Education and Therapy Through Art in the Reality of a Post-Pandemic School

The aim of the study presented in the article was to demonstrate the benefits of education and art therapy for students returning to traditional learning after the period of online education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The article presents selected Polish and foreign studies on the relationship between the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and psychological deterioration in schoolage children. Taking into account the probable intensification of such cases related to the widespread use of ICT in teaching during the pandemic, the need for systematic psychological support of the majority of students in the reality of the “post-pandemic school” is observed. Hence, the suggestion to introduce elements of art therapy in Polish schools. Art therapy as an activity facilitating group integration, expression of emotions and self-regulation using art and creative expression was presented as a possibility of adapting educational activities to the new challenges and needs of students. The reflections of Herbert Read, which serve as the conceptual framework for the article, indicate the interpretation of his ideas as a prototype of modern, visionary education incorporating elements akin to the purposes of art therapy.

Role of the Arts in the Life and Mental Health of Young People That Participate in Artistic Groups in Colombia: a Qualitative Study

Background: Young adults and adolescents are in stage where their mental health is more vulnerable. In Latin América, there are factors that predispose young people towards an increased risk of suffering from mental illness. However more than half of the young people who manifest symptoms of depression and anxiety are able to overcome these episodes approximately one year after the onset of symptoms. This is related to the concept of resilience.Methods: The main objective of the study was to characterize the role of the arts in relation to mental health in young people involved in artistic organizations in Bogota. Six artistic workshops and focus groups were conducted, with 38 participants from two arts organizations in Bogota. The type of artistic workshop varied depending on the type of art taught in each institution. The focus group discussions were recorded, transcribed, coded and analyzed using an inductive analysis methodology.Results: There were five themes that emerged in explaining the role of the arts in relation to the mental health of young people. These themes included i) the management and expression of emotions, ii) the transformation of emotions, iii) the distracting quality of the arts, iv) the arts as a social facilitator and v) the arts as part of the identity and lifestyle of young people.Conclusions: For young people who participate in artistic activities, the arts are a tool for managing emotions perceived as negative, such as stress, anxiety, depression and sadness. Their perception of the arts as a tool for mental health was viewed differently depending on whether it is perceived as a professional vocation versus a hobby. These findings are relevant within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into account that the participants were exposed to various mental health risk factors, such as an extended obligatory quarantine and social distancing.

Narrativised simile and emotional responses to Brexit

This study looks at two figurative ways in which popular media and social media represent the publics response to the process of implementing Brexit. Specifically, it contrasts analogies, which construe the nature of Brexit in terms of the nature of the problems arising (e.g. the impossibility of taking the eggs out of the cake ), with tweets relying on simile to express emotional responses. The focus of this study is on the nature of simile, as the trope of choice in profiling emotional responses, and especially on narrativised similative constructions, such as Brexit is like X , where X as an extended narrative. These similes match the real story of Brexit, which lasted several years, with other narrative scenarios. Crucially, the scenarios created are focused on how the person feels about the story of Brexit (e.g. the long period of hesitation and indecisiveness) and not on political affiliations and arguments. In effect, Brexit is like X framing could be loosely paraphrased as Experiencing Brexit makes me feel similarly to experiencing a narrative such as X , where X is a made-up story, depicting unimportant social events or movie genres. The emotions targeted in the Brexit is like X examples (such as disappointment, boredom, feeling exasperated or bemused) are complex emotional reactions to a narrative failing to reach a satisfying resolution. From the perspective of figuration, Brexit is like X similes suggest the need to re-evaluate the nature of simile as a conceptual mapping and to consider the role fictive stories play in expression of emotions. Also, the complex syntactic forms used to represent the narrative structure of X provide the material for reconsidering simile as a construction.

EFEKAT FACIJALNE EKSPRESIJE EMOCIJA, TIPA I NIVOA MOĆI NA ZAKLJUČIVANJE O DOMINANTNOSTI OPAŽENE OSOBE

Drawing inferences of the perceived dominance of individuals is an important process which helps to regulate social interaction. Existing research indicates that inferences of the dominance of social actors can be drawn based on various social cues, including facial expression of emotion. While perceived anger usually leads to an inference of high, and perceived sadness of low dominance, perceived happiness does not create such unambiguous impressions. To achieve a clearer image, the bases and level of perceived power, specifically reward power and expertise power, were taken into consideration, both of which could be either high or low. The study included 100 participants (women = 71), first and second year psychology students. The within subject 3x2x2 design was used with Expression (happiness vs. anger vs. sadness) x Bases of power (reward power vs. expert power) x Level of power (high vs. low). Dominance was a dependent variable operationalized through the semantic differential scale. The stimuli were photographs of faces, controlled for gender and age, which displayed the aforementioned facial expressions. In the case of reward power, a significant expressed emotion x level of power interaction emerged. In the case of expert power, there was only signifficant main effect of facial expression on dominance perception. The findings were analyzed according to the various expectations of the participants, formed during the process of socialization. It could be concluded that for more insight into the mechanism which lies at the core of the effect that facial expression of emotions has on perceived dominance, the profession of the perceived individual also needs to be taken into consideration. Key words: facial expression, bases of power, level of power, dominance

