The Shaman and Schizophrenia, Revisited

This paper presents evidence that some-but not all-religious experts in a particular faith may have a schizophrenia-like psychotic process which is managed or mitigated by their religious practice, in that they are able to function effectively and are not identified by their community as ill. We conducted careful phenomenological interviews, in conjunction with a novel probe, with okomfo, priests of the traditional religion in Ghana who speak with their gods. They shared common understandings of how priests hear gods speak. Despite this, participants described quite varied personal experiences of the god's voice. Some reported voices which were auditory and more negative; some seemed to describe trance-like states, sometimes associated with trauma and violence; some seemed to be described sleep-related events; and some seemed to be interpreting ordinary inner speech. These differences in description were supported by the way participants responded to an auditory clip made to simulate the voice-hearing experiences of psychosis and which had been translated into the local language. We suggest that for some individuals, the apprenticeship trained practice of talking with the gods, in conjunction with a non-stigmatizing identity, may shape the content and emotional tone of voices associated with a psychotic process.

Emotion regulation strategies and psychological health across cultures

Emotion regulation is important for psychological health and can be achieved by implementing various strategies. How one regulates emotions is critical for maximizing psychological health. Few studies, however, tested the psychological correlates of different emotion regulation strategies across multiple cultures. In a preregistered cross-cultural study (N = 3,960, 19 countries), conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed associations between the use of seven emotion regulation strategies (situation selection, distraction, rumination, cognitive reappraisal, acceptance, expressive suppression, and emotional support seeking) and four indices of psychological health (life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and loneliness). Model comparisons based on Bayesian information criteria provided support for cultural differences in 36% of associations, with very strong support for differences in 18% of associations. Strategies that were linked to worse psychological health in individualist countries (e.g., rumination, expressive suppression) were unrelated or linked to better psychological health in collectivist countries. Cultural differences in associations with psychological health were most prominent for expressive suppression and rumination and also found for distraction and acceptance. In addition, we found evidence for cultural similarities in 46% of associations between strategies and psychological health, but none of this evidence was very strong. Cultural similarities were most prominent in associations of psychological health with emotional support seeking. These findings highlight the importance of considering the cultural context to understand how individuals from diverse backgrounds manage unpleasant emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Quantifying quality: The impact of measures of school quality on children's academic achievement across diverse societies

Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy-skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school-related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4-12-year-olds, N = 889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We examined the extent to which four measures of school quality were associated with one another, and whether they predicted children's academic achievement in 10 culturally and geographically diverse societies. Across populations, measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another as were measures of access to educational resources to classroom experience and composition. Age, the number of teachers per class, and access to writing materials were key predictors of academic achievement across populations. Our data have implications for designing efficacious educational initiatives to improve school quality globally.

Their Hands Have Lost Their Bones: Exploring Cultural Scripts in Two West African Affect Lexica

Previous research has indicated the importance of embodiment in West African emotion lexica. The current study aims to explore the pervasiveness of this cultural script through the analysis of the emotional lexica of two West African languages (Ga and Ewe) from Southern Ghana that have been featured minimally in previous emotion research. The analysis indicated that embodiment was an important cultural script in both affective lexica. However, interpersonal representations of emotions were also present. Further, emotion words in the two languages differed in the more specific loci of emotions.

Analyzing Ghanaian Emotions Through Narrative: A Textual Analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Novel Changes

Contemporary African emotional expression is a cultural artifact that has encoded within it the story of colonial and postcolonial history. Through an analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s award-winning novel Changes, this article explores how emotions are expressed in contemporary Ghanaian literature. From literal translations of indigenous languages and culturally specific nonverbal communication to Western expressions and locally created neologisms, the contemporary Ghanaian text Changes offers a glimpse into the unique world of Ghanaian emotions—a world that is an interesting mix of the indigenous, Westernization, and time.

Listen to your heart: the cultural shaping of interoceptive awareness and accuracy

West African cultural contexts foster higher levels of attention to the bodily signals compared with the European American contexts. Interoception, or the processing of signals from the body, is a key component of emotional reactivity. Interoceptive awareness (i.e., the self-reported tendency to attend to physiological changes) and accuracy (i.e., the ability to accurately detect physiological changes) are distinct aspects of interoception. Does the West African cultural emphasis on interoceptive awareness affect individuals' abilities to accurately perceive physiological changes in response to emotional stimuli? West African and European American young adults watched a fear-inducing film clip and continuously rated their perception of heart rate changes in response to the clip. Actual heart rates were also recorded continuously. Cross-correlations were calculated between measures of perceived and actual heart rate. Although average levels of coherence between these measures were low across groups, West Africans showed higher levels of interoceptive awareness, but lower levels of interoceptive accuracy than European Americans. These results suggest that cultural scripts of attending to the body may affect coupling between actual and perceived physiological reactivity in the context of emotions. These results have implications for studying cultural shaping of somatic presentation of mood and anxiety disorders.

Talking to the Master: Intersections of Religion, Culture, and Counseling in Taiwan and Ghana

Mental health counseling is gaining worldwide popularity. It is, therefore, important to critically examine the appropriateness of direct importation of Western psychological interventions into nonWestern countries. This article reviews the state of counseling in Taiwan and Ghana. It highlights the heterogeneous nature of counseling services in the face of cultural similarities. In addition, it demonstrates the importance of considering the interplay of culture and religion in assessment, case conceptualization, and treatment.

Culture, personality, and subjective well-being: integrating process models of life satisfaction

The authors examined the interplay of personality and cultural factors in the prediction of the affective (hedonic balance) and the cognitive (life satisfaction) components of subjective well-being (SWB). They predicted that the influence of personality on life satisfaction is mediated by hedonic balance and that the relation between hedonic balance and life satisfaction is moderated by culture. As a consequence, they predicted that the influence of personality on life satisfaction is also moderated by culture. Participants from 2 individualistic cultures (United States, Germany) and 3 collectivistic cultures (Japan, Mexico, Ghana) completed measures of Extraversion, Neuroticism, hedonic balance, and life satisfaction. As predicted, Extraversion and Neuroticism influenced hedonic balance to the same degree in all cultures, and hedonic balance was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction in individualistic than in collectivistic cultures. The influence of Extraversion and Neuroticism on life satisfaction was largely mediated by hedonic balance. The results suggest that the influence of personality on the emotional component of SWB is pancultural, whereas the influence of personality on the cognitive component of SWB is moderated by culture.