中華心理衛生協會

 The main purpose of this special issue, ＂sociological imagination: social causes of mental health＂, is to entreat more domestic scholars to investigate the social gradient in mental health as well as its explanatory mechanisms in Taiwan. That is, the three essays in this issue aim to unearth social patterns of emotion, distinguish social factors of mental health differences, and clarify the complex relationships between individual psychological conditions and social causes. The first article indicates that the positive psychological function of religion on young adults' happiness is suppressed by the effects of self-selection in religion; the second article suggests the association between indebtedness and psychological distress are mediated by stress proliferation resulted from more economic adversities and indebtedness; and the third paper articulates that formal social participation enables older adults a regulative, purposive and controllable use of time, all of which are negatively associated with aging worry. The interwound finding of three articles is that social relationships are a catalyst of mental health change. For instance, attaining religious group activities expands social supportive network for distressed young adults, and formal social participation enables old adults to regain schedule compliance, which in turn lessens aging worry. However, for people with unsecured debt, expressing personal troubles leads to stress proliferation and psychological distress.