Individual differences in the expansiveness of mental disorder concepts: development and validation of concept breadth scales.

BACKGROUND: What people consider to be a mental disorder is likely to influence how they perceive others who are experiencing problems and whether they seek help for their own problems. However, no measure is available to assess individual differences in the expansiveness or breadth of concepts of mental disorder. Four studies aimed to develop and validate two such measures. The Concept Breadth-Vertical (CB-V) scale assesses variability in the severity threshold at which unusual behavior or experience is judged to reflect disorder, whereas the Concept Breadth-Horizontal (CB-H) scale assesses variability in the range of phenomena judged to be disorders. METHODS: In a pilot study (N = 201) for the CB-V, participants read vignettes of varying severity for each of the 10 mental disorders, and rated whether the subject had a disorder. Study 1 (N = 502) used exploratory factor analyses to examine 10 CB-V items from the pilot study and 20 vignette-based items for constructing the CB-H. Study 2 (N = 298) employed confirmatory factor analysis to validate the scales' structure and examined their convergent validity with a measure of harm concept breadth and their discriminant validity with measures of mental health literacy. Study 3 (N = 298) explored associations of the scales with other mental health variables, including stigma and help-seeking attitudes. RESULTS: Study 1 supported the unifactorial structure of each item set, refined each set into a scale, and demonstrated acceptable reliabilities. Study 2 provided support for the scales' convergent and discriminant validities. Study 3 showed that the scales were associated negatively with stigma, and positively with help-seeking attitudes and self-reported mental health problems. Studies 2 and 3 further indicated that younger and more politically liberal participants hold broader concepts of mental disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The new concept breadth scales are psychometrically sound measures of a promising new concept in the study of beliefs and attitudes about mental health. Potential future research directions are discussed.

What is a mental disorder? Evaluating the lay concept of Mental Ill Health in the United States.

PURPOSE: How "mental disorder" should be defined has been the focus of extensive theoretical and philosophical debate, but how the concept is understood by laypeople has received much less attention. The study aimed to examine the content (distinctive features and inclusiveness) of these concepts, their degree of correspondence to the DSM-5 definition, and whether alternative concept labels ("mental disorder", "mental illness", "mental health problem", "psychological issue") have similar or different meanings. METHODS: We investigated concepts of mental disorder in a nationally representative sample of 600 U.S. residents. Subsets of participants made judgments about vignettes describing people with 37 DSM-5 disorders and 24 non-DSM phenomena including neurological conditions, character flaws, bad habits, and culture-specific syndromes. RESULTS: Findings indicated that concepts of mental disorder were primarily based on judgments that a condition is associated with emotional distress and impairment, and that it is rare and aberrant. Disorder judgments were only weakly associated with the DSM-5: many DSM-5 conditions were not judged to be disorders and many non-DSM conditions were so judged. "Mental disorder", "mental illness", and "mental health problem" were effectively identical in meaning, but "psychological issue" was somewhat more inclusive, capturing a broader range of conditions. CONCLUSION: These findings clarify important issues surrounding how laypeople conceptualize mental disorder. Our findings point to some significant points of disagreement between professional and public understandings of disorder, while also establishing that laypeople's concepts of mental disorder are systematic and structured.

Ill-defined: Concepts of mental health and illness are becoming broader, looser, and more benign.

OBJECTIVES: We argue that mental health-related concepts have become degraded within professional circles and in the wider community. We identify three trends: concept creep, the rise of broad umbrella concepts (e.g. distress and trauma), and the conflation of mental health with well-being, which marginalises serious mental illness. We speculate on the causes of these trends, including cultural shifts towards greater sensitivity to harm and the rise of wellness industries. Contributing factors within psychiatry include overdiagnosis, dimensional models and transdiagnostic perspectives. CONCLUSIONS: These trends may lead to inflated demands on services from those at the milder end of the psychopathological spectrum. We set out seven measures that mental health professionals can take to resist trends towards broad concepts of mental illness and limit some of their adverse consequences.

Pathogenic language in psychiatric practice and how to combat it.

OBJECTIVE: Psychiatrists are susceptible intermittently to use dehumanising terms in their clinical practice, which arguably harm patients and their families. Our goal is to shed light on this unwelcome phenomenon and to develop the means to combat it. METHOD: We have examined journal articles, books on the history of psychiatry, and educational material devised for psychiatric patients, for evidence of what we have called 'pathogenic language'. We have also sought colleagues' reflections on the subject. RESULTS: We have identified several terms that are ostensibly pathogenic, tried to illuminate their intrinsic features and devised guidelines to stem their use. CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatrists have the potential to harm patients and their families by using pathogenic language when communicating with them. We conclude that meticulous attention to this risk, coupled with appropriate ethically based and educational strategies, can contribute to the eradication of pathogenic language and prevent its recurrence.

