Illness perception clusters and relationship quality are associated with diabetes distress in adults with Type 2 diabetes

This report aims to augment what is already known about emotional distress in Type 2 diabetes, by assessing the predictive value of illness perception clusters and relationship quality on four subcategories of Diabetes Distress.162 individuals with Type 2 diabetes responded to a postal questionnaire assessing demographics, depression, diabetes distress, illness perceptions and relationship quality. Long-term blood glucose was retrieved from participants’ General Practitioner. Three illness perception clusters emerged from the data, capturing three subgroups of participants sharing similar illness perception schemas. Regression analyses were performed across each diabetes distress subscale, with demographics, illness perception clusters, and relationship variables entered into three blocks. Covariates explained 51.1% of the variance in emotional burden, 41% of the variance in regimen-related distress, 20% of the variance in interpersonal distress, and 8.6% of the variance in physician-related distress. Cluster membership was strongly associated with emotional burden, regimen-related distress, and to a lesser degree interpersonal distress, but was not associated with physician-related distress. Relationship quality most strongly predicted regimen-related distress. Illness perception schemas and interpersonal issues influence emotional adjustment in diabetes. This study provides direction for the content of a novel approach to identifying and reducing diabetes distress in people with Type 2 diabetes.     

Crying wolf? Australian adolescents’ perceptions of the ambiguity of visible indicators of mental health and authenticity of mental illness

Young people’s perspectives about mental health concepts shape both their interactions with sufferers of mental illness and their actions related to their own mental health. The current study employed a cross-sectional qualitative design to explore how adolescents (aged 12–18 years) speak about mental health and illness in order to gain insight into young people’s perceptions and experiences and contribute to shaping approaches to policy and practice. When discussing mental health concepts and appropriate behaviours toward sufferers of mental illness, adolescents conveyed a sense of acceptance and understanding of the potential complexity and severity of mental health problems. In contrast, when discussing mental health in the context of their own lives, a stronger sense of scepticism was conveyed, with students expressing difficulty with the lack of visible markers of mental health and confusion determining authenticity in the mental health states conveyed by their peers. Interestingly, adolescents interviewed commonly conveyed the notion that young people may exaggerate or “fake” a mental illness for personal gain. Adolescent perceptions of mental health and illness hold practical implications for policy and school-based programs aimed at improving mental health knowledge, attitudes and behaviours among youth.     

‘If I only had a little humility,I would be perfect’: Children’s and adults’ perceptions of intellectually arrogant,humble, and diffident people

Abstract

Intellectual humility is usually regarded as a virtue. In this paper, we conceptualized intellectual humility along two dimensions: (1) placing an adequate level of confidence in one’s own beliefs; (2) being willing to consider other people’s beliefs. We tested whether children (ages 4 to 11 years) and adults perceived intellectual humility as positive and how these perceptions changed across development. To do so, we asked participants to evaluate an intellectually humble person as compared to an intellectually arrogant person, who readily dismissed other people’s beliefs, or to an intellectually diffident person, who was unsure of a well-supported belief. Young children did not favor the intellectually humble person over the others, but older children and adults liked this person better and tended to consider her nicer than the arrogant one and smarter than the diffident one. These findings suggest that the virtuousness of intellectual humility in others is recognized from mid-childhood on.     

Self-concept clarity buffers the impact of societal threat to safety on right-wing authoritarianism

Exposure to societal threat can elicit an increase in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). In this study, using a quasi-experimental vignette design (Italian community sample, N = 86), we tested the moderating role of self-concept clarity (SCC). A moderated regression showed that manipulated societal threat to safety fostered RWA only among low SCC scorers. It is concluded that SCC is an important resource for individuals facing threat conditions.     

