The network created by these researchers was an able student and readily learned to recognise a variety of words in grammatical contexts. The next thing was to manipulate the parameters of the network in ways that are thought to model what may be happening to biological neuronal networks in schizophrenia.

There are two major hypotheses that were modelled: the first is that networks in schizophrenia are “over-pruned”. This fits with a lot of observations, including neuroimaging data showing reduced connectivity in the brains of people suffering with schizophrenia. It also fits with the age of onset of the florid expression of this disorder, which is usually in the late teens to early twenties. This corresponds to a period of brain maturation characterised by an intense burst of pruning of synapses – the connections between neurons.

The main findings by content analysis and t test were as follows. For the Manila group: 1. Main experiences of satisfaction were "Cross-Culture Contact", "More Time and Money", "Growth and Personal Achievements" and "Relationships with Friends (M)". Experiences of dissatisfaction were "Local Infrastructure", "Relationships with Friends (M)" and "Management of Servants". 2. Mental health is seen to be related to those experiences such as "Relationship with Family", "Local Infrastructure", "Management of Servants" and "Adaptation to New Surrounding (M)". 3. And also for the Japanese group many experience "Cross-Culture Contact" and "Growth and Personal Achievements". 4. Unique experiences were mainly within the top three categories such as "More Time and Money", "Local Infrastructure" and "Management of Servants". 5. Various factors of experience related to mental health, although those of the domestic group centered on "Relationships with Friends (J)".

Back in the early 1970s, when I was in Namibia, I received a letter from a bunch of psychotherapists in Chicago, saying that they were concerned about the mental health of people in Namibia. They offered to send teams of shrinks as kind of short-tem missionaries to Namibia, to help Namibians to overcome their mental health problems.

It was a kind gesture, and well-meant, and we discussed it for a while, but really could not see that it was a practical project. Eventually I replied to the effect that a team of Western psychotherapists would be about as effective in Namibia as a team of Namibian witchdoctors would be if sent to help with the mental health needs of middle-class suburbanites in Illinois. In either case, they would need to bridge the cultural and language gap before they could be effective, and that could not be done in a few weeks.

Twenge and her colleagues analyzed the results of many previous studies that had used Rotter's Scale with young people ... [from 1960 to 2002] average scores shifted dramatically--for children aged 9 to 14 as well as for college students--away from the Internal toward the External end of the scale. In fact, the shift was so great that the average young person in 2002 was more External than were 80% of young people in the 1960s ... In school, children learn quickly that their own choices of activities and their own judgments of competence don't count; what matters are the teachers' choices and judgments. Teachers are not entirely predictable. You may study hard and still get a poor grade, because you didn't figure out just exactly what the teacher wanted you to study or guess correctly what questions he or she would ask. The goal in class, in the minds of the great majority of students, is not competence but good grades.