Dimensions over categories: a meta-analysis of taxometric research.

Taxometric procedures have been used extensively to investigate whether individual differences in personality and psychopathology are latently dimensional or categorical ('taxonic'). We report the first meta-analysis of taxometric research, examining 317 findings drawn from 183 articles that employed an index of the comparative fit of observed data to dimensional and taxonic data simulations. Findings supporting dimensional models outnumbered those supporting taxonic models five to one. There were systematic differences among 17 construct domains in support for the two models, but psychopathology was no more likely to generate taxonic findings than normal variation (i.e. individual differences in personality, response styles, gender, and sexuality). No content domain showed aggregate support for the taxonic model. Six variables - alcohol use disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, problem gambling, autism, suicide risk, and pedophilia - emerged as the most plausible taxon candidates based on a preponderance of independently replicated findings. We also compared the 317 meta-analyzed findings to 185 additional taxometric findings from 96 articles that did not employ the comparative fit index. Studies that used the index were 4.88 times more likely to generate dimensional findings than those that did not after controlling for construct domain, implying that many taxonic findings obtained before the popularization of simulation-based techniques are spurious. The meta-analytic findings support the conclusion that the great majority of psychological differences between people are latently continuous, and that psychopathology is no exception.

Do shamans violate notions of humanness?

Singh proposes that shamans violate notions of humanness in patterned ways that signal supernatural capacities. I argue that his account, based on a notion of humanness that contrasts humans with non-human animals, does not capture people's understandings of supernatural beings. Shamanic behavior may simply violate human norms in unstructured, improvised ways rather than contrast with a coherent concept of humanness.

A sentimental education: The place of sentiments in personality and social psychology.

"Sentiment" is a potentially appealing concept for social and personality psychologists. It can render some complex affective phenomena theoretically tractable, help refine accounts of social perception, and illuminate some personality dispositions. The success of a future sentimental psychology depends on whether "sentiment" can be delimited as a distinct domain, and whether a credible classification of sentiments can be developed.

Empathy, culture and self-humanising: Empathising reduces the attribution of greater humanness to the self more in Japan than Australia.

People tend to ascribe greater humanness to themselves than to others. Previous research has indicated that this "self-humanising" bias is independent of self-enhancement and robust across cultures. The present study examined the possible role of empathy in reducing this bias in Japan (N = 80) and Australia (N = 80). Results showed that unlike Australians, Japanese participants who recalled personal experiences of empathising with others were less likely to self-humanise than those in a neutral condition. The effect of the empathy manipulation was not observed in Australia. The findings suggest that empathy may reduce self-focus and enable perceivers to appreciate the full humanness of others, but this effect may be culturally contingent.

Dehumanization and infrahumanization.

We review early and recent psychological theories of dehumanization and survey the burgeoning empirical literature, focusing on six fundamental questions. First, we examine how people are dehumanized, exploring the range of ways in which perceptions of lesser humanness have been conceptualized and demonstrated. Second, we review who is dehumanized, examining the social targets that have been shown to be denied humanness and commonalities among them. Third, we investigate who dehumanizes, notably the personality, ideological, and other individual differences that increase the propensity to see others as less than human. Fourth, we explore when people dehumanize, focusing on transient situational and motivational factors that promote dehumanizing perceptions. Fifth, we examine the consequences of dehumanization, emphasizing its implications for prosocial and antisocial behavior and for moral judgment. Finally, we ask what can be done to reduce dehumanization. We conclude with a discussion of limitations of current scholarship and directions for future research.

Post-mortem as preventative medicine in Papua New Guinea: a case in point.

CONTEXT: Sorcery-related killing and violence has increased in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in recent years. The international community has condemned the violence and a number of non-government organisations have called for action; however, effective and appropriate interventions at a community level remain elusive. It has been suggested within some communities and in the literature that post-mortems may help to reduce fears of sorcery and associated violence by providing an alternative biomedical explanation of death. Evidence to support this proposal, however, is limited. ISSUE: In 2012 the author was working in Ok Tedi Hospital, Tabubil, a remote mining town in the Star Mountains of PNG. The area is notable for a recent rise in sorcery-related violence and murders since 2009. In March 2012 a family from a nearby village requested a post-mortem following a relative's sudden death. They clearly stated that violence and killings against suspected perpetrators of sorcery had occurred due to a similar sudden death only a year before. As such they were concerned that the nature of their relative's death would rouse suspicions of sorcery and result in violence. The family hoped that a medical explanation of their relative's death would prevent rumours of sorcery developing and reduce the risk of violence against suspected perpetrators of sorcery. LESSONS LEARNED: The post-mortem, led by a consultant surgeon and performed in Ok Tedi Hospital, Tabubil, concluded that death was due to complications from an acute myocardial infarction. As requested these results were presented at the funeral to a congregation of approximately 80 people. Following the funeral presentation the author received feedback that fears of sorcery had been alleviated and during a 2-week follow-up period no related violence against suspected perpetrators of sorcery was observed. This case is a unique and intriguing example of biomedical and sociocultural integration in the Highlands of PNG. The presence of Ok Tedi Mine, which has provided wealth, education, transport and medical resources to the area for over 30 years, no doubt can partly explain the family's actions. For the family, however, a recent increase in sorcery-related violence would appear to be the primary reason for requesting a post-mortem. Whether these actions reduced suspicions of sorcery and the risk of subsequent violence as the family had anticipated is unclear. However, given a recent rise in post-mortem requests from regions of PNG with some of the highest rates of sorcery-related killings it seems prudent to further investigate the role of post-mortems in the prevention of sorcery-related violence and killings.

