Predicting Intentions to Read Suicide Awareness Stories: The Role of Depression and Characteristics of the Suicidal Role Model

Background: Research on factors that influence the intention to read suicide awareness material is lacking. Aims: To identify how social and state similarities between the featured protagonist of a suicide awareness story and the audience impact on the intent to read similar stories. Method: Laboratory experiment with n = 104 students. Participants were randomly assigned to study groups. In the first group, the role model provided his personal story of crisis and was a student. In the second group, the content was identical but the model was socially dissimilar. The third group read about a topic unrelated to suicide. Depression, identification, and exposure intent were measured after the experiment. Conditional process analysis was carried out. Results: In the group featuring a once-suicidal role model with high social similarity, depression in the audience increased the intention to read similar material in the future via identification with the role model; 82% of individuals wanted to read similar material in the future, but only 50% wanted to do so in the group featuring a dissimilar person. Conclusion: Exposure intention increases via identification when role model and audience characteristics align regarding social traits and the experience of depression. These factors are relevant when developing campaigns targeting individuals with stories of recovery

Suizid in Filmen

Inhaltliche Ziele: Ziel der hier vorliegenden Dissertation war zu untersuchen, welche Wirkung Spielfilme, in denen der Protagonist Suizid begeht, auf die psychische Befindlichkeit des Rezipienten haben und welche intervenierenden Variablen hierbei von Bedeutung sind. Forschungsdesign: Bei dem Versuchsdesign handelte es sich um ein Laborexperiment, welches fünf Versuchsgruppen beinhaltete: Den Versuchsgruppen 1 und 2 wurde jeweils ein Spielfilm gezeigt, in dem der Protagonist am Ende Suizid begeht. Dieser war in jenen beiden Filmen explizit dargestellt. Den Versuchsgruppen 3 und 4 wurden dieselben Filme gezeigt, wobei die jeweilige Szene, in der der Protagonist Suizid begeht, zensiert wurde. Der 5. Versuchsgruppe wurde ein Drama gezeigt, bei dem der Protagonist nicht durch einen Suizid, sondern aufgrund einer Krankheit zu Tode kommt. Um die gewünschten Forschungsfragen zu untersuchen, wurde den Versuchspersonen zu Beginn und am Ende des Experiments sowie während einer kurzen Unterbrechung des Films Fragebögen vorgelegt, in denen zum einen die verschiedenen Befindlichkeitsparameter der Zuschauer und zum anderen unterschiedliche Rezipienten- und Rezeptionsvariablen erhoben wurden. Zusätzlich zu den Fragebogenerhebungen wurden auch 10 Versuchseinheiten durchgeführt, in denen die Daten zur Beantwortung der zu untersuchenden Fragestellungen anhand von Gruppendiskussionen – jeweils eine Gruppe von 3-4 Männern und eine Gruppe von 3-4 Frauen pro Versuchsbedingung – nach der dokumentarischen Methode eruiert wurden. Ergebnisse: Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigten, dass die Rezeption der Dramen zu einer Verschlechterung der aktuellen Stimmung sowie zu einem Anstieg der Depressivität, aber auch zu einer Erhöhung des Selbstwertgefühls und zu einer Reduktion der suizidalen Tendenzen führt. Zwischen den fünf Versuchsgruppen gab es hinsichtlich der Filmwirkung nur geringe Unterschiede. Darüber hinaus konnte festgestellt werden, dass die negativen Effekte umso größer sind, je mehr sich der Zuschauer mit dem jeweiligen Protagonisten identifiziert und je mehr er in die Handlung des Films emotional involviert ist; emotionale Distanz zum Gesehenen vermindert hingegen die negativen Filmwirkungen. Darüber hinaus zeigte sich hierbei, dass die bevorzugten Coping-Strategien einer Person mit den bei der Rezeption eines Dramas angewandten Rezeptionsmodalitäten teilweise in Zusammenhang stehen: Je mehr ein Zuschauer dazu neigt, sich bei der Lösung von Problemen im Alltag am sozialen Umfeld zu orientieren, umso mehr vergleicht er sich mit dem Protagonisten und sucht nach Anregungen für das eigene Leben, was wiederum zu einer Verstärkung der negativen Filmwirkungen führt. Die Identifikation mit dem Protagonisten wird hingegen vor allem von der individuellen Ausprägung an Empathie bedingt – je empathischer man ist, umso mehr identifiziert man sich mit jener Filmfigur, was wiederum die negativen Filmeffekte verstärkt. Die Ergebnisse der Gruppendiskussionen bestätigten weitgehend die Resultate der quantitativen Analysen und wiesen zudem darauf hin, dass auch die bei der Filmrezeption angewandten Abwehrmechanismen einen Einfluss auf die induzierten Befindlichkeitsveränderungen haben könnten

Predicting Intentions to Read Suicide Awareness Stories: The Role of Depression and Characteristics of the Suicidal Role Model

