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PubMedDate not supplied

[Interpersonal decentration in studies of schizophrenia].

The aim of the work was to establish the difference in the ability to interpersonal decentration between subjects suffering from schizophrenia and mentally healthy controls. The studies performed were also the basis for creation the hypothetical pattern of the deficit in interpersonal decentration which characterizes the behaviour of schizophrenics. Mentally ill patients presented lower level of decentric abilities in comparison with healthy controls. Presented empiric results showed that the specificity of interpersonal decentration (which was understood as an ability to, and actually realized behaviour) was based on extremely subjective outlook of reality which causes the elongation of psychological distance between patient and his/her social environment.

Communication↗
PubMed2005

Effects of category diversity on learning, memory, and generalization.

In this study, we examined the effect of within-category diversity on people's ability to learn perceptual categories, their inclination to generalize categories to novel items, and their ability to distinguish new items from old. After learning to distinguish a control category from an experimental category that was either clustered or diverse, participants performed a test of category generalization or old-new recognition. Diversity made learning more difficult, increased generalization to novel items outside the range of training items, and made it difficult to distinguish such novel items from familiar ones. Regression analyses using the generalized context model suggested that the results could be explained in terms of similarities between old and new items combined with a rescaling of the similarity space that varied according to the diversity of the training items. Participants who learned the diverse category were less sensitive to psychological distance than were the participants who learned a more clustered category.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

A method for the study of lay conceptions of psychopathology: a free-response approach.

A free-response approach for identifying a lay group's conception of psycopathology is described in this paper and is illustrated with a college student population. An initial sample of individuals from the population is asked to give "reasons why someone might need to be examined by a professional person in the field of mental health." A second sample of individuals sort the problem statements on the basis of their judgements of the similarity among the statements. A measure of psychological distance for each pair of statements, based on the proportion of times the two statements are sorted together, is used as input for clustering and multidimensional scaling. A third sample contributes to the interpretation of the resulting structures by rating each problem on several psychological properties. The most relevant properties found for college students are: (a) degree of abnormality; (b) referral source--self versus others. Also disc1ssed are possible applications of the method to other lay groups in the interest of providing improved community mental health services to such groups.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2003

Temporal construal.

Construal level theory proposes that temporal distance changes people's responses to future events by changing the way people mentally represent those events. The greater the temporal distance, the more likely are events to be represented in terms of a few abstract features that convey the perceived essence of the events (high-level construals) rather than in terms of more concrete and incidental details of the events (low-level construals). The informational and evaluative implications of high-level construals, compared with those of low-level construals, should therefore have more impact on responses to distant-future events than near-future events. This article explores the implications of construal level theory for temporal changes in evaluation, prediction, and choice. The authors suggest that construal level underlies a broad range of evaluative and behavioral consequences of psychological distance from events.

Cognition↗
PubMed1993

Knowing and not knowing massive psychic trauma: forms of traumatic memory.