Expression of Emotions and Genes: Proinflammatory Gene Expression Rises With Spousal Distress

Marital quality shares ties to inflammation-related conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Lab-based studies implicate hostility during marital conflict as a mechanism via inflammatory reactivity. However, developmental theories suggest that conflict declines with age. Spousal distress is an important but overlooked context for aging couples as networks shrink and assistance needs increase. To examine the effects of spousal distress on changes in proinflammatory gene expression, 38 adults ages 40-81 witnessed their spouse relive an upsetting personal memory aloud, rated their mood before and after, and provided blood samples at baseline and twice post-task. Those whose negative mood increased more in response to spousal disclosure showed larger elevations in proinflammatory gene expression 40 (p=.022) and 80 minutes (p<.0001) after the task. Effects were robust to race, gender, age, alcohol, smoking, and body mass index. These novel findings identify spousal distress as a key marital context that may escalate inflammation-related health risks.

Overdetermination and subjective revision in Dong Kena's "Small Grass on the Kunlun Mountain"

Unfairness of the world appears nearly everywhere. It can be said as daily in our life. All this unfairness comes from discrimination. For many people, discrimination is an everyday reality. Discrimination is the unfair and prejudicial treatment that people and groups receive based on characteristics. Discrimination is based upon the primary requirement of difference. Only when difference appear over a group of people, discrimination shows its place. Discrimination comes from natural gifts that people are born with. Gender is the different for everyone. Every human is born with a gender assigned to. It’s whether, man or woman. Nevertheless, women are proven physically weaker than men. Science has proven their bodies to anatomically difference in return. Women are not only weaker in physical strength, but also are spiritually weaker. Eve was targeted by the serpent simply because she was the weaker vessel spiritually. With the different brain function, women are easily deceived, fantasists, and more emotional. These terms can especially drop atop love. Empty words, imagine, dreaming, and expression of emotions. Walking on a different branch of emotion, women are mentally weaker. The bible says women are the weaker vessels for a reason, we are also fragile mentally, and we are to be treated with great care and love to avoid breaking. Containing these natural discriminations, women receive unfair treatments from the world and the society.

The Rocky Road from Experience to Expression of Emotions—Women’s Anger About Sexism

We investigated women’s anger expression in response to sexism. In three studies (Ns = 103, 317, and 241), we tested the predictions that women express less anger about sexism than they experience—the anger gap—and that the anger expressed by women is associated with instrumental concerns, specifically perceived costs and benefits of confronting sexism. To estimate the specificity of the proposed gap, we compared women’s anger reactions to men’s anger reactions as well as anger reactions to sadness reactions. Across studies, we found support for the anger gap, that is, lower anger expression than experience, and the gap was more pronounced for women than for men (Study 3). Surprisingly, a gap also occurred in sadness reactions. Regarding instrumental concerns, there was converging evidence that expressed anger was negatively associated with individual costs. We also investigated whether anger expression can be encouraged through women’s identification with feminists (Studies 1 and 2) and support by other women (Study 2); yet, we found no evidence. We conclude that, to understand women’s—and men’s—reactions to sexism, it is critical not to mistake their emotion expression for how they really feel, but instead to also consider strategic concerns.

“I can come up with more things when I’m happy, or especially when I’m angry”

This study examines language preferences to express anger and happiness among 15 Russian Australians belonging to the 1.5 generation, who acquired Russian as first language (L1) and English as second language (L2), after migration during childhood. While most research into these topics has focused on L1-dominant bilinguals, this study offers a novel perspective, as 1.5-generation migrants are generally L2-dominant or multidominant (L1+L2-dominant), and possibly L1 attriters. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and underwent qualitative thematic analyses. From the results it emerges that these speakers mostly express emotions in the L2 or both languages, in line with their language dominance, but their choices do not seem to relate to language emotionality, as the L1 maintains the highest emotional resonance for them. While research on multilinguals’ expression of emotions has mainly focused on anger, this study calls attention to the expression of happiness, and points to the importance of L2-dominant and multidominant multilinguals.

A Study on the Possible Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease on the Basis of Facial Image Analysis

One of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease is the occurrence of problems with the expression of emotions on the face, called facial masking, facial bradykinesia or hypomimia. Recent medical studies show that this symptom can be used in the diagnosis of this disease. In the presented study, the authors, on the basis of their own research, try to answer the question of whether it is possible to build an automatic Parkinson’s disease recognition system based on the face image. The research used image recordings in the field of visible light and infrared. The material for the study consisted of registrations in a group of patients with Parkinson’s disease and a group of healthy patients. The patients were asked to express a neutral facial expression and a smile. In the detection, both geometric and holistic methods based on the use of convolutional network and image fusion were used. The obtained results were assessed quantitatively using statistical measures, including F1score, which was a value of 0.941. The results were compared with a competitive work on the same subject. A novelty of our experiments is that patients with Parkinson’s disease were in the so-called ON phase, in which, due to the action of drugs, the symptoms of the disease are reduced. The results obtained seem to be useful in the process of early diagnosis of this disease, especially in times of remote medical examination.