The Culture of Emotional and Cognitive Lability in the U.S.

9973154马丁这个项目是由普林斯顿大学的一位文化人类学家进行的，研究美国文化中最近关于认知或情绪不稳定与注意缺陷/多动障碍（ADHP）和躁狂抑郁症相关的观点转变。该项目调查了流行文化的变化，从将这种不稳定性视为一种缺陷，到将其视为一种适应当代激烈的全球竞争的社会和经济环境的才能。需要快速灵活地适应工作场所、学校和社区不断变化的条件，这可能支持了对adhd类型人格的更积极的看法。研究人员将使用历史和人种学方法，在神经科学研究实验室、精神病学诊所、患者支持团体、学校和工人培训计划以及制药公司调查这些问题。这项研究将在三个地点进行：加利福尼亚州的奥兰治县、马里兰州的巴尔的摩县和新泽西州中部，以覆盖美国社会的广泛范围。通过在其他正在变化的社会和文化进程的背景下解决精神疾病和残疾的不断变化的含义，该研究将有助于使这些高度污名化的疾病看起来更加普通和可理解。这应该会导致对患有这种疾病的人更大的宽容，以及对当代美国文化中“理想人物”形象如何变化的更好理解。

9973154MartinThis project involves research by a cultural anthropologist from Princeton University into the recent shift of opinion in American culture about the cognitive or emotional lability associated with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHP) and manic-depression. The project investigates the change in popular culture from seeing such lability as a defect towards seeing it as a talent that is adaptive in the contemporary social and economic environment of intense global competition. The need for rapid and flexible adjustment to changing conditions in the workplace, schools and communities may be supporting the more positive views of aspects of ADHD-type personalities. Using historical and ethnographic methods, the researcher will investigate these issues in neuroscience research laboratories, psychiatric clinics, patient support groups, schools and worker training programs, and pharmaceutical corporations. The research will take place in three sites: Orange county, California, Baltimore County, Maryland, and central New Jersey to cover a broad range of American society. By addressing the changing meaning of mental illness and disability in the context of other social and cultural processes that are changing, the research will contribute to making these highly stigmatized conditions seem more ordinary and understandable. This should lead to greater tolerance for people who suffer from the illness, as well as greater understanding of how the image of an "ideal person" is changing in contemporary American culture.