Linking family dysfunction to suicidal ideation: Mediating roles of self-views and world-views

Worldview, psychological flexibility, and depression-anxiety-stress in Chinese youth

Background

The psychological problems among the youth population have received widespread attention in the information age. However, little research has been conducted on the effects and mechanisms of worldview on depression, anxiety, and stress (DAS) among youth. In this study, we aim to investigate the relationship between worldview and DAS among youth.

Aims

The aim of this study is to investigate the current state of worldview, psychological flexibility, and DAS in Chinese youth groups, and to explore the relationship between youth worldview, psychological flexibility, and DAS.

Methods

A total of 2,351 Chinese youths completed questionnaires measuring their worldview, psychological flexibility, and DAS levels. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results

The impact of youth worldview on DAS was sophisticated. Positive worldview had a negative direct predictive effect on DAS, as well as a negative indirect predictive effect mediated by psychological flexibility. Traditional worldview had a positive direct predictive effect on DAS, a negative indirect predictive effect mediated by psychological flexibility, and a positive total predictive effect. Spontaneous worldview only had positive indirect predictive effects on DAS. Pessimistic worldview had positive direct effects on DAS and indirect effects mediated by psychological flexibility. Policymakers, psychologists, and educators working with youth should carefully consider the implications of these results for education, employment, and mental health.

Internalized Homophobia and Suicide Ideation Among Sexual Minority Adults: The Serial Mediation of Core Self-Evaluations and Depression

Internalized homophobia (IH) is the endorsement of negative attitudes and stereotypes about sexual minority individuals among those who are LGBQ + . However, although IH is associated with suicide ideation, the underlying mechanisms of this association are relatively understudied. To address this limitation, this research investigates Core Self-Evaluation (CSE; one's fundamental evaluations about themselves, their own abilities, and their own control) and depression as underlying mechanisms associating IH with suicide ideation. CSE comprises four traits: self-esteem, locus of control, emotional stability, and generalized self-efficacy. An online survey was completed by 404 sexual minority adults (Mean_age = 27.42 years, %Female = 51.50, %Male = 30.40, %Trans Female = 3.2, %Trans Male = 5.4). Participants were recruited via Prolific, an online crowdsourcing platform. Four serial mediation analyses examined the direct and indirect effects of IH on suicide ideation via each CSE trait and depression symptoms. Results showed support for the CSE-depression mediated pathway. Self-esteem, emotional stability, and general self-efficacy (but not locus of control) mediated the relationship between IH and suicide ideation via depression symptoms. Across three serial mediations, greater IH was associated with lower (1) self-esteem, (2) emotional stability, and (3) self-efficacy; lower self-esteem, emotional stability, and self-efficacy were associated with greater reported depression symptoms, which were then associated with greater suicide ideation. This research has implications for understanding the underlying mechanisms that associate IH with poor mental health among sexual minority adults. Studying the social and psychological mechanisms can help develop therapeutic interventions that target suicide ideation and promote positive self-evaluations among sexual minority individuals.

Worldviews and Individual Vulnerability to Suicide: The Role of Social Axioms

Research investigating the role of generalized beliefs about the world or worldviews is relatively scarce in the suicide literature. Two studies, using Hong Kong Chinese samples, examined how worldviews, as assessed by the Social Axioms Survey (SAS), were linked with individual vulnerability to suicide. In Study 1, we investigated the relationships of social axioms with various suicide indicators in cognitive, emotional and interpersonal domains, viz., suicidal ideation, negative self–esteem, psychache, burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness. Results from canonical correlation analysis showed that beliefs along the axiom dimensions of social cynicism, reward for application, and social complexity were linked to these suicide indicators. In Study 2, we tested the interplay of worldviews and personality traits in the prediction of suicidal thoughts. Hierarchical regression results demonstrated the predictive power of social axioms over and above that provided by the Big Five personality dimensions. Moreover, a significant interaction was observed between belief in reward for application and negative life events in predicting suicidal ideation, showing that reward for application buffered the effect of negative life events on suicidal ideation. Based on these results, we discussed the significance of worldviews as a consideration in suicide research and their implications for clinical assessment and intervention. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Is It Helpful to Believe That Efforts Will Lead to Positive Outcomes? Two Cross-Lagged Panel Investigations among Adolescents and Young Adults

Over the past few decades, the role of self-views in life satisfaction has been extensively investigated. Recently, growing attention has been directed to the question of whether an optimistic worldview, termed "reward for application", helps boost life satisfaction. Conceptually, the association between reward for application and life satisfaction can be paradoxical. Due to various methodological and theoretical shortfalls, previous investigations were unable to draw a robust conclusion on this association. To address these shortfalls, two cross-lagged panel studies were conducted with different time lags. Over and above the potential confounds of self-views (namely, self-esteem and self-rated personality traits), reward for application had a positive effect on lagged life satisfaction among both adolescents and young adults, while the reverse effect was not found. Moreover, we found support for the multiplicative effect between worldviews and self-views, in which the positive effect of reward for application on life satisfaction was attenuated by high self-esteem.

