Somatization vs. Psychologization of Emotional Distress: A Paradigmatic Example for Cultural Psychopathology

This paper describes the developing area of cultural psychopathology, an interdisciplinary field of study focusing on the ways in which cultural factors contribute to the experience and expression of psychological distress. We begin by outlining two approaches, often competing, in order to provide a background to some of the issues that complicate the field. The main section of the paper is devoted to a discussion of depression in Chinese culture as an example of the types of questions that can be studied. Here, we start with a review of the epidemiological literature, suggesting low rates of depression in China, and move to the most commonly cited explanation, namely that Chinese individuals with depression present this distress in a physical way. Different explanations of this phenomenon, known as somatization, are explored and reconceptualized according to an increasingly important model for cross-cultural psychologists: the cultural constitution of the self. We close by discussing some of the contributions, both theoretical and methodological, that can be made by cross-cultural psychologists to researchers in cultural psychopathology

The weirdest people in the world?

"Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers-often implicitly-assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species-frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, selfconcepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior-hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges." (author's abstract

Searching for answers in an uncertain world: meaning threats lead to increased working memory capacity

The Meaning Maintenance Model posits that individuals seek to resolve uncertainty by searching for patterns in the environment, yet little is known about how this is accomplished. Four studies investigated whether uncertainty has an effect on people’s cognitive functioning. In particular, we investigated whether meaning threats lead to increased working memory capacity. In each study, we exposed participants to either an uncertain stimulus used to threaten meaning in past studies, or a control stimulus. Participants then completed a working memory measure, where they either had to recall lists of words (Studies 1, 2), or strings of digits (Studies 3, 4). We used both a frequentist approach and Bayesian analysis to evaluate our findings. Across the four studies, we find a small but consistent effect, where participants in the meaning threat condition show improved performance on the working memory tasks. Overall, our findings were consistent with the hypothesis that working memory capacity increases when people experience a meaning threat, which may help to explain improved pattern recognition. Additionally, our results highlight the value of using a Bayesian analytic approach, particularly when studying phenomena with high variance

Implicit Essentialism: Genetic Concepts Are Implicitly Associated with Fate Concepts

Abstract Genetic essentialism is the tendency for people to think in more essentialist ways upon encountering genetic concepts. The current studies assessed whether genetic essentialist biases would also be evident at the automatic level. In two studies, using different versions of the Implicit Association Test [1], we found that participants were faster to categorize when genes and fate were linked, compared to when these two concepts were kept separate and opposing. In addition to the wealth of past findings of genetic essentialism with explicit and deliberative measures, these biases appear to be also evident with implicit measures Citation: Gould WA, Heine SJ (2012) Implicit Essentialism: Genetic Concepts Are Implicitly Associated with Fate Concepts. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38176

primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes in patients at metabolic risk an endocrine society clinical practice guideline

Objective: The objective was to develop clinical practice guidelines for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in patients at metabolic risk. Conclusions: Healthcare providers should incorporate into their practice concrete measures to reduce the risk of developing CVD and T2DM. These include the regular screening and identification of patients at metabolic risk (at higher risk for both CVD and T2DM) with measurement of blood pressure, waist circumference, fasting lipid profile, and fasting glucose. All patients identified as having metabolic risk should undergo 10-yr global risk assessment for either CVD or coronary heart disease. This scoring will determine the targets of therapy for reduction of apolipoprotein B-containing lipoproteins. Careful attention should be given to the treatment of elevated blood pressure to the targets outlined in this guideline. The prothrombotic state associated with metabolic risk should be treated with lifestyle modification measures and in appropriate individuals with low-dose aspirin prophylaxis. Patients with prediabetes (impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose) should be screened at 1- to 2-yr intervals for the development of diabetes with either measurement of fasting plasma glucose or a 2-h oral glucose tolerance test. For the prevention of CVD and T2DM, we recommend that priority be given to lifestyle management.Thisincludesantiatherogenicdietarymodification,aprogramofincreasedphysicalactivity, andweightreduction.Effortstopromotelifestylemodificationshouldbeconsideredanimportant component of the medical management of patients to reduce the risk of both CVD and T2DM. (J Clin Endocrinol Metab 93: 3671–3689, 2008