The essence of essentialism?

As an account of the cognitive processes that support psychological essentialism, the inherence heuristic clarifies the basis of individual differences in essentialist thinking, and how they are associated with prejudice. It also illuminates the contextual variability of social essentialism, and where its conceptual boundaries should be drawn.

The structure and evolution of social psychology: a co-citation network analysis.

The present study examined the thematic composition and temporal evolution of social psychology through a co-citation network analysis of 80,350 articles published from 1970 through 2022. Six primary thematic clusters were identified: a broad "Classic Social Psychology" cluster most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s; "Traits & Affect" and "Social Cognition" clusters most influential in the 1990s; and "The Self," "Intergroup Relations," and "Big Five" clusters emerging after 2000. A small seventh cluster dedicated to COVID-19 and conspiracy theories emerged around 2021. These trends fit a narrative of generational shifts within distinct social and personality psychology traditions.

Humanness beliefs about behavior: an index and comparative human-nonhuman behavior judgments.

Social psychological research suggests that two distinct dimensions describe lay conceptions of humanness: a species-typical sense (i.e., human nature) and a species-unique sense (i.e., human uniqueness). Although these two senses of humanness have been discerned among psychological traits and states, there has been no systematic research into lay beliefs about the humanness of human behaviors. Using a range of 60 prosocial, nonsocial, and antisocial behaviors, it was demonstrated that people discriminate between species-typical and species-unique behaviors and that the capacity to perform species-unique behaviors distinguishes humans from animals, whereas the capacity to perform species-typical behaviors distinguishes humans from robots. Behaviors that exemplify the two senses of humanness are identified, and data representing rankings, raw scores, and z-scores in two indices of species typicality and species uniqueness are provided. Taken together, these findings expand our understanding of lay conceptions of humanness and provide researchers of humanness with a wider range of validated stimuli to probe the boundaries of humanity.

Himpathy and status: Attitudes to social hierarchy predict reactions to sexual harassment.

In three studies, we tested whether hierarchical preferences could explain differences in punishment recommendations for sexual harassment. Building on research that suggests punishment is used to regulate social hierarchies, we argue that individuals who are motivated to maintain existing hierarchies will treat male perpetrators of sexual harassment with greater leniency, especially when judging perpetrators of high social status. Conversely, we predict that egalitarians-who are motivated to reduce group-based hierarchies-will judge male perpetrators more harshly, especially those of high social status. Given competing theories in the existing literature, we make no predictions about how perpetrator status will affect punishment recommendations overall. Supporting our hypotheses, we found that individuals high on gender system justification and social dominance orientation recommended more lenient punishments to perpetrators. Moreover, an integrative data analysis uncovered an interaction between social dominance orientation and perpetrator status. This interaction was primarily driven by egalitarians, who provided more lenient punishment recommendations to low status perpetrators when compared to high status perpetrators. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find strong evidence that individuals high on social dominance orientation provided harsher judgements to low status perpetrators. Nor did we find strong evidence for a main effect of perpetrator status on punishment recommendations. Taken together, these findings suggest that people punish sexual harassment to bolster or attenuate power structures. This is particularly true of egalitarians, whose emphasis on social equality leads them to judge high status perpetrators of sexual harassment with particular severity.

Have the concepts of 'anxiety' and 'depression' been normalized or pathologized? A corpus study of historical semantic change.

Research on concept creep indicates that the meanings of some psychological concepts have broadened in recent decades. Some mental health-related concepts such as 'trauma', for example, have acquired more expansive meanings and come to refer to a wider range of events and experiences. 'Anxiety' and 'depression' may have undergone similar semantic inflation, driven by rising public attention and awareness. Critics have argued that everyday emotional experiences are increasingly pathologized, so that 'depression' and 'anxiety' have broadened to include sub-clinical experiences of sadness and worry. The possibility that these concepts have expanded to include less severe phenomena (vertical concept creep) was tested by examining changes in the emotional intensity of words in their vicinity (collocates) using two large historical text corpora, one academic and one general. The academic corpus contained >133 million words from psychology article abstracts published 1970-2018, and the general corpus (>500 million words) consisted of diverse text sources from the USA for the same period. We hypothesized that collocates of 'anxiety' and 'depression' would decline in average emotional severity over the study period. Contrary to prediction, the average severity of collocates for both words increased in both corpora, possibly due to growing clinical framing of the two concepts. The study findings therefore do not support a historical decline in the severity of 'anxiety' and 'depression' but do provide evidence for a rise in their pathologization.

