Providentia

Storming into Adulthood

o be normal during the adolescent period is by itself abnormal”   Anna Freud.

Ever since G. Stanley Hall first described the “storm and stress” seen in most adolescents, the perception of young people as emotional volcanoes ready to explode has taken on a life of its own.   In his 1904 book on adolescence, Hall suggested that storm and stress was an inevitable part of adolescent development.   His storm and stress hypothesis refers to the decreased self-control seen in adolescents (the “storm” part of the hypothesis) versus the increased sensitivity in adolescents to various arousing stimuli around them (the “stress”).    For Hall, storm and stress affected adolescent behaviour in three basic ways:

• Conflict with parents
• Mood disruptions
• Risky behaviour

Though not all adolescents necessarily go through the storm and stress stage of development, Hall’s ideas about adolescence were fairly popular for their time.   In the decades that followed,  researchers and academics have tried to place their own spin on Hall’s developmental hypothesis and whether adolescent tension was due to biological factors or upbringing.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today post.

The Bradford Experiment

On February 6, 1921, Thomas Lynn Bradford of Detroit, Michigan methodically sealed off his rented room before blowing out the pilot light on the room’s gas heater.  He then turned up the gas jets and quietly waited until the gas asphyxiated him. Though the circumstances of Bradford’s suicide seemed mundane enough to the police investigators, his reason for committing suicide was, well, out of this world.

Bradford, who had claimed to be a former electrical engineer, actor and professional athlete, had devoted the last years of his life to spiritualism.  Along with marketing himself as a psychic in the Detroit area, he also conducted numerous lectures on the occult.  Though his lectures didn’t appear particularly popular, he still produced numerous (and mostly unpublished) essays on different supernatural topics. Not long before his death, Bradford had written that, “all phenomena are outside the realm of the supernatural” and that science would eventually prove the existence of the soul and its survival after death. All of which led to what would be the most radical scientific test of the paranormal ever attempted.

To read more, check out my new post on the JREF Swift blog.

Being Unsporting

Given the prevalence of antisocial behavior in sport, researchers have begun to explore the role of self-regulatory processes in reducing such conduct. In a paper recently published in Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, researchers examined the effects of moral disengagement on emotion and antisocial sport behavior. Specifically, they investigated whether moral disengagement facilitated antisocial behavior and whether this effect was mediated by anticipated feelings of guilt. Using a cross-sectional design, Study 1 found that the relationship between moral disengagement and antisocial behavior was partially mediated by anticipated guilt. Using an experimental design, Study 2 found that attribution of blame (i.e., moral disengagement mechanism) reduced negative emotional reactions to antisocial behavior and increased reported likelihood to act antisocially; this latter effect was mediated by anticipated guilt. These findings provide empirical support for Bandura’s (1991) social– cognitive theory of moral thought and action, whereby moral disengagement facilitates antisocial behavior partly because it affects anticipated guilt.

For the abstract

Witchcraft Fears Cause Mental Health Crisis in Chad

Mental health services are already woefully scarce in the Central African nation of Chad with only a single psychiatrist for a country with a population of more than twelve million.   With widespread poverty and a history of civil wars, it is hardly surprising that the United Nation's Human Development Index ranks Chad at near the bottom of the list of countris.   And the situation is even worse for people experiencing psychiatric problems.    For most of them, their condition is being undermined by the widespread belief that mental illness is caused by witchcraft and demonic possession.   As a result, many sufferers are afraid to speak out even to family members due to fear that they might be believed possessed or even guilty of witchcraft themselves.   The stigma against mental illness remains common in many African sub-Saharan countries and the presence of numerous self-styled healers and exorcists means that anyone identified with a mental illness can be shunned and/or persecuted.  There are numerous reports of mentally ill people being subjected to torture, starvation, beatings, and forced exorcisms to "drive the demon out".