Attitudes Towards Science

As science continues to progress, attitudes towards science seem to become ever more polarized. Whereas some put their faith in science, others routinely reject and dismiss scientific evidence. The current chapter provides an integration of recent research on how people evaluate science. We organize our chapter along three research topics that are most relevant to this goal: ideology, motivation, and morality. We review the relations of political and religious ideologies to science attitudes, discuss the psychological functions and motivational underpinnings of belief in science, and describe work looking at the role of morality when evaluating science and scientists. In the final part of the chapter, we apply what we know about science evaluations to the current crisis of faith in science and the open science movement. Here, we also take into account the increased accessibility and popularization of science and the (perceived) relations between science and industry

Is Dissonance Reduction a Special Case of Fluid Compensation? Evidence That Dissonant Cognitions Cause Compensatory Affirmation and Abstraction

Cognitive dissonance theory shares much in common with other perspectives that address anomalies, uncertainty, and general expectancy violations. This has led some theorists to argue that these theories represent overlapping psychological processes. If responding to dissonance and uncertainty occurs through a common psychological process, one should expect that the behavioral outcomes of feeling uncertain would also apply to feelings of dissonance, and vice versa. One specific prediction from the meaning maintenance model would be that cognitive dissonance, like other expectancy violations, should lead to the affirmation of unrelated beliefs, or the abstraction of unrelated schemas when the dissonant event cannot be easily accommodated. This article presents 4 studies (N ϭ 1124) demonstrating that the classic induced-compliance dissonance paradigm can lead not only to a change of attitudes (dissonance reduction), but also to (a) an increased reported belief in God (Study 2), (b) a desire to punish norm-violators (Study 1 and 3), (c) a motivation to detect patterns amid noise (Study 3), and (d) polarizing support of public policies among those already biased toward a particular side (Study 4). These results are congruent with theories that propose content-general fluid compensation following the experience of anomaly, a finding not predicted by dissonance theory. The results suggest that dissonance reduction behaviors may share psychological processes described by other theories addressing violations of expectations

Natural Resources Research Institute Technical Report

The eight data files (seven spreadsheets and one zipped folder) mentioned in the report (Appendices B, C, E, and F) are attached to this record along with the PDF file of the report. The zipped folder contains hundreds of .jpg, .las, .pdf, .tfd, and .xls files, totaling 3.24GB of data

