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A new study led by a Northern Illinois University sociologist shows that while family members often provide critical support, they also can sometimes be the source of stigmatizing attitudes that impede the recovery of mentally ill relatives. "Negative attitudes of family members have the potential to affect the ways that mentally ill persons view themselves, adversely influencing the likelihood of recovery from the illness," said lead researcher Fred Markowitz, an NIU professor of sociology. Markowitz and his colleagues, Beth Angell from Rutgers, and Jan Greenberg from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published their findings in the June issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Sociological Association. Over an 18-month period, the researchers studied 129 mothers of adult children with schizophrenia. "In short, what mom thinks matters," Markowitz said. "It's a chain of effects that unfolds. "We found t...

Women Found To Be As Resilient To Combat Stress As Men In First Of Its Kind Study Conducted By BUSM In what is believed to be the first published study on the topic, researchers affiliated with the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) believe female military service-members from Operation Enduring Freedom OEF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) may be as resilient to combat-related stress as men. These findings currently appear on-line in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Though the literature suggests that women may be more vulnerable to the effects of trauma exposure, most available studies on combat trauma have relied on samples in which women's combat exposure is limited and analyses that do not directly address gender differences in associations between combat exposure and post-deployment mental health. However, as a consequence of women's changing role in the war zone, as well as the evolving nature of modern warfare, female service-members have experienced unprec...