According to Dr. Egip Bolsane, Chad's lone psychiatrist, "Going to see a psychiatrist in Chad is a difficult thing for many people.   Public opinion here thinks that it means something is really wrong in your head, it might be because you're possessed.  We need to demystify the more or less diabolical image of psychiatry."    Dr. Bolsane has noticed a high number of cases of undiagnosed schizophrenia and other mental illnesses which he believes to be linked to Chad's violent history and the stigma of mental illness.   Despite Chad's newfound oil wealth, little of the new revenue has gone towards improving mental health care or making services more accessible to those who need it.  Due to the rising influence of pentecostal and charismatic churches, islamic mullahs and saints - known as marabouts,  belief in demonic possession and witchcraft is more widespread than ever.  

While traditional healers remain popular, they face stiff competition from Christian and Muslim healers promising miraculous cures.   When dealing with mental illness,, particularly psychosis,  the lack of available medical resources makes the message spread by faith healers more tempting.   With diseases such as malaria, polio, and measles still endangering lives and with one of the highest infant mortality rates in Africa,  mental health care has the lowest priority of all  forms of healthcare.   In most developing countries including Chad, overburdened health care budgets rarely devote more than a tiny percentage of scarce health care dollars to mental health treatment.     Providing psychiatric medication on a regular basis to more than a small handful of patients remains impossible without better methods of delivery.    Even providing counseling for many mental health problems is largely impractical for lare segments of the possiblity.   The lack of strong solutions makes the promised cures offered by charismatic practitioners all the more appealing.

Along with the need for more healthcare practitioners,  the people of Chad also require education to correct some of the prevailing beliefs about the true nature of mental disease and misconceptions surrounding psychiatry.   With suspected witches and possessed being actively persecuted in many communities,  men, women, and even children can be driven out of their villages and forced to become refugees.  The same applies for chronic mental patients with no real option except to survive by begging. 

And the problem goes on.

For more information.

 

Can Social Media Spread Epidemics?

Danvers, Massachusetts has a long and, well, unusual history.

Originally known as Salem Village, the mid-sized town (with a population of 26,493 according to a 2010 census) is best known for the Salem witch trials and being the site of one of Massachusetts’ oldest psychiatric hospitals.    While rarely appearing in the news otherwise, the town of Danvers got more international publicity that they likely wanted starting in January 2013.   That was when about two dozen teenagers at the Essex Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers began reporting bizarre symptoms including “mysterious” hiccups and vocal tics.   After the Massachusetts State Health Department ruled out any physical cause for the outbreak, the epidemic gradually subsided over the next few months.    Despite speculations that the outbreak may be due to mass psychogenic illness (MPI), the State Health Department has not made any official statement on the cause to date.

While the location of the outbreak seems ironic given Danvers’ legendary history,   epidemics of MPI have become increasingly common over the past few years, especially in the United States.   According to New Zealand sociologist and skeptic Robert Bartholomew, the Danvers epidemic resembles other cases that occurred.   Bartholomew has studied over 6,000 cases of MPI dating back to the 16^th century and argues that social media may be playing a strong role in the recent upsurge of cases.

Formerly known as “mass hysteria”, MPI is defined as “the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic aetiology.”  Episodes of MPI have occurred around the world and throughout history with common factors including:

• Symptoms with no known organic basis
• Symptoms with rapid onset and recovery
• Symptoms that are typically transient in nature
• Occurring in a specific group
• Extreme anxiety
• Symptoms are spread by word of mouth or through popular media
• Spreading down the age scale from older to younger victims
• Predominantly female victims

Symptoms linked to MPI outbreaks can include nausea, headaches, abdominal cramps or pain, fainting, chest pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and anxiety attacks.   According to British psychologist, Simon Wessely, MPI can manifest itself as either “mass anxiety hysteria” with episodes of acute anxiety (primarily in schoolchildren), or as “mass motor hysteria” involving abnormal motor behaviour.   

To  read more, check out my new Psychology Today post.

