A mixed-methods approach to psychological help-seeking in Muslims: Islamophobia, self-stigma, and therapeutic preferences.

OBJECTIVE: Muslims living in the United States (MLUS) report high mental health stigma. They also underutilize professional psychological help, despite experiencing rising Islamophobia and comparatively poorer mental health. In line with double stigma, we examined whether MLUS who perceived greater Islamophobia also experienced greater self-stigma of seeking help, and whether this was related to negative help-seeking attitudes. We also assessed therapist demographic and treatment modality preferences and explored how they related to risk factors for low help-seeking. METHOD: Utilizing a representative sample of 350 MLUS (50% women, 33% immigrants) acquired via a Qualtrics panel aggregate, we assessed a path model of help-seeking attitudes to determine the direct and indirect effects of perceived Islamophobia via self-stigma and psychological distress. Therapist and treatment preferences were examined via multiple regression models and analysis of variance (ANOVAs). Open-ended responses were coded through content analysis. RESULTS: Perceived Islamophobia was associated with greater psychological distress and also indirectly related to negative help-seeking attitudes via greater self-stigma. Therapists of a similar background, therapy in a mosque-setting, group therapy, and imam collaboration were more appealing to MLUS who were at risk for low help-seeking. CONCLUSIONS: Among MLUS, perceived Islamophobia may present a dual risk-simultaneously increasing psychological distress and indirectly leading to negative attitudes toward help-seeking via higher self-stigma. Conversely, for MLUS at risk for low help-seeking, accessible community-based treatments and treatment with a Muslim or race/ethnicity-matched therapist may facilitate help-seeking behaviors. Future work may determine whether addressing double stigma within Muslim communities (e.g., Islamophobia and self-stigma) may improve psychological help-seeking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Deconstructing eye contact perception: Measuring perceptual precision and self-referential tendency using an online psychophysical eye contact detection task.

Eye contact perception-the ability to accurately and efficiently discriminate others' gaze directions-is critical to understanding others and functioning in a complex social world. Previous research shows that it is affected in multiple neuropsychiatric disorders accompanied by social dysfunction, and understanding the cognitive processes giving rise to eye contact perception would help advance mechanistic investigations of psychopathology. This study aims to validate an online, psychophysical eye contact detection task through which two constituent cognitive components of eye contact perception (perceptual precision and self-referential tendency) can be derived. Data collected from a large online sample showed excellent test-retest reliability for self-referential tendency and moderate reliability for perceptual precision. Convergence validity was supported by correlations with social cognitive measures tapping into different aspects of understanding others. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that perceptual precision and self-referential tendency explained unique variance in social cognition, suggesting that they measure unique aspects of related constructs. Overall, this study provided support for the reliability and validity of the eye contact perception metrics derived using the online Eye Contact Detection Task. The value of the task for future psychopathology research was discussed.

A Bayesian model comparison approach to test the specificity of visual integration impairment in schizophrenia or psychosis.

Impaired visual integration is well documented in schizophrenia and related to functional outcomes. However, it is unclear if this deficit is specific to schizophrenia, or characteristic of psychosis more broadly. To address this question, this study used a Bayesian model comparison approach to examine the evidence of three grouping models of visual integration performance in 116 individuals with schizophrenia (SZ), schizoaffective disorder (SA), bipolar disorder (BD) with or without a history of prominent psychosis (BDP+ and BDP-, respectively), or no psychiatric diagnosis (healthy controls; HC). We compared: (1) Psychosis Model (psychosis, non-psychosis), where the psychosis group included SZ, SA, and BDP+, and the non-psychosis group included BDP- and HC; (2) Schizophrenia Model (SZ, non-SZ); and (3) DSM Model (SZ, SA, BD, HC). The relationship between visual integration and general cognition was also explored. The Psychosis Model showed the strongest evidence, and visual integration was associated with general cognition in participants with psychosis. The results were consistent with the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework, indicating that visual integration impairment is characteristic of psychosis and not specific to SZ or DSM categories, and may share similar disease pathways with observed neurocognitive deficits in psychotic disorders.

Eye gaze perception in bipolar disorder: Self-referential bias but intact perceptual sensitivity.

OBJECTIVES: Deficits in social cognition predict poor functional outcome in severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and autism. However, research findings on social cognition in bipolar disorder (BD) are sparse and inconsistent. This study aimed to characterize a critical social cognitive process-eye gaze perception-and examine its functional correlates in BD to inform psychopathological mechanisms. METHODS: Thirty participants with BD, 37 healthy controls (HC), and 46 psychiatric controls with schizophrenia (SZ) completed an eye-contact perception task. They viewed faces with varying gaze directions, head orientations, and emotion, and made eye-contact judgments. Psychophysics methods were used to estimate perception thresholds and the slope of the perception curve, which were then compared between the groups and correlated with clinical and functional measures using Bayesian inference. RESULTS: Compared with HC, patients with BD over-perceived eye contact when gaze direction was ambiguous, and this self-referential bias was similar to that in SZ. Patients with BD had lower thresholds (i.e., needed weaker eye-contact signal to start perceiving gaze as self-directed) but a similar slope compared with HC. Regression analyses showed that steeper slope predicted better socio-emotional functioning in HC and SZ, but not in BD. CONCLUSIONS: The psychopathology of social dysfunction was fundamentally different between BD and SZ in this modest sample. Eye gaze perception in BD was characterized by a self-referential bias but preserved perceptual sensitivity, the latter of which distinguished BD from SZ. The relationship between gaze perception and broader socio-emotional functioning in SZ and HC was absent in BD.