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

这个项目涉及普林斯顿大学的一位文化人类学家对美国文化中最近关于与注意力缺陷/多动障碍(ADHP)和躁郁症相关的认知或情绪不稳定的看法的转变的研究。该项目调查了流行文化的变化，从把这种不稳定视为一种缺陷，转变为一种适应当今激烈全球竞争的社会和经济环境的人才。对工作场所、学校和社区不断变化的条件进行快速和灵活的调整的需要可能支持对ADHD类型人格各方面的更积极的看法。使用历史和民族志方法，研究人员将在神经科学研究实验室、精神科诊所、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：加利福尼亚州奥兰治县、马里兰州巴尔的摩县和新泽西州中部，覆盖美国社会的广泛领域。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，这项研究将有助于使这些高度污名化的疾病看起来更普通和更容易理解。这应该会让人们对患有这种疾病的人有更大的容忍度，并更好地理解当代美国文化中“理想者”的形象正在发生怎样的变化。

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.