Clinical utility of self-disclosure for adults who stutter: Apologetic versus informative statements

PurposeThe purpose of the present study was to explore the clinical utility of self-disclosure, particularly, whether disclosing in an informative manner would result in more positive observer ratings of the speaker who stutters than either disclosing in an apologetic manner or choosing not to self-disclose at all.MethodObservers (N = 338) were randomly assigned to view one of six possible videos (i.e., adult male informative self-disclosure, adult male apologetic self-disclosure, adult male no self-disclosure, adult female informative self-disclosure, adult female apologetic self-disclosure, adult female no self-disclosure). Observers completed a survey assessing their perceptions of the speaker they viewed immediately after watching the video.ResultsResults suggest that self-disclosing in an informative manner leads to significantly more positive observer ratings than choosing not to self-disclose. In contrast, use of an apologetic statement, for the most part, does not yield significantly more positive ratings than choosing not to self-disclose.ConclusionClinicians should recommend their clients self-disclose in an informative manner to facilitate more positive observer perceptions.     

Effect of anxiety on behavioural pattern separation in humans

Behavioural pattern separation (BPS), the ability to distinguish among similar stimuli based on subtle physical differences, has been used to study the mechanism underlying stimulus generalisation. Fear overgeneralisation is often observed in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. However, the relationship between anxiety and BPS remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of anxiety (threat of shock) on BPS, which was assessed across separate encoding and retrieval sessions. Images were encoded/retrieved during blocks of threat or safety in a 2?×?2 factorial design. During retrieval, participants indicated whether images were new, old, or altered. Better accuracy was observed for altered images encoded during periods of threat compared to safety, but only if those images were also retrieved during periods of safety. These results suggest that overgeneralisation in anxiety may be due to altered pattern separation.     

Rape Perceptions, Gender Role Attitudes, and Victim-Perpetrator Acquaintance

The connection between rape perceptions, gender role attitudes, and victim-perpetrator acquaintance was examined. One hundred fifty Israeli students rated their perceptions of the victim, the perpetrator, the situation, and the appropriate punishment, after reading scenarios in which rape was committed by a neighbor, an ex-boyfriend, and a current life partner. Significant negative correlations were found between gender-role attitudes and four measures of rape perceptions. “Traditionals” minimized the severity of all rapes more than “Egalitarians” did. As the acquaintance level increased, there was a greater tendency to minimize the severity of the rape, in the perceptions of the victim, the situation, and the punishment; the situation was characterized less as rape, and was perceived as less violating of the victim's rights and less psychologically damaging. Women tended to have more egalitarian attitudes than men did, and women were less likely to minimize the severity of the rape in the measures of perceptions of the situation and the appropriate punishment.     

Terrorism and the Uses of Terror

“Terrorism”' is sometimes defined as a “form ofcoercion.” But there are important differences between ordinary coercion and terrorist intimidation. This paper explores some of those differences, particularly the relation between coercion, on the one hand, and terror and terrorization, on the other hand. The paper argues that while terrorism is not necessarily associated with terror in the literal sense, it does often seek to instill a mental state like terror in the populations that it targets. However, the point of instilling this mental state is not necessarily coercive or intimidatory: one can try to instill terror as an act of punishment, or as an expressive or therapeutic act, or because one values the political consequences that might follow, or because one thinks terror is preferable, from an ethical point of view, to the inauthentic complacency that characterizes the targeted population at present. Though this paper asks questions about the definition of “terrorism,” these questions are not asked for their own sake. The quest for a canonical definition of “terrorism” is probably a waste of time. But asking questions which sound like questions of definition is sometimes a fruitful way of focusing our reflections on terrorism and organizing our response. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

« Femmes au volant,danger au tournant » Les conductrices sont-elles victimes d’une menace de stéréotype ?

Owing to the sexuation of occupations associating technical attributes with men and relational skills with women, the latter are less numerous in professions where driving is involved. The negative stereotype associating women with poor driving skills is thus likely to have a cognitive and behavioral impact. According to the model of the stereotype threat, could activation of the threat inhibit the performance of women in a Highway Code test? After performing an association task that demonstrated a largely negative stereotype, 56 female students took a Highway Code test in two conditions: an experimental condition where the stereotype was activated by a comparison between men and women (N = 17); and a control condition without activation (N = 39). Subjects performed less well in the experimental condition, demonstrating the expected effects of the stereotype threat.