Psychological factors underlying attitudes toward AI tools.

What are the psychological factors driving attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and how can resistance to AI systems be overcome when they are beneficial? Here we first organize the main sources of resistance into five main categories: opacity, emotionlessness, rigidity, autonomy and group membership. We relate each of these barriers to fundamental aspects of cognition, then cover empirical studies providing correlational or causal evidence for how the barrier influences attitudes toward AI tools. Second, we separate each of the five barriers into AI-related and user-related factors, which is of practical relevance in developing interventions towards the adoption of beneficial AI tools. Third, we highlight potential risks arising from these well-intentioned interventions. Fourth, we explain how the current Perspective applies to various stakeholders, including how to approach interventions that carry known risks, and point to outstanding questions for future work.

Developing key performance indicators for adult critical care transfer services: Scoping review and Delphi technique.

In 2021 NHS England commissioned regional Adult Critical Care Transfer Services. These services will replace a historically predominant ad hoc approach to adult critical care transfers nationally. It is anticipated that these new formal services will provide a system of robust regional & national governance previously acknowledged to be deficient. As part of this process, it is important that an agreed set of transfer service quality indicators are developed to drive equitable improvement in patient care. We used a Delphi technique to develop a set of key performance indicators through consensus for a recently established London critical care transfer service. We believe this may be the first-time key performance indicators have been developed for adult critical care transfer services using a consensus method. We hope services will consider tracking similar measures to enable benchmarking and drive improvements in patient care.

Twitter misogyny associated with Hillary Clinton increased throughout the 2016 U.S. election campaign.

Online misogyny has become a fixture in female politicians' lives. Backlash theory suggests that it may represent a threat response prompted by female politicians' counterstereotypical, power-seeking behaviors. We investigated this hypothesis by analyzing Twitter references to Hillary Clinton before, during, and after her presidential campaign. We collected a corpus of over 9 million tweets from 2014 to 2018 that referred to Hillary Clinton, and employed an interrupted time series analysis on the relative frequency of misogynistic language within the corpus. Prior to 2015, the level of misogyny associated with Clinton decreased over time, but this trend reversed when she announced her presidential campaign. During the campaign, misogyny steadily increased and only plateaued after the election, when the threat of her electoral success had subsided. These findings are consistent with the notion that online misogyny towards female political nominees is a form of backlash prompted by their ambition for power in the political arena.

Categorical versus dimensional structure of autism spectrum disorder: A multi-method investigation.

Background: A key question for any psychopathological diagnosis is whether the condition is continuous or discontinuous with typical variation. The primary objective of this study was to use a multi-method approach to examine the broad latent categorical versus dimensional structure of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Method: Data were aggregated across seven independent samples of participants with ASD, other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), and non-ASD/NDD controls (aggregate Ns = 512-16,755; ages 1.5-22). Scores from four distinct phenotype measures formed composite "indicators" of the latent ASD construct. The primary indicator set included eye gaze metrics from seven distinct social stimulus paradigms. Logistic regressions were used to combine gaze metrics within/across paradigms, and derived predicted probabilities served as indicator values. Secondary indicator sets were constructed from clinical observation and parent-report measures of ASD symptoms. Indicator sets were submitted to taxometric- and latent class analyses. Results: Across all indicator sets and analytic methods, there was strong support for categorical structure corresponding closely to ASD diagnosis. Consistent with notions of substantial phenotypic heterogeneity, the ASD category had a wide range of symptom severity. Despite the examination of a large sample with a wide range of IQs in both genders, males and children with lower IQ were over-represented in the ASD category, similar to observations in diagnosed cases. Conclusions: Our findings provide strong support for categorical structure corresponding closely to ASD diagnosis. The present results bolster the use of well-diagnosed and representative ASD groups within etiologic and clinical research, motivating the ongoing search for major drivers of the ASD phenotype. Despite the categorical structure of ASD, quantitative symptom measurements appear more useful for examining relationships with other factors.

What's so crummy 'bout peace, love, and understanding?

The target article challenges standard approaches to prejudice reduction, warning that they may inure people to inequality and deflect them from seeking collective solutions to it. I argue that the collective action approach has its own risks and limitations and that standard contact and common identity approaches may complement rather than work against it.