Schizotypal Personality Disorder: A Clinical Social Work Perspective

Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is considered to be a “schizophrenia spectrum disorder” as evidenced in part by its cross-listing in that chapter of the DSM-5. SPD is considered to be a condition with limited potential for positive change because one of its major features is the presence of a biologically based cognitive deficit. This assumption, however, is an example of the medical model’s creating a bias against psychosocial features that are always involved in character development. The social work profession’s bio-psycho-social perspectives focus more comprehensively on all features of the condition and promote a more optimistic view of clients’ change potentials. The purposes of this paper are to examine SPD from a social work perspective and to demonstrate, with a case example, how effective intervention can be organized and delivered.     

Appropriating Care and Hijacking Desire: Thought and Praxis in Human Services Under 21st Century Capitalism

In this article, we trace the rise of neoliberalism and its impacts on the historical role of human services within the academy and the community. We ask whether we can re-think and re-envision a 21st century academy rooted in the material actualities of daily living and connected in very real ways to the struggles of those Human Services was designed to serve. Finally, we propose that Human Services could have a significant role to play in developing new modes of value that could lead to new modes of thought and new avenues of praxis.     

Social embeddedness in a harmonized Europe: the social networks of European migrants with a native partner in Belgium and the Netherlands

Although intra‐European migration is often considered relatively easy to realize given European citizens' right to freedom of movement, settlement in another European country can still be experienced as socially disruptive. Insights in the insertion processes of European migrants, nevertheless, remain rather scarce. In this study, we analyse the social networks of European nationals with a native partner in Belgium and the Netherlands. The analysis is based on survey data from the EUMARR project (n = 576). First, we study the size and composition of European migrants' local family and friendship networks, and the frequency of contact with these networks. Second, we connect intra‐EU movers' insertion routes to investments in transnational networks in their home country. The results reveal how size, composition and contact with the local and transnational network change over time. Children help to maintain contact with both the local and transnational family network and form a bridge for parents to meet own friends in the host country. Moreover, having own friends and own family around matters for contact frequency with the local networks.     

Overcoming medication refusal using a patient-centered approach

The refusal of psychotropic medication is a challenge faced by many healthcare providers when treating patients with mental illness. Controversy surrounds medication refusal because some mental health professionals believe that psychiatric patients should be forced to take medications for the safety of the general public, while patients are often acutely aware of potential lifelong adverse side effects and are sometimes reluctant to comply. The proposed alternative to this problem begins with developing the patient-provider relationship through a patient-centered approach. This approach emphasizes the individual needs of patients and creates opportunities for input from patients about their care, which helps form relationships of mutual trust and respect between patients and providers. This article explores the literature to: (1) understand some of the challenges and controversies involved in patient medication refusal from a clinical and societal level; (2) identify some issues in a patient-centered approach; and (3) make some brief clinical and policy recommendations that might help to bring about an increase in the use of patient-centered care. Hopefully, as efforts are made toward a patient-centered approach, increased psychotropic medication adherence and decreased medication coercion will result as providers listen and act upon the needs of their patients.     

Does Sport Celebrity Advocacy Work? Testing the Potential for Endorsements to Backfire

Fandom and psychological reactance theory, a framework for understanding reactions to messages perceived to limit an individual’s freedom to choose freely, are used to examine the influence of sports celebrities. An experiment was conducted (n = 283) to examine the impact of source similarity and controlling language use on reactance levels and message evaluations. Findings suggest that sources perceived to be similar generated less reactance than dissimilar sources. Similar source messages were also linked to greater potential for information-seeking behavior. High- versus low-controlling language use was examined in conjunction with similarity; low-controlling language was found to generate the least reactance regardless of source similarity. Implications for the use of celebrity advocacy in marketing and public relations are discussed.     

Assessing Participation and Effectiveness of the Peer-Led Approach in Youth Sexual Health Education: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis in More Developed Countries

Sexual health education for young people is crucial not only for development of norms but also for protection against vulnerabilities during this stage in life. Although several systematic reviews have examined the effectiveness of peer-led sex education, none have focused on the extent of peer participation. The purpose of this review was to evaluate peer-led sexual health education interventions in more developed countries (MDCs). Electronic and manual searches across five social science, education, and medical databases were conducted. Fifteen articles were selected in total. Most (10 of 15) studies gave low or no responsibility to peers. The majority of articles found improvements in sexual health knowledge (13 of 14) and attitudes (11 of 15) at postintervention stages. Two studies showed improved self-efficacy, and three showed behavioral changes. A preliminary synthesis of effectiveness and level of participation was done. Meta-analysis revealed a large effect on knowledge change (Hedges’ g = 0.84, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.43 to 1.25) and a medium effect on attitude change (Hedges’ g = 0.49, 95% CI: 0.19 to 0.80). Peer-led interventions could be a powerful tool. This review shows that this approach is effective in changing knowledge and attitudes but not behaviors. Further research and action are needed to understand optimal implementation.     

PROVIDING GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS: ELECTORAL DELEGATION AND COOPERATION

This study experimentally examines the effect of electoral delegation on providing global public goods shared by several groups. Each group elects one delegate who can freely decide on each group member's contribution to the global public goods. Our results show that people mostly vote for delegates who assign equal contributions for every group member. However, in contrast to standard theoretical predictions for our delegation mechanism, unequal contributions across groups drive cooperation down over time, and it decreases efficiency by almost 50% compared to the selfish benchmark. This pattern is not driven by delegates trying to exploit their fellow group members, as indicated by theory. It is driven by conditional cooperation of delegates across groups. Since one of the potential sources of the resulting inefficiency is the polycentric nature of global public goods provision together with other‐regarding preferences, we use the term P‐inefficiency to describe our finding. (JEL C92, D72, H41)     

Bidirectional Linkages Between Emotion Recognition and Problem Behaviors in Elementary School Children

Cross-sectional studies support negative associations between children’s skills in recognizing emotional expressions and their problem behaviors. Few studies have examined these associations over time, however, precluding our understanding of the direction of effects. Emotion recognition difficulties may contribute to the development of problem behaviors; additionally, problem behaviors may constrain the development of emotion recognition skill. The present study tested the bidirectional linkages between children’s emotion recognition and teacher-reported problem behaviors in 1st and 3rd grade. Specifically, emotion recognition, hyperactivity, internalizing behaviors, and externalizing behaviors were assessed in 117 children in 1st grade and in 3rd grade. Results from fully cross-lagged path models revealed divergent developmental patterns: Controlling for concurrent levels of problem behaviors and first-grade receptive language skills, lower emotion recognition in 1st grade significantly predicted greater internalizing behaviors, but not hyperactivity or externalizing behaviors, in 3rd grade. Moreover, greater hyperactivity in 1st grade marginally predicted lower emotion recognition in 3rd grade, but internalizing and externalizing behaviors were not predictive of emotion recognition over time. Together, these findings extend previous research to identify specific developmental pathways, whereby emotion recognition difficulties contribute to the development of internalizing behaviors, and early hyperactivity may contribute to the development of emotion recognition difficulties, thus highlighting the importance of examining these processes and their mutual development over time.