Biracial Asian Americans and Mental Health Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700 A new study of Chinese-Caucasian, Filipino-Caucasian, Japanese-Caucasian and Vietnamese-Caucasian individuals concludes that biracial Asian Americans are twice as likely as monoracial Asian Americans to be diagnosed with a psychological disorder.
The study by researchers at the Asian American Center on Disparities Research at the University of California, Davis, was reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Boston.
"Up to 2.4 percent of the U.S. population self-identifies as mixed race, and most of these individuals describe themselves as biracial," said Nolan Zane, a professor of psychology and Asian American studies at UC Davis. "We cannot underestimate the importance of understanding the social, psychological and experiential differences that may increase the likelihood of psychological disorders among this fast-growing segment of the population."
Zane and his co-investigator, UC Davis psychology graduate student Lauren Berger, found that 34 percent of biracial individuals in a national survey had been diagnosed with a psychological disorder, such as anxiety, depression or substance abuse, versus 17 percent of monoracial individuals. The higher rate held up even after the researchers controlled for differences between the groups in age, gender and life stress, among other factors.
The study included information from 125 biracial Asian Americans from across the U.S., including 55 Filipino-Caucasians, 33 Chinese-Caucasians, 23 Japanese-Caucasians and 14 Vietnamese-Caucasians.
The information was obtained from the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study, the largest nationally representative survey ever conducted of Asian Americans. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the landmark survey involved in-person interviews with more than 2,000 Asian Americans nationwide. The survey yielded a wealth of raw data for researchers to analyze for insights into Asian American mental health.
Zane and Berger did not look at the mental health of non-Asian Americans.
Future research should investigate the factors that explain the higher rate of diagnosed psychological disorders among biracial Asian Americans, Zane said. Possibilities include influences of ethnic identification and experiences of ethnic discrimination. Suicide in Asian Americans Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700 Asian Americans whose families experience a high degree of interpersonal conflict have a three-fold greater risk of attempting suicide when compared with Asian Americans overall, according to a new study by University of California, Davis, researchers. The risk is tripled even among those who have never had a diagnosis of depression. The findings were reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Boston.
"Because of the great emphasis on harmony and family integration in many Asian cultures, family conflict is an important factor to consider when studying suicidal behaviors among Asian Americans," said Stanley Sue, a professor of psychology and Asian American studies at UC Davis and one of the study's authors. "Our study suggests that we need to more precisely determine the kinds of family conflicts that are associated with suicide risk among Asian Americans, and find means of preventing these family problems."
Sue's study is a new analysis of data from the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study, the largest nationally representative survey ever conducted of Asian Americans. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the landmark survey involved in-person interviews with more than 2,000 Asian Americans nationwide. Subjects were asked about income, marital status, age at time of immigration or number of generations their families have been in the United States, English language proficiency, family conflict, and suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, among other questions, yielding a wealth of raw data for researchers to examine for insights into Asian American mental health.
In the national survey, 2.7 percent of the Asian Americans interviewed reported having attempted suicide at some point during their lives; 9.1 percent of the total group reported having had suicidal thoughts.
Further mining the survey data, Sue and lead investigator Janice Cheng, a psychology graduate student, sorted out the suicide-prone individuals' answers to additional survey questions that asked about past diagnosis of depression and family income. The researchers compared the answers with those of interviewees who had not reported suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts.
The researchers found that among Asian Americans in the national survey, family conflict was a significant risk factor for suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts -- independent of depression, low income or gender.
"This is the first nationally representative investigation of family conflict and suicidal behaviors among Asian Americans," Sue said. "Our findings suggest that high family conflict has an independent and additive effect in predicting lifetime suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts among Asian Americans."
Previous studies by other researchers have shown that certain subgroups of Asian Americans, including college students and Asian American women older than 65, have relatively high rates of suicide or suicide attempts compared with the rest of the nation. However, the UC Davis study was not designed to compare rates of suicide among different groups. Adults Easily Fooled by Children's False Denials Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700 Adults are easily fooled when a child denies that an actual event took place, but do somewhat better at detecting when a child makes up information about something that never happened, according to new research from the University of California, Davis. The research, which has important implications for forensic child sexual abuse evaluations, was presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Psychology Association in Boston.
"The large number of children coming into contact with the legal system -- mostly as a result of abuse cases -- has motivated intense scientific effort to understand children's true and false reports," said UC Davis psychology professor and study author Gail S. Goodman. "The seriousness of abuse charges and the frequency with which children's testimony provides central prosecutorial evidence makes children's eyewitness memory abilities important considerations. Arguably even more important, however, are adults' abilities to evaluate children's reports."
