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Individuals who interact with each other in social networks often exchange ideas and influence each other's opinions. A popular approach to study the spread of opinions on networks is by examining bounded-confidence models (BCMs), in which the nodes of a network have continuous-valued states that encode their opinions and are receptive to other nodes' opinions when they lie within some confidence bound of their own opinion. In this paper, we extend the Deffuant--Weisbuch (DW) model, which is a well-known BCM, by examining the spread of opinions that coevolve with network structure. We propose an adaptive variant of the DW model in which the nodes of a network can (1) alter their opinions when they interact with neighboring nodes and (2) break connections with neighbors based on an opinion tolerance threshold and then form new connections following the principle of homophily. This opinion tolerance threshold determines whether or not the opinions of adjacent nodes are sufficiently different to be viewed as `discordant'. Using numerical simulations, we find that our adaptive DW model requires a larger confidence bound than a baseline DW model for the nodes of a network to achieve a consensus opinion. In one region of parameter space, we observe `pseudo-consensus' steady states, in which there exist multiple subclusters of an opinion cluster with opinions that differ from each other by a small amount. In our simulations, we also examine the importance of early-time dynamics and nodes with initially moderate opinions for achieving consensus. Additionally, we explore the effects of coevolution on the convergence time of our BCM., accepted by Journal of Complex Networks; further cosmetic polishing from the last version

Introduction.Parental prevention efforts on child sexual abuse (CSA) are paramount for children to have better protection. However, parental awareness and beliefs are essential constituents influencing parental prevention efforts. Previous studies have revealed that parents tend to judge child sexual abuse as a low risk to their children, which in turn impacts CSA prevention activities. The aim of this study was to explore parental beliefs on the risk of CSA, specifically victim- and perpetrator-specific risk of child sexual abuse to their children, as well as parents’ approaches to protecting their children.Methodology and sources.Data were collected from 22 parents during focus group interviews (n=6) combined with activity-oriented questions.Results and discussion.Based on data, four perpetrator and two victim-specific risk profiles were created. When parents find similarities between their children and perceived victims or perpetrators, it triggers thedefensive othering effect, which acts as a subconscious protection mechanism, yet often creates inaccurate risk assessment and false confidence. The findings also tender that most parents do not teach their children the necessary skills related to CSA since they determine the risk to be low.Conclusion.This study adds to our understanding of CSA-related risk perception and prevention approaches, offering a conceptual addition to the defensive attribution theory. Further investigation is needed on the impacts of the cognitive processes and psychological protection mechanisms in relation to CSA risk assessment. The data from this study will be useful in developing CSA prevention programs and materials.

Compliance with public health measures of adolescents who are often unfairly portrayed as spreaders of the Coronavirus is essential for controlling the pandemic. But does adolescents’ compliance develop independently from their parents? Using nationally representative longitudinal data and cross-lagged Structural Equation Panel Models I study compliance with social distancing measures of 6,754 triplets that comprise the adolescent child (age 19), their mother, and father during two national lockdowns in the UK. Results show that adolescents have the lowest and their mothers have the highest levels of compliance, and compliance generally drops over time. Moreover, parents, particularly mothers have significant influence on their adolescent child’s compliance. The child also has, albeit smaller effects on their parents’ compliance. Parental influence on adolescents’ compliance documented here thus redistributes some of the responsibility off adolescents towards all generations and calls for public health policies and campaigns that consider these family dynamics.

Across the social sciences, generalized trust has been one of the most frequently examined constructs since researchers first introduced measures of it in the 1950s. Despite its significance, there is growing consensus that conventional measures of generalized trust are prone to measurement invalidity and non-equivalence, which places sociological knowledge about generalized trust in serious doubt. In this article, I advance trust research in sociology by (1) refining two new self-report measures of generalized trust—the Stranger Face Trust scale (SFT) and the Imaginary Stranger Trust scale (IST)—and (2) assessing their empirical performance on a nationally representative probability sample (N = 1,264). I compare the reliability and validity of SFT, IST, and traditional measures of generalized trust across a number of measurement validation tests (convergent validity, discriminant validity, known-groups validity, and predictive validity). Results suggest that SFT provides the most accurate and consistent measure of generalized trust. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for sociological knowledge.

Economic and social inequalities have generated growing concerns and crises across contemporary societies. One of the mechanisms proposed by social sciences to explain the persistence of inequality is the belief in meritocracy, which would legitimize economic disparities based on differences in effort and talent. Despite its wide use as a concept, empirical research on meritocracy is relatively novel and characterized by diverse conceptualizations and measures that make the findings and their interpretation rather inconsistent. Most of the studies in the area have relied upon secondary data to operationalize meritocracy, with a wide variation in the use and interpretation of the same survey items. Taking into account the extant literature that uses measures of meritocracy, this article identifies a series of drawbacks and inconsistencies within and between studies regarding the conceptualization and operationalization of meritocracy beliefs. Based on this critical analysis, we propose a conceptual framework for measuring perceptions and preferences for meritocracy and non-meritocracy, which is then tested through confirmatory analysis using ISSP (International Social Survey Programme) data as well as a novel scale designed with this purpose (N=2,141). Our results support the conceptual framework and its operationalizarion, although with a better fit for the proposed scale than for the ISSP survey. Our discussion highlights the importance of considering different dimensions in order to advance in the study of meritocracy.