It is in the nature of trauma to elude knowledge, both because of deficit and defence. Massive trauma cannot be grasped because there are neither words nor categories of thought adequate to its representation; knowledge of trauma is also fiercely defended against, as it poses a momentous threat to psychic integrity. Yet knowing nevertheless occurs on some level, often in restricted or defensive forms. This paper sets forth various forms of knowing and not knowing massive historical trauma as manifested in clinical symptomatology, transference phenomena, life themes and witnessing narratives. Metaphor is also mentioned as yet another form of knowing and addressing trauma, available primarily to those who have not been directly affected as victims nor as family members of victims. The different forms imply a continuum of progressively more integrated and subjectively owned levels of knowing, directly related to the actual and psychological distance from the traumatic event. Illustrations drawn from clinical and testimonial settings are given for each level of knowing described, and implications for therapeutic strategy are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Experience of abuse in primary care patients. Racial and rural differences.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the experience of abuse in rural, urban, black, and white women on the following dimensions: prevalence, symptom experience, health status, medical services utilization, and coping mechanisms. DESIGN: Retrospective study using patient interviews. SETTING: Half the subjects were recruited from a large medical university family medicine center and half from a rural family medicine center, both in the Southeast. PATIENTS: Four hundred seven women were interviewed. Groups were distributed as follows: urban white, 24.9% (n = 99); urban black, 25.6% (n = 102); rural white, 11.1% (n = 44); and rural black, 38.4% (n = 153). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-report of abuse (sexual, physical, and emotional) was related to symptom history, current health status, medical services utilization, and coping styles. RESULTS: Sixty-six percent of the total sample reported some kind of abuse. Black, rural women reported the least (52.3%). Presence of greater numbers of symptoms, greater medical services utilization, and lower health status were found in the abused population. Abused women used all types of coping mechanisms to a greater extent than non-abused women. Black women were more likely to use confrontation (F = 8.82 [P = .003]), problem solving (F = 8.24 [P = .004]), and reappraisal (F = 4.13 [P = .04]) than white women. Rural women were more likely to use psychological distancing (F = 5.25 [P = .02]) and escape (F = 5.67 [P = .02]) than urban women, although abused women in general use those coping methods more than nonabused women. CONCLUSIONS: The experience of abuse remains similar across black, white, rural, and urban women; however, coping mechanisms appear to be influenced by group membership.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1998

[Psychopathological study on schizophrenic autism through the paintings of a case of simple schizophrenia].

Autism is the symptom which has the most specific features of schizophrenia. However, the content of pathological experience of the patients has not yet been clarified as it was never told by themselves. In the present study, a case of simple schizophrenia with a major symptom of autism is reported. Schizophrenic autism was studied psychopathologically by drawing tests. The analysis of drawings was summarized by the following characteristics. 1. The objects were drawn so as to be small at the center. The composition was further characterized by the overwhelmingly predominant empty space of its circumference, which we termed "reversed zoom lens effect". This seemed to show that the objects were isolated and removed from the patient. 2. The entire image of the theme was not drawn. 3. Lack of vitality was observed in all the drawings. On the basis of the above characteristics of these drawings and the clinical findings, the following were suggested as the pathology of the patient's experience: 1. The "reversed zoom lens composition" seen in the drawings suggested that the psychological distance between objects and the patient might be expanded. 2. The patient was alienated from the objective world to which he had once been accustomed as the object lacked vitality and familiarity. 3. The pathology of schizophrenic autism observed in the patient could be expressed as "alienation from objective experience." 4. It was considered that although akin to depersonalization, "alienation from objective experience" was the pathology characteristic of schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Epidemic suicide among Micronesian adolescents.

Suicide rates since 1960 in Micronesia (the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands) have undergone an epidemic-like increase. This phenomenon is focused narrowly within the 15--24-year male age-group. Extremely high rates and culturally patterned motives and methods are now characteristic of this group. Survey research throughout Micronesia suggests that the epidemic increase in adolescent male suicide is a cohort effect among the first post-war generation. Traditional adolescent socialization in pre-war Micronesia largely involved village-level subsistence activities organized around communal lineage-houses. This extra-familial level of socialization served as a cultural solution to the residential and psychological distance post-pubertal males maintained from their domestic families. With the post-war social change in Micronesia, the communal village-level of organization has largely disintegrated, causing adolescent socialization functions to be absorbed by the nuclear family. The resulting situations of intergenerational domestic discord appear the primary social triggers for adolescent suicide. At the same time, suicides have acquired subcultural significance among male youth, giving rise to fad-like and imitative acts. A 3-year research project is now being undertaken to conduct an ethnographic study of factors contributing to adolescent stress and suicide in one Micronesian community.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

A study of laughter and dissociation: distinct correlates of laughter and smiling during bereavement.