Does Believing in Fate Facilitate Active or Avoidant Coping? The Effects of Fate Control on Coping Strategies and Mental Well-Being

The development of control-related constructs has involved different approaches over time, and yet internal and external locus of control are conceptualized as dichotomous factors influencing active versus avoidant coping strategies. While external control is associated with avoidance, a similar belief construct fate control, which denotes that life events are pre-determined and influenced by external forces but predictable and alterable, challenges the assumption of incompatibility between fate and agency. To develop a dynamic model of control, we suggest that external control would affect avoidant coping, which in turn would affect psychological distress, whereas fate control would affect both active and avoidant coping when dealing with stress. The model was supported among Hong Kong Chinese using a cross-sectional approach in Study 1 (n = 251) and hypothetical stressful scenarios in Study 2 (n = 294). The moderating effect of perceived controllability was observed in coping behaviors using a diary approach in Study 3 (n = 188). Our findings offer an alternative perspective to the dichotomous view of control and provide implications for coping strategies and mental well-being.

Predicting Gambling Propensity and Behavior: The Role of Social Axioms and Distortive Beliefs

Theory and research have revealed the impact of cognitive factors on propensity for gambling, but the role of generalized beliefs and their underlying mechanisms receive little attention. In the present research, we operationalized generalized beliefs as social axioms (Leung et al. in J Cross Cult Psychol 33:286-302, 2002) and tested how the axiom factors of fate control and social cynicism affected the likelihood to gamble in hypothetical scenarios (Study 1) and the actual behaviour of gambling (Study 2). In Study 1, we found that both fate control and social cynicism positively predicted the propensity to participate in horse betting and casino gambling among university students (n = 184). The effect of fate control was mediated by perceived benefit of gambling, whereas social cynicism affected gambling propensity directly. In Study 2, we showed the same effects of fate control and social cynicism on gambling frequency among at-risk adolescents (n = 547), and identified two types of gambling-related cognition (i.e., distortive gambling cognitions and attitudes towards money) as mediators. Overall, this research provided evidence for the importance of social beliefs in formulating specific gambling cognitions and gambling behaviours, shedding light on intervention strategies for helping frequent gamblers through altering their worldviews in general and risk-taking beliefs in particular.

Exploring Complexity of Deliberate Self-Poisoning through Network Analysis

The purpose of this research was to examine the complexity of circumstances that result in deliberate self-poisoning cases. For the purposes of this paper, the cases were patients that presented for care and were admitted to the specialty hospital in Northwest of Iran. The research examined the problems preceding deliberate self-poisoning and the interrelations among them by applying network analysis methods. The network was scored for degrees of centrality and betweenness centrality. Structural analysis of network also was conducted using block modelling. The results showed that family conflicts had the highest score for degree of centrality among women, while the highest score for degree of centrality among men belonged to those dealing with drug addiction. Analysis for degree of betweenness centrality revealed that drug addiction had the highest score among men, whereas the highest score for women on betweenness centrality was related to physical illness. Structural analysis of the network showed differences in role that various problems played in intentional self-poisoning. The findings from this research can be used by public health authorities to create prevention programs that address the problems leading to deliberate self-poisoning.

The Higher Your Implicit Affiliation-Intimacy Motive, the More Loneliness Can Turn You Into a Social Cynic: A Cross-Cultural Study

Research has shown that the strength of the implicit affiliation-intimacy motive moderates the effects of satisfaction and frustration of the need for affiliation-intimacy: Low relatedness was more closely related to envy for people high in the implicit affiliation-intimacy motive. The present study tests a moderating effect of the strength of the implicit affiliation-intimacy motive on the association between low relatedness and social cynicism in samples of elderly people from Germany, the Czech Republic, and Cameroon. A total of 616 participants provided information on their implicit affiliation-intimacy motive, relatedness, and social cynicism. As hypothesized, a moderation effect of the strength of the implicit affiliation-intimacy motive was found that held true regardless of participants' culture of origin: For people high in the implicit affiliation-intimacy motive, a lack of relatedness was associated with higher levels of social cynicism. Our findings complement other theories stating that positive relationships with others are a significant part of successful aging.

Sex Differences in Social Cynicism Across Societies

If male dominance in society causes women to be more cynical, women should show higher social cynicism than men in diverse cultural contexts. This conjecture was evaluated in a global study of social axioms, or general beliefs about the world, which involved university students from 40 societies and adults from 17 societies. Results showed that contrary to this expectation, men were generally more cynical than women. Men’s higher concern for competition may be one factor that contributes to their higher cynicism. In line with this argument, compared to women, men generally showed higher reward for application, the belief in the usefulness of effort and application, but lower fate control, which involves the belief that events are preordained but alterable. These findings suggest that the effect of male dominance on women’s social cynicism may be overridden by men’s higher concern for competitiveness. Consistent with the argument that male dominance increases women’s social cynicism, sex differences in social cynicism were smaller in societies where women had lower status. An implication of this finding is that women’s status in society is more reflective of the level of male dominance than women’s tendency to be competitive.

Developing and Evaluating the Social Axioms Survey in Eleven Countries

Based on a deductive, culturally decentered approach, new items were generated to improve the reliability of the original Social Axioms Survey, which measures individuals’ general beliefs about the world. In Study 1, results from 11 countries support the original five-factor structure and achieve higher reliability for the axiom dimensions as measured by the new scale. Moreover, moderate but meaningful associations between axiom and Big-Five personality dimensions were found. Temporal change of social axioms at the culture level was examined and found to be moderate. In Study 2, additional new items were generated for social complexity and fate control, then assessed in Hong Kong and the United States. Reliability was further improved for both dimensions. Additionally, two subfactors of fate control were identified: fate determinism and fate alterability. Fate determinism, but not fate alterability, related positively to neuroticism. Other relationships between axiom and personality dimensions were similar to those reported in Study 1. The short forms of the axiom dimensions were generally reliable and correlated highly with the long forms. This research thus provides a stronger foundation for applying the construct of social axioms around the world.