Understanding the Recovery Process in Psychosis

Conceptualizing recovery in the context of severe and persisting mental health conditions is a complex issue. In recent years, there has been a call to re-focus research from understanding the concept of recovery to improving understanding of the process of recovery. There is a paucity of knowledge about the core processes involved in recovery from psychosis. Objective: The authors aimed to gain insight into possible processes involved in recovery through analyzing data generated from a large qualitative study investigating employment barriers and support needs of people living with psychosis. Research Design and Methods: Participants were 137 individuals drawn from six key stakeholder groups. Data obtained from focus groups (14) and individual interviews (34) were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The main recovery processes identified were: learning effective coping strategies; recognizing personal potential; identifying and realizing personal goals; participation in social and occupational roles; positive risk-taking; and reclaiming personal identity. Discussion: The results of this study have implications for treatment as well as the daily support needs of people recovering from psychosis

High school girls motivation toward mathematics: Effects of perceived instrumentality and attitude toward the future

Research in the area of future time perspective has suggested that academic motivation is associated with the perceived instrumentality of academic pursuits, and affective attitude toward personal future (Van Calster, Lens & Nuttin, 1987). Motivation tends to be higher when perceived instrumentality is high, but only when one has a positive attitude toward personal future. The present study tested these findings in regard to motivation toward mathematics in a sample of 119 13- year-old high school girls. Main effects for affective attitude and perceived instrumentality on motivation were found. Students who had a positive affective attitude were more motivated than students who had a neutral or negative affective attitude. Students who had high perceived instrumentality were more motivated than students with low perceived instrumentality. The hypothesised interaction between the two independent variables on motivation was not supported. At the same time an experiment was conducted to test the effect of an increase in perceive instrumentality on motivation. The participants in an experimental group read a mock newspaper article and viewed a video, both of which emphasised the importance of mathematics for future career success. Using planned comparisons it was predicted that students with a positive affective attitude would be more motivated after the manipulation, while the students with a negative or neutral affective attitude would report no change in motivation. It was also predicted that students in a control group would not experience a change in motivation. The hypothesised increase in motivation for the students in the experimental group with a positive affective attitude was not supported. Manipulation checks indicated that the experimental manipulation had not been successful in increasing perceived instrumentality. The main implication for educators from this study, is that students\u27 affective attitude toward personal future is an important factor to consider when trying to increase high school girls\u27 motivation toward mathematics. Directions for future research and other practical implications are discussed

Do the eyes have it? Cues to the direction of social attention

The face communicates an impressive amount of visual information. We use it to identify its owner, how they are feeling and to help us understand what they are saying. Models of face processing have considered how we extract such meaning from the face but have ignored another important signal - eye gaze. In this article we begin by reviewing evidence from recent neurophysiological studies that suggests that the eyes constitute a special stimulus in at least two senses. First, the structure of the eyes is such that it provides us with a particularly powerful signal to the direction of another person's gaze, and second, we may have evolved neural mechanisms devoted to gaze processing. As a result, gaze direction is analysed rapidly and automatically, and is able to trigger reflexive shifts of an observer's visual attention. However, understanding where another individual is directing their attention involves more than simply analysing their gaze direction. We go on to describe research with adult participants, children and non-human primates that suggests that other cues such as head orientation and pointing gestures make significant contributions to the computation of another's direction of attention

‘You can tell a victim by the tilt of her head as she walks’: psychopathic personality and social–emotional processing

Much contention and speculation exists regarding the emotional and social skills associated with psychopathic personality, including the idea of a predatory perception. The current study examined the relationship between psychopathic personality and social and emotional processing. The study utilised a quasi-experimental design along with self-report measures to examine psychopathy in a community sample (N = 115) of males and females. To examine psychopathy and social information processing, a series of Mixed Design ANOVA’s were conducted to examine the effect of psychopathy on character recall. Psychopathy was found to significantly predict recall of the unsuccessful character, however, did not predict recall of character gender or emotion. Two hierarchical regressions analyses were conducted to examine emotional intelligence and empathy. Psychopathy was found to be a significant negative predictor of empathy, however, did not significantly predict emotional intelligence. Implications for the current study lie within advancing the empirical understanding on psychopathic personality and victim vulnerability