 

Linking Family Structure to Behaviour Problems

Most children in the U.S. today will experience one or more changes in family structure. A study published in Developmental Psychology explored the implications of this trend for child development by investigating the conditions under which family structure changes matter most to child well-being. Using data from the Maternal and Child Supplement of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,492), the researchers estimated how changes in family structure experienced during 4 different developmental periods relate to concurrent and subsequent changes in children’s behavioral trajectories. They also estimated associations separately for children born to married and unwed parents to determine whether family instability has different associations with children’s behavior across policy-relevant family types. Results indicate that changes in family structure during the first 3 years of life predict children’s behavioral development more consistently than later changes, changes into a single-parent family have different implications for children’s development than changes into a blended family, and changes in family structure matter more for children born to married parents than children born to unwed parents.

For the abstract

Can Pesticide Exposure Lead to Brain Damage?

"Pesticides were designed to be neurotoxic.   Why should we be surprised if they cause neurotoxicity?"  - Bruce Lanphear, M.D, M.P.H

More than five decades since Rachel Carson alerted the world to the dangers of pesticide exposure with her classic book, Silent Spring, the longterm consequences of widespread pesticide use continues to be felt worldwide.  Despite stringent legislation designed to curb the use of pesticides, research investigating the medical consequences of exposure has raised disturbing new questions about how this exposure is affecting children.   Studies have already linked organophosphates, which are found in many pesticides and herbicides, with neurodegenerative diseases in farm workers and laboratory animals.   Linking organophosphate pesticide use to the rise in new cases of  attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities has been more controversial, however. 

Most organophosphate pesticides work by inactivating the enzyme cholinesterase in insects.  This then leads to the breakdown of acetycholine, which acts as a neurotransmitter in many organisms (including humans).   The same neurotoxic effects which kill insects can also affect humans and animals as well.    While most commercial pesticides carry instructions regarding proper use,  the presence of pesticide residue in many foods and even local water supplies can lead to toxic effects even in minute quantities.   Symptoms of organophosphate exposure can include fatigue, dizziness, nausea, headaches, sweating, and vomiting.   More severe symptoms include abdominal cramps, diarrhea, motor impairments, and breathing problems.   Since pesticide exposure symptoms are often mistaken for other medical conditions, the true cause may go untreated until too late.   While EPA worker protection standards are in place to protect agricultural workers, they are often inadequate since they do not acknowledge the greater risk that organophosphates pose for pregnant women and their children.   At this time, only California, Ohio, Arizona and Colorado have formal testing standards in place to protect people at risk for pesticide exposure.

Among the organophosphates that have raised particular concern has been chlorpyrifos, a popular insecticide which was phased out as a home insecticide in 2001 due to neurotoxic effects.  Before being banned for household use,  researchers found detectable levels of chlorpyrifos in virtually all African-American and Dominican pregnant women living in public housing in New York City.   While home insecticides no longer contain chlorpyrifos, it continues to be widely used in agricultural settings.   As for newer insecticides for use in the home, including  pyrethroid insecticides,  evidence suggests that they are potentially neurotoxic as well 

For more than twenty years, a research program at the University of California at Berkeley  has been investigating whether  organophosphate exposure can be contributing to abnormal brain development in children living in California.   Two additonal research programs run by Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia University have been doing similar research looking at low-income children in New York City. All three studies have found a significant link between organophosphate exposure and developmental disorders in children including lower IQs and attention deficit problems.

The studies used similar research methodology, including recruiting hundreds of pregnant women and testing them for pesticide exposure while following their children for years afterward to measure potential learning problems.    For all three studies, the children with the highest pesticide exposure showed abnormal reflexes as infants, ADHD-like behaviour by five years of age, and significantly lower IQ scores by the age of seven.    MRI research also showed significant brain anomalies in children with high prenatal pesticide exposure.   This includes significant cortical thinning in the frontal and parietal lobes which may be linked to attention problems and development delays.