Background: Research on factors that influence the intention to read suicide awareness material is lacking. Aims: To identify how social and state similarities between the featured protagonist of a suicide awareness story and the audience impact on the intent to read similar stories. Method: Laboratory experiment with n = 104 students. Participants were randomly assigned to study groups. In the first group, the role model provided his personal story of crisis and was a student. In the second group, the content was identical but the model was socially dissimilar. The third group read about a topic unrelated to suicide. Depression, identification, and exposure intent were measured after the experiment. Conditional process analysis was carried out. Results: In the group featuring a once-suicidal role model with high social similarity, depression in the audience increased the intention to read similar material in the future via identification with the role model; 82% of individuals wanted to read similar material in the future, but only 50% wanted to do so in the group featuring a dissimilar person. Conclusion: Exposure intention increases via identification when role model and audience characteristics align regarding social traits and the experience of depression. These factors are relevant when developing campaigns targeting individuals with stories of recovery

A PEST-like element in FREQUENCY determines the length of the circadian period in Neurospora crassa

FREQUENCY (FRQ) is a crucial element of the circadian clock in Neurospora crassa. In the course of a circadian day FRQ is successively phosphorylated and degraded. Here we report that two PEST-like elements in FRQ, PEST-1 and PEST-2, are phosphorylated in vitro by recombinant CK-1a and CK-1b, two newly identified Neurospora homologs of casein kinase 1ε. CK-1a is localized in the cytosol and the nuclei of Neurospora and it is in a complex with FRQ in vivo. Deletion of PEST-1 results in hypophosphorylation of FRQ and causes significantly increased protein stability. A strain harboring the mutant frqΔPEST-1 gene shows no rhythmic conidiation. Despite the lack of overt rhythmicity, frqΔPEST-1 RNA and FRQΔPEST-1 protein are rhythmically expressed and oscillate in constant darkness with a circadian period of 28 h. Thus, by deletion of PEST-1 the circadian period is lengthened and overt rhythmicity is dissociated from molecular oscillations of clock components

WHO IDENTIFIES WITH SUICIDAL FILM CHARACTERS? DETERMINANTS OF IDENTIFICATION WITH SUICIDAL PROTAGONISTS OF DRAMA FILMS

Background: Identification with a media character is an influential factor for the effects of a media product on the recipient, but still very little is known about this cognitive process. This study investigated to what extent identification of a recipient with the suicidal protagonist of a film drama is influenced by the similarity between them in terms of sex, age, and education as well as by the viewer’s empathy and suicidality. Subjects and methods: Sixty adults were assigned randomly to one of two film groups. Both groups watched a drama that concluded with the tragic suicide of the protagonist. Identification, empathy, suicidality, as well as socio-demographic data were measured by questionnaires that were applied before and after the movie screening. Results: Results indicated that identification was not associated with socio-demographic similarity or the viewer’s suicidality. However, the greater the subjects’ empathy was, the more they identified with the protagonist in one of the two films. Conclusions: This investigation provides evidence that challenges the common assumption that identification with a film character is automatically generated when viewer and protagonist are similar in terms of sex, age, education or attitude

Coping and film reception: A study on the impact of film dramas and the mediating effects of emotional modes of film reception and coping strategies

Abstract. This study investigated the impact of film dramas on the emotional and cognitive state of recipients, as well as mediating effects of different modes of film reception. Furthermore, associations between the modes of reception and individual favored coping strategies were examined. One hundred fifty nondepressive and nonsuicidal adults living in Austria watched one of three films featuring the death of the main character. Data on the viewers' mood, inner tensions, self-esteem, life satisfaction, depression, suicidal tendencies, attitudes toward suicide, predominantly used modes of reception, and preferred coping strategies were collected with questionnaires that were handed out before and after seeing the movie. Results indicated that drama viewing was linked to both negative and positive effects: on the one hand, to a deterioration of mood as well as an increase of inner tensions and depression scores, and on the other hand, to a rise in self-esteem and life satisfaction as well as a drop in suicidal tendencies. The more a subject was involved in the film, the more pronounced were the negative impacts and the smaller were the positive reactions. The viewers' preferred coping strategies were partly associated with the modes of reception: the more an individual preferred to seek social support when facing a problem, the more he or she identified with the drama's protagonist and tried to find behavior patterns in the movie to improve his or her own life

Gray matter atrophy in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis is associated with white matter lesions in connecting fibers

Background: Lesions of brain white matter (WM) and atrophy of brain gray matter (GM) are well-established surrogate parameters in multiple sclerosis (MS), but it is unclear how closely these parameters relate to each other. Objective: To assess across the whole cerebrum whether GM atrophy can be explained by lesions in connecting WM tracts. Methods: GM images of 600 patients with relapsing-remitting MS (women = 68%;median age = 33.0 years, median expanded disability status scale score = 1.5) were converted to atrophy maps by data from a healthy control cohort. An atlas of WM tracts from the Human Connectome Project and individual lesion maps were merged to identify potentially disconnected GM regions, leading to individual disconnectome maps. Across the whole cerebrum, GM atrophy and potentially disconnected GM were tested for association both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Results: We found highly significant correlations between disconnection and atrophy across most of the cerebrum. Longitudinal analysis demonstrated a close temporal relation of WM lesion formation and GM atrophy in connecting fibers. Conclusion: GM atrophy is associated with WM lesions in connecting fibers. Caution is warranted when interpreting group differences in GM atrophy exclusively as differences in early neurodegeneration independent of WM lesion formation