Throughout the world people differ in the magnitude with which they value strong family ties or heightened religiosity. We propose that this cross-cultural variation is a result of a contingent ...psychological adaptation that facilitates in-group assortative sociality in the face of high levels of parasite-stress while devaluing in-group assortative sociality in areas with low levels of parasite-stress. This is because in-group assortative sociality is more important for the avoidance of infection from novel parasites and for the management of infection in regions with high levels of parasite-stress compared with regions of low infectious disease stress. We examined this hypothesis by testing the predictions that there would be a positive association between parasite-stress and strength of family ties or religiosity. We conducted this study by comparing among nations and among states in the United States of America. We found for both the international and the interstate analyses that in-group assortative sociality was positively associated with parasite-stress. This was true when controlling for potentially confounding factors such as human freedom and economic development. The findings support the parasite-stress theory of sociality, that is, the proposal that parasite-stress is central to the evolution of social life in humans and other animals.
In three experiments, we tested the prediction that individuals' experience of power influences their perceptions of their own height. High power, relative to low power, was associated with smaller ...estimates of a pole's height relative to the self (Experiment 1), with larger estimates of one's own height (Experiment 2), and with choice of a taller avatar to represent the self in a second-life game (Experiment 3). These results emerged regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through assigned roles (Experiment 2). Although a great deal of research has shown that more physically imposing individuals are more likely to acquire power, this work is the first to show that powerful people feel taller than they are. The discussion considers the implications for existing and future research on the physical experience of power.
Merton proposed middle range theories, not as ends in themselves, but as bases for a consolidation to explain broader phenomenon. More than a half century has passed since Merton’s consolidation ...proposal and in that time a number of experimentally tested middle range theories have been developed. Certainly, the next step should be a consolidation. Yet, to our knowledge, no one has previously offered a consolidation of experimentally tested theories and applied it for explanation. This paper offers a consolidation of middle range theories formulated to explain the rise of the pristine state. Two theories of this consolidation, Status Characteristics Theory and Elementary Theory, form the core of what Analytic Sociologists have called a toolbox of theories. Our toolbox forms an integrated consolidation in two ways. First, the social structures modeled by the theories form a path-dependent process of increasing benefits gained by the elites of the structures. Second, the end conditions of each step of the process are the initial conditions of the next. Whereas the theories in our toolbox have previously been seen as applying exclusively to microstructures, we have encountered no difficulties in scaling them up to apply to macrostructures. While we hope the consolidation has validity in explaining the occurrence of pristine states, this paper’s significance lies in its demonstration that today social theories can be consolidated and applied for explanation.
Breen and Meyer discuss their study on the impact of disasters on college students. College students in the US occupy a unique social space between adolescence and adulthood. Traditional-age college ...students are learning how to live independently from their parents, although many still depend on their family members for financial and emotional support. In addition, college students often move away from home to new geographic locations, potentially exposing them to different hazard contexts. Their position within the social structure may generate unique risks for college students during disasters.
Expectations shape how one experiences the healthcare one receives. In this paper we argue that the current conceptualisations of expectations within the healthcare literature have much to gain from ...the many recent and adjacent conceptual developments in other disciplines. The concept of expectations has been extensively studied across disciplines – we review the key texts on the subject in the business, management, social psychology, and sociology literatures to provide a conceptual overview and propose an integrative analytical framework for better understanding individuals' expectations in healthcare. We argue that peoples' expectations of a care encounter are usefully understood as being shaped by their social locations at particular points of time, which is at the intersection of multiple social structures and relations. Peoples' future expectations of care may also be influenced by the experiences of past and current care encounters, framed again by intersecting social structures and relations at that point in time. We demonstrate how an intersectional, translocational and relational analytical approach can allow researchers and practitioners to consider how peoples’ social locations shape their expectations of care, not only within a given social environment, but at certain points in time and over time. We emphasise that, given the mobilities and mixing societies are experiencing globally, such an approach is particularly useful for understanding healthcare-related expectations and experiences of all.
•Understanding ‘expectations’ is key to understand how people experience healthcare.•An approach to better analyse peoples' expectations of healthcare is needed.•Insights from other disciplines can help analyse expectations of healthcare.•An intersectional, translocational and relational analytical approach is proposed.
Purpose
The structure of relationships in a social network affects the suicide risk of the people embedded within it. Although current interventions often modify the social perceptions (e.g., ...perceived support and sense of belonging) for people at elevated risk, few seek to directly modify the structure of their surrounding social networks. We show social network structure is a worthwhile intervention target in its own right.