 One surprising result was that even pregnant women living in urban areas showed evidence of pesticide exposure.  While largely viewed as a risk for pregnant women living in agricultural settings, 71% of the pregnant women enrolled in the study showed detectable levels of pesticide exposure.    Even in cities, organophosphate pesticides can be purchased in spray form to use on indoor pests such as roaches and ants and women living in low-income housing remain especially vulnerable due to high levels of pesticide use.

As for the long-term consequences of widespread pesticide exposure,  researchers are only beginning to discover the true scope of the medical and social costs involved.   As organophosphates  known to be neurotoxic are phased out of general use, companies are often replacing them with newer chemicals with properties that are less well-understood.   So long as pesticides continue to be used in large quantities to control pests, the potential medical risks will likely remain. 

For more information.

 

 

 

 

Taking Risks

Did you do anything risky when you were younger? (be honest, now!)   Risky behaviour, whether it involves binge drinking, drug use,  breaking rules (including legal ones), or practicing unsafe sex, seems to increase as adolescence ends and as adulthood begins.   The various biological and psychological changes that mark emerging adulthood can lead to considerable emotional distress and young people often find that they have difficulty handing the new social roles that come with growing older.

According to the psychosocial stress model, adolescents take risks due to the interaction of the various psychosocial stressors they face on becoming adults combined with the lack of good coping strategies to deal with stress.    Much like everything else, adolescents take risks for what appear to be good reasons.  These can include establishing themselves as individuals, showing independence from their parents,  gaining new experiences, or winning the respect of people in their peer groups.     For instance, certain in-groups such as fraternities or sororities can use “hazing” rituals for prospective members to “prove” themselves.  Also, taking risks are often seen as a way for adolescents and young adults to demonstrate to others (or even to themselves) that they are “not kids any more”.

Of course, once adulthood kicks with all the responsibilities that go with it, including employment, marriage, and so on, those risk behaviours lose their appeal (for the most part).    While some risky behaviours can lead to long-term behaviours that persist over time, including substance abuse, adults make more of an effort to “tone down” the risks they take, if only for the sake of appearances.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

Talking About Near and Dear

A research study published in Developmental Psychology investigated the role of familiarity and proximity in infants’ comprehension of displaced speech. When 13- and 16-month-old infants heard a researcher talk about a familiar person immediately after she left the room, they showed comprehension of the name by looking, pointing, or searching for the person in question. The majority of 16-month-olds were also able to reveal comprehension of the reference to the absent person after a 16-min delay, and they were able to respond to the name of an unfamiliar person as well. The 13-month-olds had more difficulty responding after the delay and to the name of a less familiar person. Thus, in the early phases of absent reference comprehension, infants’ ability to respond to displaced speech can vary as a function of the temporal gap between the verbal reference and the last appearance of the referent, and of how strong their representation of the referent is.

For the abstract

What Makes Suicides Newsworthy?

Is suicide really contagious? Ever since the publication of Johann von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774 led to a rash suicides, the existence of the "Werther effect" has been supported by numerous research studies. Well into the 20th century, high-profile suicides involving celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, and Yukiko Okada have been linked to later deaths believed to have been committed by fans imitating their idols.

Along with celebrity suicides, research has linked copycat deaths to news stories describing specific locations and/or methods of committing suicide that increases the likelihood of vulnerable people killing themselves in the same way. Suicide epidemics linked to places such as Mount Mihara and Aokigahara Forest in Japan, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the Bloor Viaduct in Toronto have persisted despite attempts to curb deaths with improved safety measures. Even the presence of Internet web sites describing suicide methods and "suicide kits" available by mail order can often lead to deaths that might never have occurred otherwise.

In response to concerns about copycat suicides, media agencies in many countries have developed formal guidelines to encourage the responsible reporting of suicides. Despite accusations of censorship, these guidelines are intended to correct popular misconceptions about suicide and to avoid reporting deaths in a sensationalized manner. Although these guidelines are useful to a point, the need to report on high-profile deaths is an ongoing problem for news agencies.

To read more, check out my new contribution to the Huffington Post.