Stigma towards people with mental health problems: an individualism-collectivism cross-cultural comparison.

This study explored whether the cross-cultural value paradigm ‘individualismcollectivism’ is a useful explanatory model for mental illness stigmatisation on a cultural level. This has never before been directly investigated despite numerous clues of its potential importance in previous related literature. The paradigm asserts that in ‘collectivist’ cultures, people are more strongly interdependent with their in-groups, and are more likely to give priority to the goals of their in-groups than people from ‘individualistic’ cultures, who are instead more likely to value and desire autonomy and independence from their in-groups, and give priority to their personal goals than to their in-group goals. Three hundred and five individuals from four UK-based cultural groups (white-English, American, Greek/Greek Cypriot, and Chinese) were successfully recruited for a quantitative survey through the use of non-randomised snowball and quota sampling. Twenty-two of these individuals were later qualitatively interviewed in a one-to-one, semi-structured manner. Questions regarding where the four cultures fit within the individualism-collectivism paradigm, how acculturation affects the individualismcollectivism paradigm, what other factors explain stigmatisation, and the level of stigmatising attitudes present in these cultures, were also integrated into the methodological components in an attempt to explore these other important themes. The results partially supported the hypothesis that the paradigm can be applied to explain mental illness attitudes. Increases in the paradigm’s explanatory power corresponded with a cultures’ stigmatisation level. Specifically, the more stigmatising a culture’s mental illness attitudes are, the more likely collectivism effectively explains these attitudes. In contrast, the more positive a culture’s mental illness attitudes, the more likely individualism effectively explains attitudes. Educational level, mental illness experience, and, particularly, mental illness knowledge, were other powerful and consistent stigma explanatory factors, although the stigma affect of these and impact of other key themes were unique to each cultural group. The results also revealed that successfully acculturating to a new culture can impact on one’s cultural values including levels of individualism-collectivism. The American cultural survey group held the most positive mental illness attitudes, followed by the white English group. Both groups also scored high on levels of individualism. The Greek/Greek Cypriots and Chinese held the least positive attitudes and were also found to be generally collectivistic. None of the survey groups’ scores were wholly stigmatising, which suggests a positive shift towards more tolerant attitudes having taken place in recent years even in the Greek/Greek Cypriot and Chinese cultures. This is illuminating as these are traditionally particularly stigmatising cultures, which qualitative interviewees also argued. A number of important recommendations for policy and practice that aim to reduce stigma and highlight the importance of culture are proposed. These include anti-stigma campaigns needing to be culturally and linguistically appropriate and sensitive; using in-group, second-generation members of closed and collectivist communities/cultures to deliver of anti-stigmatising initiatives and; training practitioners to understand the impact of individualism-collectivism on mental health attitudes. Further, a consideration of the individualism-collectivism paradigm should be included in any future research aiming to provide a holistic understanding of the causes of mental illness stigma both on an individual and cultural level

A hierarchical phase space generator for QCD antenna structures

We present a ``hierarchical'' strategy for phase space generation in order to efficiently map the antenna momentum structures, typically occurring in QCD amplitudes.Comment: 21 pages, few typos corrected, figure added, to appear in Eur.Phys.J.

Differences in Physical Activity and Built Environment Perceptions Between Younger and Older Adults Living in the Same Rural

This study examined associations between perceptions and physical activity of younger and older adults residing in the same rural/small town community. Thirty-two adults completed interviews about their community and their physical activity. Both groups perceived their neighborhood as pleasant and safe to be active. Fewer older adults perceived their neighborhood as having sidewalks. Younger adults reported being more vigorously active and they were more often utilizing private membership clubs for physical activity. Older adults utilized more public recreational facilities. These results suggest that higher perceived quality of the neighborhood built environment can enhance participation in moderate exercise in older adults

WEXTER and ERAFITTER: two programs to fit M_W at LEP2 using the best measurable kinematical variables

In this paper, we present two programs to fit M_W at LEP2 using the best measurable kinematical variables. The theoretical probabilities of observing the final-state kinematical configurations are computed by integrating over the quantities that are not well measured. Therefore, an event-by-event kinematical reconstruction is avoided. M_W is then determined through a maximum likelihood fit.Comment: 19 pages, Latex fil

On amplitude zeros at threshold

The occurrence of zeros of 2 to n amplitudes at threshold in scalar theories is studied. We find a differential equation for the scalar potential, which incorporates all known cases where the 2 to n amplitudes at threshold vanish for all sufficiently large $n$, in all space-time dimensions, $d\ge 1$. This equation is related to the reflectionless potentials of Quantum Mechanics and to integrable theories in 1+1 dimensions. As an application, we find that the sine-Gordon potential and its hyperbolic version, the sinh-Gordon potential, also have amplitude zeros at threshold, ${\cal A}(2\to n)=0$, for $n\ge 4$ and $d\ge 2$, independently of the mass and the coupling constant.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, CERN-TH.6762/9

Multiscalar production amplitudes beyond threshold

We present exact tree-order amplitudes for $H^* \to n~H$, for final states containing one or two particles with non-zero three-momentum, for various interaction potentials. We show that there are potentials leading to tree amplitudes that satisfy unitarity, not only at threshold but also in the above kinematical configurations and probably beyond. As a by-product, we also calculate $2\to n$ tree amplitudes at threshold and show that for the unbroken $\phi^4$ theory they vanish for $n>4~$, for the Standard Model Higgs they vanish for $n\ge 3~$ and for a model potential, respecting tree-order unitarity, for $n$ even and $n>4~$. Finally, we calculate the imaginary part of the one-loop $1\to n$ amplitude in both symmetric and spontaneously broken $\phi^4$ theory.Comment: 11 pages, Latex, 3 figures (available on request