Correlates Of Positive Mental Health Among Migrants In Canada

Introduction: Positive mental health is of increasing interest as a public health measure, and is understudied among migrants. Objective: The purpose of this project was to examine positive mental health and associated factors among migrants in Canada. Methods: We used the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 2011-2012 cycles. A total of 28,051 respondents identified as migrants, which accounted for 23.2% of the entire sample. Using multivariable regression models, positive mental health among migrants was compared to non-migrants, and the effects of sociodemographic, lifestyle, and health-related factors were examined. Results: The present study found that time spent in Canada since migration affects positive mental health in migrants, as well as their own perception of mental health. Furthermore, several important factors that contribute to better positive mental health or self-perceived mental health were identified. Conclusion: Strategies that promote positive mental health in migrants and education about factors that can contribute to better positive mental health should be encouraged

The Narrative Of The Outsider: Marginalization In The Works Of María Luisa Bemberg, Lucrecia Martel, And Lucía Puenzo

Through film and literature, my dissertation explores the representation of race, social class, and gender in the works of three Argentine directors. These social constructs have become so ingrained in interpersonal relations that there is rigidity in how they are considered. Therefore, those individuals who do not think and interact appropriately with the constructs occupy the outside. The possibility of marginalization adds another layer to the constructs by sensitizing them to the point that they affect the individual and their relationships (i.e. psychologically and socially). However, several representations, such as those that make up our corpus, challenge the definitions of said constructs. In essence, as each representation (case) moves further away from the ideal, it is recognizable that an ideal can no longer be clearly defined. My decision to use Argentina as the target country was done intentionally to serve as a microcosm of a culture other than my own. Upon analysis of the corpus, the majority of which is situated in Argentina, comparisons and contrasts can be made between that country and the United States. We conclude that the sensitive nature of race, social class, and gender is caused by the existence of the outside; however, representation is challenging and redefining that outside

Brain-Behavior Connections Underlying Emotion and Theory of Mind In Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that af- fects nearly 1 in 54 children. Children with ASD struggle with social, communication, and behavioral challenges due to deficits in theory of mind (ToM). In addition, diag- nosis of ASD is complicated and there is an urgent need to identify ASD-associated biomarkers and features to help automate diagnostics and develop predictive ASD models. In this study, we conducted two experiments collecting behavioral and neu- roimaging data from 9 children with ASD and 19 neurotypical children (NT) between the age of 7 and 14 years. The first experiment examined specific elements of emotion recognition to bet- ter understand those skills needed for meaningful social interaction among children with ASD. Two previously tested measures of ToM, the Theory of Mind Inventory-2 (ToMI-2) and the Theory of Mind Task Battery (ToMTB), were used to evaluate early developing, basic, and advanced theory of mind skills impacting children’s so- cial skills. We also created and implemented two novel fMRI paradigms to probe the neural mechanisms underlying ToM related desire-based emotion and more complex emotions (i.e., surprise and embarrassment), as well as two early-developing emotions (i.e., happy and sad). Results suggested impaired abilities in multiple ToM metrics and brain deficits associated with ToM-related emotion recognition and processing among children with ASD. Findings from this study established connections between behavior and brain activities surrounding ToM in ASD, which may assist the devel- opment of neuroanatomical diagnostic criteria and may provide new pathways for measuring intervention outcomes in special populations such as those with ASD. The second experiment adopted a novel evolutionary algorithm, the conjunctive clause evolutionary algorithm (CCEA), to select features most significant for distin- guishing individuals with and without ASD, accommodating datasets having a small number of samples with a large number of feature measurements. Potential biomarker candidates identified included brain volume, area, cortical thickness, and mean cur- vature in specific regions around the cingulate cortex, the frontal cortex, and the temporal-parietal junction, as well as behavioral features associated with theory of mind. A separate machine learning classifier (i.e., k-nearest neighbors algorithm) was used to validate the CCEA feature selection and then used for ASD prediction. Study findings demonstrated how machine learning tools might help to facilitate diagnostic and predictive models of ASD

Rethinking cognitive style in psychology

Bibliography: leaves 240-257.This thesis proposes to answer a single question: do the stylistic features of cognition operate independently of cognitive contents? The question itself has a history, and the way it has been framed, and the types of answers it has attracted have been related to ideological and political interests. Chapter 1 reviews four social psychological theories of the relationship between cognitive style and ideological beliefs - authoritarianism, extremism theory, context theory, and value pluralism theory. It argues that these (empiricist) accounts have been bedeviled by a tension between theoretical universalism and political critique, and have fostered the view that cognitive traits are stable, general, and pervasive properties of individual psychology. Chapter 2 focuses on the construct of intolerance of ambiguity, and shows how - in the manner of Danziger's (1985) "methodological circle" - universalistic assumptions have become incorporated into measurement instruments; and how all evidence of individual variability in cognitive style has been accommodated by interactionist models of personality, leaving the empiricist view intact. Roy Bhaskar's critical realism is used as an alternative to a empiricist psychology, and Michael Billig's rhetorical psychology is used as an alternative to universalistic theories of cognitive style. A measurement procedure is developed which can assess cross-content variability in ambiguity tolerance. Three studies are performed in order to justify a move towards an anti-universalistic conception of cognitive style. Study l evaluates the hypothesized generality of ambiguity tolerance on a sample of university students. Factor analysis and correlational matrices show that ambiguity tolerance toward different authorities is domain specific, and that different factors are related to each other positively, negatively, and orthogonally. Study 2 employs the same sample, and uses polynomial regression analysis to show that the relationship between ambiguity tolerance and ideological conservatism is highly variable across content domain. Study 3 replicates these central findings with another student sample and with different scale contents. The results of all three studies arc contrary to the predictions of the social psychological accounts of cognitive style. They show that expressions of cognitive style are context- and content-dependent, and suggest that the empiricist "thing-like" ontology be replaced with a praxis- and concept-dependent ontology