Methods
A simple model illustrates the potential of interventions to modify social structure. The effect of these basic structural interventions on suicide risk is simulated and evaluated. Its results are briefly compared to emerging empirical findings for real network interventions.
Results
Even an intentionally simplified intervention on social network structure (i.e., random addition of social connections) is likely to be both effective and safe. Specifically, this illustrative intervention had a high probability of reducing the overall suicide risk, without increasing the risk of those who were healthy at baseline. It also frequently resolved stable, high-risk clusters of people at elevated risk. These illustrative results are generally consistent with emerging evidence from real social network interventions for suicide.
Conclusion
Social network structure is a neglected, but valuable intervention target for suicide prevention.
To assess heterogeneity in the influence of genetic variation on educational attainment across environmental contexts, we present a meta-analysis of heritability estimates in fifteen samples and ...thirty-four subgroups differing by nationality, sex, and birth cohort. We find that heritability, shared environment, and unshared environment each explain a substantial percentage of the variance in attainment across all countries, with between-sample heterogeneity in all three variance components. Although we observe only meager differences in the total family effect by cohort or sex, we observe large cohort and sex differences in the composition of the family effect, consistent with a history of higher heritability of educational attainment for males and for individuals born in the latter half of the twentieth century. Heritability also varies significantly by nation, with the direction of variation specific by sample. We find a markedly larger impact of shared environment on attainment than has been found for other social outcomes, with the percent of variation in attainment attributable to shared environment exceeding the percent attributable to heritability in one-third of the studies in our sample. Our findings demonstrate the heritability of educational attainment to be environmentally contingent, affirm the widespread and enduring role of shared environment in determining ultimate socioeconomic attainment, and emphasize the importance of considering behavioral genetics techniques in models of social mobility.
Understanding how structural, social and psychosocial factors come to affect our health resulting in health inequalities is more relevant now than ever as trends in mortality gaps between rich and ...poor appear to have widened over the past decades. To move beyond description, we need to hypothesise about how structural and social factors may cause health outcomes. In this paper, we examine the construction of health over the life course through the lens of influential theoretical work. Based on concepts developed by scholars from different disciplines, we propose a novel framework for research on social-to-biological processes which may be important contributors to health inequalities. We define two broad sets of mechanisms that may help understand how socially structured exposures become embodied: mechanisms of exogenous and endogenous origin. We describe the embodiment dynamic framework, its uses and how it may be combined with an intersectional approach to examine how intermeshed oppressions affect social exposures which may be expressed biologically. We explain the usefulness of this framework as a tool for carrying out research and providing scientific evidence to challenge genetic essentialism, often used to dismiss social inequalities in health.
Shared time with family and friends is crucial for older adults' health and well-being. This study examines how a public health crisis affects older adults' social connectedness through their shared ...time with known persons.
The study used data from the 2019-2020 American Time Use Survey (N = 9,697) to assess older adults' (aged 50+) social structure of shared time before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Logistic regression and hurdle model with state-fixed effects were used to estimate the relationships between state-level pandemic severity and measures of older adults' shared time while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics.
There were small, statistically significant effects of pandemic severity on older adults' shared time. State-level incidence rates and policy stringency indexes were correlated with a lower likelihood of, and a decline in, older adults' shared time in public places and interactions with individuals outside their immediate family. State policy stringency was associated with more shared time in immediate family interactions. Furthermore, pandemic severity was not associated with a decrease in likelihood and older adults' shared time with nonresident immediate family. Policy stringency was more consequential than the incidence rate for older adults' social structure of shared time during the pandemic.
Results indicate a place-based and role-based restructuring of older adults' daily shared time during the pandemic. Despite small effect sizes, the substantial old age population implies significant changes in shared time and patterns of daily connection at the population level. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.
Decolonisation has become a fashionable word. A jingoistic mantra repeated because it sounds grand, and one that can be misused and distorted to further colonise and strengthen colonisation. Trendy ...words occur in academic writing, commonly used, yet rarely defined, and embraced without being fully understood. Words like "decolonisation" have been appropriated, taken from legitimate scholars and used as a metaphor by "experts" in positions of power to further reinforce the colonialist social structures, intellectual agendas, and workspaces (Tuck and Yang, 2012). In my view, blithely or intentionally, academic articles, research funding applications, and media rhetoric can sometimes be scripted using trendy key words to progress agendas that on the surface looks reasonable, yet do not reflect the intent of words used. Decolonisation is one such word. The intention in writing this short commentary is to promote interest in further reading about, and respectful use of the word and movement that is "Decolonisation".
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