motivation moderate the effects of higher self-other overlap on partner outcomes. Studies were cross-sectional and longitudinal, and examined personality and relationship-specific self-determination in friends (Study 1) and romantic partners (all studies); all were comprised of dyads to examine partner effects. Results suggested that as self-determined individuals reported greater self-other overlap, their partners also reported receiving more positive motivational support as well as enhanced commitment. On the other hand, when individuals were low in self-determination, partners did not benefit from greater self-other overlap.     

Self-efficacy's influence on persistence on a physical task: Moderating effect of performance feedback ambiguity

ObjectivesThe present investigation was designed to test the predictions of a control theory based view of self-regulation on the complex effects of self-efficacy on persistence. Specifically, self-efficacy was predicted to have a positive effect on persistence given unambiguous feedback, but a weak, negative effect given ambiguous feedback. Moreover, the research was designed to replicate an influential set of studies on self-efficacy.DesignA 2 (self-efficacy: low, high) × 2 (feedback ambiguity: low, high) between-groups ANOVA was conducted to examine the interaction between self-efficacy and feedback ambiguity in two trials of an isometric hand-grip competitive endurance task.MethodParticipants (87 females and 67 males) competed on a hand-grip strength task against confederates who claimed to have overworked their hand (high manipulated self-efficacy) or to be tennis players (low manipulated self-efficacy). The competition occurred either in the presence (high feedback ambiguity) or absence (low feedback ambiguity) of a physical barrier between the individuals. Persistence was how long individuals could grip at 50% of their maximum voluntary contraction.ResultsThe interaction was significant and in the predicted direction. Self-efficacy was also found to negatively relate to self-reported effort regardless of condition.ConclusionsThe results from the current study confirm that self-efficacy can foster persistence when one is aware of one's current state of performance. However, consistent with a control theory view of self-regulation, self-efficacy was unrelated to persistence when feedback was ambiguous. The results have implications for understanding the role of self-efficacy in sports and highlight the importance of replications with extensions.     

Do students with different motives for physical education respond differently to autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching?

ObjectivesThis study examined whether the effects of autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching in physical education depend on students' motivation.DesignA preliminary, cross-sectional study relied on questionnaires administered to teachers. The main study involved an experimental design with students.MethodsIn the preliminary study, 95 teachers reported on their beliefs regarding the effectiveness of autonomy supportive and controlling teaching styles for students with different motivational profiles. In the main study, 320 students completed a questionnaire on motivation and were then randomly assigned to an experimental condition in which they watched video-based vignettes of either an autonomy-supportive or a controlling style. After the experimental induction, students completed questionnaires on need satisfaction, need frustration, engagement, and oppositional defiance.ResultsTeachers tend to believe that autonomy support and control work best for students scoring high on, respectively, autonomous and controlled motivation. The main study, however, showed that the moderating role of student motivation in the effect of teaching style was limited. The few interactions obtained suggested that even students with poor quality motivation report that they would benefit from an autonomy-supportive approach and suffer from a controlling approach. Students in the autonomy-supportive, relative to the controlling, condition reported more engagement and less oppositional defiance, effects that were mediated by need satisfaction and frustration.ConclusionsAll students, independent of their motivational regulations when entering the experiment, reported that they would be more engaged and would show less oppositional defiance when they would interact with an autonomy-supportive instead of a controlling teacher during PE.     

The ethical potential of sound in public space: Migrant pan flute music and its potential to create moments of conviviality in a ‘failed’ public square

In this paper we examine the notion that music in public space could be understood in terms of ethical potential, where new sensibilities for thinking, feeling, seeing and being with others might be imagined and practiced. We do this by considering how musical performances by migrants impact on inclusive forms of place (re-)making, affective enactments of public space and emotional accounts of belonging and ‘the other’. The paper draws on an ethnographic exploration of South American pan flute musicians, performing music at Sergels torg, a central square in Stockholm, Sweden. Through fieldwork with a combination of qualitative techniques, including observation, interviews and sensory methods such as photography, video and recorded ‘sound walks’ we trace the affective aspects of encounters with busking and the impact of music on place. We highlight the ethical potential of music in the experience of urban moments and its capacity to reconfigure space. We find that encounters with sound can produce new spaces of conviviality and inclusion; it can soothe, animate and soften urban spaces. However, a positive encounter with difference through sound depends on a favourable social, physical and temporal context, and because busking serves to make marginalised voices heard (both literally and metaphorically), it can be experienced as troubling for precisely this reason. Thus, we need to take into account the full complexity of the dynamics between sound and place, in considering this relationship as a novel window to the ethical potential of the urban encounter.