Natural Resources Research Institute Technical Report

Plates 1-7B mentioned in the report are also attached to this record. Disks 1-4 have not been located yet.Minnesota has a variety of clays and shales that have potential as industrial clays. These clays are: 1) Precambrian clays; 2) Paleozoic shales; 3) pre-Late Cretaceous primary (residual) and secondary kaolins; 4) Late Cretaceous ball clays and marine shales; 5) Pleistocene glacial clays; and 6) Recent clays. Minnesota clays are currently used for brick and as a portland cement additive. Other potential uses include filler and coating grade kaolins, ceramic tile, refractory products, lightweight aggregate, sanitaryware, and livestock feed filler. Precambrian clays occur in the 1 .1 Ga Keweenawan interflow sediments of the North Shore Volcanic Group, the Middle Proterozoic Thomson Formation and in the Paint Rock member of the Biwabik Iron-Formation on the Mesabi Iron Range, all in northeastern Minnesota. The Paint Rock clays have potential as red coloring additives and glazes. Paleozoic shales in southeastern Minnesota are primarily kaolinitic and illitic shales that are interbedded with limestones. The Ordovician Decorah and Glenwood Formations are marine shales that, in the past, have been used to make bricks, tile, and lightweight aggregate. The thickness of these shales ranges from 10-90 feet. The Decorah Shale has the lowest firing temperature with the best shrinkage and absorption characteristics of all the Minnesota clays. The pre-Late Cretaceous primary and secondary kaolins are found in the western and central portions of Minnesota; the best exposures are located along the Minnesota River Valley from Mankato to the Redwood Falls area and in the St. Cloud area. The primary or residual kaolinitic clays are the result of intense weathering of Precambrian granites and gneisses prior to the Late Cretaceous. Subsequent reworking of these residual clays led to the development of a paleosol and the formation of pisolitic kaolinite clays. Physical and chemical weathering of the saprolitic kaolinite-rich rocks produced fluvial/lacustrine (secondary) kaolinitic shales and sandstones. Recent exploration activity is concentrated in the Minnesota River Valley where the primary kaolin thickness ranges from 0 to 200 + feet, and the thickness of the secondary kaolins ranges from 0-45 + feet (Setterholm, et al, 1989). Similar kaolinitic clays occur in other areas of Minnesota, e.g., St. Cloud and Bowlus areas. However, less information is available on their thickness, quality, and areal distribution due to varying thicknesses of glacial overburden. Cement grade kaolin is extracted from two mines in the residual clays in the Minnesota River Valley, and a third mine there yields secondary kaolinite-rich clays that are mixed with Late Cretaceous shales to produce brick. During the Late Cretaceous, Minnesota was flooded by the transgressing Western Interior Sea, which deposited both non-marine and marine sediments. These sediments are characterized by gray and black shales, siltstones, sandstones, and lignitic material. Significant occurrences of Late Cretaceous sediments are found throughout the western part of the state, with the best exposures located in Brown County, the Minnesota River Valley, and the St. Cloud area. In Brown County, the maximum thickness of the Late Cretaceous sediments is > 100 feet. These sediments thicken to the west and can be covered by significant thicknesses ( > 300 ft.) of glacial overburden in many areas. Current brick production comes from the Late Cretaceous shales in Brown County. In the past, the Red Wing pottery in Red Wing, Minnesota, used Cretaceous and some Ordovician sediments to produce pottery, stoneware, and sewer pipe. Glacial clays occur in glacial lake, till, loess, and outwash deposits, and these clay deposits range in thickness from 5 to 100 + feet. Much of the early brick and tile production (late 1800s and early 1900s) in Minnesota was from glacial clays. The last brickyards to produce from glacial lake clays, e.g., Wrenshall in northeastern Minnesota and Fertile in west-central Minnesota, closed in the 1950s and 1960s. There has also been some clay production from recent (Holocene) fluvial and lake clays that have thicknesses of 2-10 + feet. Both recent and glacial clays are composed of glacial rock flour with minor quantities of clay minerals. Carbonates can be a significant component of many of these clays. Glacial lake clays in northwestern Minnesota (Glacial Lake Agassiz - Brenna and Sherack Formations) begin to bloat at 1830 ° F due to the presence of dolomite and smectite clays. These clays are a potential lightweight aggregate resource. Geochemistry, clay mineralogy, particle size, cation exchange capacity (CEC), raw and fired color, and firing characteristics are useful in distinguishing different potential industrial uses for Minnesota clays. These physical and chemical characteristics help to distinguish potentially useful clays from those with less desirable characteristics, e.g., high quartz or silica content, high shrinkage or absorption upon firing, undesirable fired color, too coarse-grained, CEC of < 5 milliequivalents, etc. Certain clays, e.g., the bloating Decorah and Brenna Formation clays, and the high alumina, refractory, pisolitic clays of the Minnesota River Valley, have physical and chemical characteristics that indicate further exploration and product research are necessary to fully evaluate the potential of these clays.Natural Resources Research Institute, University of Minnesota Duluth, 5013 Miller Trunk Highway, Duluth, MN 55811-1442; Funded by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resource