In an effort to determine if adults can discern children's true reports from false ones, Goodman and her co-investigators asked more than 100 adults to view videotapes of 3- and 5-year-olds being interviewed about "true" and "false" events. For true events, the children either accurately confirmed that the event had occurred or inaccurately denied that it had happened. For "false" events -- ones that the children had not experienced -- they either truthfully denied having experienced them or falsely reported that they had occurred.
Afterward, the adults were asked to evaluate each child's veracity.
The adults were relatively good at detecting accounts of events that never happened. But the adults were apt to mistakenly believe children's denials of actual events.
"The findings suggest that adults are better at detecting false reports than they are at detecting false denials," Goodman said. "While accurately detecting false reports protects innocent people from false allegations, the failure to detect false denials could mean that adults fail to protect children who falsely deny actual victimization."
Goodman's co-authors include Donna Shestowsky, acting professor of law at UC Davis, and doctoral students Stephanie Block, Jennifer Schaaf and Daisy Segovia.
Goodman was among the first researchers to undertake academic study of children's eyewitness accounts. She is the author of three books and more than 170 scientific articles in the field; some have been cited in U.S. Supreme Court decisions. She is the 2008 recipient of the American Psychological Association's Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology.
American Synesthesia Association - Arranges meetings and provides means for the people who experience and/or study synesthesia to be in contact with each other.
Catalyst - Synaesthesia - Transcript from the Australian science program Catalyst about synaesthesia.
Meta Description: [ Catalyst is a program that sees science as a dynamic force changing our world. Each week Catalyst will bring a mixture of Australian and international stories, from science breakthroughs investigating the implications, the ethics, and the politics of the particular issue, to stories about how sci... ]
CBS News - 60 Minutes II: A Sixth Sense - An article about the TV show. Synaesthetes tell us about their experiences. There is also a video clip where synaesthete Carol Crane describes what music feels like.
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Do You See What They See? - An article in Discover magazine by Brad Lemley about synesthesia.
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Doctor Hugo - Museums of the Mind - Exploring the art and mind connection: sources on Synaesthesia and the Arts, research on the future of the senses. Homepage of the Belgian Synaesthesia Association.
Meta Description: [ Synesthesia and Art. Research and theory on the future of the senses. Homepage of the Belgian Synesthesia Association. ]
Edward M. Hubbard - A researcher at the University of California who studies synesthesia through the use of perceptual experiments and brain imaging.
404For some, pain is orange - Article in Smithsonian Magazine.
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Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes - People with synesthesia are providing valuable clues to understanding the organization and functions of the human brain. Article in Scientific American.
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Kaleidescope Eyes: The Secrets Of A Novel Gift - Article in ScienceDaily Magazine about research on synaesthesia at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
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Mixed Signals - Information of about different types of synesthesia, a message board for synesthetes, a survey and an event calendar amongst other things.
Psychic powers may be a quirk of the brain - Article in Medical Study News about researching showing that psychic powers that enable people to see auras might be synaesthesia.
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Retroglobe - Synaesthesia - Christian Liljeberg's description of his colored numbers, letters and time units.
Synaesthesia - Sean A. Day's mailing list, for synaesthetes and other interested, has its home here. A lot of information about what synaesthesia is and the different types of it. There is also a list of synaesthete authors and composers, and links to the experiences of synaesthetic individuals.
Synaesthesia - A compilation of information from the internet and traditional sources. Includes explanations of the different types of perception.
Synaesthesia and Education - A research project at The University of Cambridge about the effects of synaesthesia on numerical cognition in children.
404Synaesthete.com - A place for people with synaesthesia to compare notes, experiences, artwork and ideas.
Synesthesia - An interview with Dr. Richard Cytowic and Carol Steen on ABC Radio National. Transcript.
Synesthesia - A few articles about synesthesia. A part of Webcam.org's Synthetic Synesthesia section.
Synesthesia - Ariannel describes her synesthesia and shares her thoughts on the subject.
Synesthesia - the mixing of the senses - The term synesthesia means the joining of senses, and the implication is that environmental exposure instigates the preferred development of sensory biased areas; at birth differentiation is minimal.
Synesthesia: Richard Cytowic, MD - Pioneering neurologist and author Richard Cytowic, MD explains brain basis of colored hearing and other joined senses.
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The Prometheus Institute - The Prometheus Institute's site about synaesthesia and art. Texts in English and Russian.
Truly feeling blue - Article in The Scotsman about an author who has based a book upon her daughter's synaesthesia.
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404Weird Science - An article in Financial Times describing synesthesia.