Laughter facilitates the adaptive response to stress by increasing the psychological distance from distress and by enhancing social relations. To test these hypotheses, the authors related measures of bereaved adults' laughter and smiling 6 months postloss to measures of their (a) subjective emotion and dissociation from distress, (b) social relations, and (c) responses they evoked in others. Duchenne laughter, which involves orbicularis oculi muscle action, related to self-reports of reduced anger and increased enjoyment, the dissociation of distress, better social relations, and positive responses from strangers, whereas non-Duchenne laughter did not. Lending credence to speculations in the ethological literature, Duchenne laughter correlated with different intrapersonal and interpersonal responses than Duchenne smiles. Discussion focuses on the relevance of these findings to theories of positive emotion.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

You focus on the forest when you're in charge of the trees: power priming and abstract information processing.

Elevated power increases the psychological distance one feels from others, and this distance, according to construal level theory, should lead to more abstract information processing. Thus, high power should be associated with more abstract thinking-focusing on primary aspects of stimuli and detecting patterns and structure to extract the gist, as well as categorizing stimuli at a higher level-relative to low power. In 6 experiments involving both conceptual and perceptual tasks, priming high power led to more abstract processing than did priming low power, even when this led to worse performance. Experiment 7 revealed that in line with past neuropsychological research on abstract thinking, priming high power also led to greater relative right-hemispheric activation.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

First person account: the Messiah quest.

The article that begins below is the fifth in a series of personal accounts to be published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin. In describing his account, the author commented: "The viewpoint is solely my consciousness. The substance of every statement and the specific words in many statements actually occurred to me. Third person narrative was chosen to convey a sense of my psychological distance from the experience. This distance was essential for accomplishing growth. I have described my emotions and thoughts as exactly as possible, and in sufficient detail for the reader to follow the sequence of change in thought from and content. In spite of certain passages in the text, I had never previously felt fervently about any religion, religious figure, or telepathy, and I had never felt harassed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The experience described followed many extreme stresses--death of a parent, end of a longtime romantic relationship, and a career change. Before these events, my emotional and social adjustment had been good...." Brief comments by two clinicans who saw the author during different phases of the experience described are appended to his account.

Autobiographies as Topic↗
PubMed1990

Post-termination patient-analyst contact: I. Analysts' attitudes and experience; II. Impact on patients.

Post-termination patient-analyst review, due to the increased psychological distance from the patient provided by the passage of time, generates an advantaged perspective of the gains and limitations of analytic work than was possible at treatment termination. Despite analysts' widespread belief that such analyst-initiated contact is deleterious to the patient, assessment of clinical experience with such contacts by Luborsky, Martin and Schlessinger, as well as by re-evaluated data of Wallerstein, indicates little or no damage to patients, and in some cases distinct benefits. Analysts generally make post-termination contact with their patients conditional upon the patient's need for additional help, although their personal experience is of unconditional extensive contacts with their own training analyst. Whether expectation of and experience of substantial post-termination contact with the patient's analyst impacts on either the degree of mourning or of resolution of residual transference requires evaluation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Personal and social determinants of rural nurses' willingness to care for persons with AIDS.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the individual and social determinants of rural nurses' willingness to care for people with AIDS (PWAs). Willingness to care was viewed as a function of nurses' personal attitudes about AIDS care and PWAs; the influence of normative (significant others), comparative (the nursing profession), and generalized (the rural community) reference group norms on these attitudes; and how much importance respondents placed on membership in these reference groups. Responses to a mailed questionnaire from 615 rural nurses were analyzed. Individual determinants were nurses' feelings of preparedness and favorable attitudes about their personal safety when administering care. Social determinants were the degree of upset of respondents' significant others about their caring for AIDS patients and favorable attitudes of the respondents about professional and social concerns related to AIDS.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1981

Community support systems: scaling community acceptance.

In recommendations for community support systems, there are expectations of public involvement in unprecedented proportions; yet evidence of fundamental shifts in attitudes and behaviors toward the mentally ill is lacking. Considerations of the complexity of public acceptance led to the development of a scale used to measure the extent of support for the chronically mentally ill among 574 randomly selected adults in Leon County, Florida. Comparison of the general population with residents in a neighborhood known to be opposed to community-based services served to establish the validity of the scale. The findings led to recommendations for future research in this area.

Adult↗