Asian Americans became targets of increasingly hostile behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. What motivated this? Fears of contagion arising from a behavioral immune system (BIS) may have motivated hostility toward Asian Americans, especially among those Americans vulnerable to COVID-19. Additionally, stigmatizing rhetoric from right-wing figures may have legitimated anti-Asian behavior among those Americans who held stronger anti-Asian sentiments to begin with or who were more receptive to right-wing rhetoric. We explore these possibilities using a behavioral game with a representative sample of Americans at two points: in May and October 2020. Participants were partnered with a US- or Chinese-born American in a give-or-take dictator game. The average American discriminated against Chinese-born Americans in May but not October 2020, when China was no longer a COVID-19 hotspot. But among Republicans, who may have held stronger anti-Asian sentiments to begin with and who were likely more receptive to right-wing rhetoric, discrimination---i.e., differential treatment---was both stronger in May compared to non-Republicans and persisted into October 2020. Notably, Americans who were more vulnerable to COVID-19 were not especially likely to discriminate.

Cognitive diversity is often assumed to catalyze creativity and innovation by promoting social learning. Yet the learning benefits of cognitive diversity often fail to materialize. Why does cognitive diversity promote social learning in some contexts but not in others? We propose that the answer partly lies in the complex interplay between cognitive diversity and cognitive homophily: The likelihood of individuals learning from one another, and thus changing their views about a substantive issue, depends crucially on whether they are aware of the cognitive similarities and differences that exist between them. When social identities and cognitive associations about concepts related to a focal issue are obscured, we theorize that cognitive diversity will promote social learning by exposing people to novel ideas. When cognitive diversity is instead made salient, we anticipate that a cognitive homophily response is activated that extinguishes cognitive diversity’s learning benefits---even when social identity cues and other categorical distinctions are suppressed. To evaluate these ideas, we introduce a novel experimental paradigm and report the results of four pre-registered studies (N=1,325) that lend support to our theory. We discuss implications for research on social influence, collective intelligence, and cognitive diversity in groups.

Understanding the artificiality of belief is crucial for the image it generates regarding task performance in the course of problem-solving. This paper examines the contribution of the artificial as a model of human intervention and its relationship to a model of human participation. Specifically, it details the logical differences underlying how belief operationalizes the perception of complexity and its effects on task performance in human and machine problem-solving. Three configurations of artificiality are presented to explain these differences and their effects on the relationship between representation and computation in problem-solving. The first describes the “natural artifact” that arises from a symbolic model of intelligence and the design of a maze. The second describes the “natural artifact” that arises from a sub-symbolic model of intelligence and the design of a mold. The third examines how a hybrid model of intelligence requires “socio-cognitive artifacts” in which a means of adaptation is primarily mediated by discourse rather than design. In doing so, the paper examines how momentary beliefs explain the situational rationality of task performance. The paper concludes with a commentary on the requisites of artificial intelligibility in machine problem-solving.

Contemporary sociological theory frequently prioritizes that which is consciously known over thoughts, feelings and motivations that are beyond conscious awareness. Consciousness, being immediately measurable, resonates with the still often positivistic orientation of mainstream sociology. Unconsciousness, by contrast, is messy, resisting apprehension through conventional methodological approaches. Whereas many scholars have responded to this inscrutability by dismissing the importance and even the very existence of unconscious processes, this chapter seeks to highlight the significance of both consciousness and unconsciousness for the study of social life. We begin by illuminating how such pivotal sociological thinkers as Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Bourdieu have implicitly grappled with the unconscious mind. From there, we turn to a brief history of more explicit theorizations of unconsciousness, tracing the ideas of core psychoanalytic thinkers like Freud, Jung and Lacan alongside more socio-psychoanalytic theorists like Fromm and Fanon. Finally, we demonstrate the ongoing relevance of unconsciousness to sociological inquiry by highlighting contemporary theorists who have used the unconscious to account for social problems from racial domination to interpersonal violence. Ultimately, we call upon sociological theorists and empirical researchers to adopt a more multidimensional approach when analyzing the multiple dimensions of social reality.

ObjectivesNon-healthcare keyworkers face distinct occupational vulnerabilities that have received little consideration within broader debates about ‘essential’ work and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was therefore to explore the impact of the pandemic on the working lives and mental health and well-being of non-healthcare keyworkers in the UK.DesignIn-depth, qualitative interviews, analysed using a reflexive thematic analysis.SettingTelephone or video call interviews, conducted in the UK between September 2020 and January 2021.Participants23 participants aged 26–61 (mean age=47.2) years employed in a range of non-healthcare keyworker occupations, including transport, retail, education, postal services, the police and fire services, waste collection, finance and religious services.ResultsKeyworkers experienced adverse psychological effects during the COVID-19 pandemic, including fears of COVID-19 exposure, contagion and subsequent transmission to others, especially their families. These concerns were often experienced in the context of multiple exposure risks, including insufficient personal protective equipment and a lack of workplace mitigation practices. Keyworkers also described multiple work-related challenges, including increased workload, a lack of public and organisational recognition and feelings of disempowerment.ConclusionsIn efforts to reduce psychosocial concerns among non-healthcare keyworkers, there is a need for appropriate support during the COVID-19 pandemic and in preparation for other infections (eg, seasonal influenza) in the future. This includes the provision of psychological and workplace measures attending to the intersections of personal vulnerability and work conditions that cause unique risks and challenges among those in frontline keyworker occupations.

Fisheries are among the human activities that are most strongly affected by ongoing climate-related changes in the presence and abundance of fish species across the globe. The ecological and social repercussions of such changes for recreational fisheries are however still poorly understood. Here, we explore selected ecological and social dimensions of recreational angling and spearfishing targeting the bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) in Italy. The bluefish has undergone a northward expansion in the region over the last 20-30 years, during which it reached new areas and increased in abundance. Using digital videos and their associated data published by recreational fishers on YouTube we characterized ecological and social dimensions using a culturomics approach. Specifically, we focused on harvesting patterns, social engagement and sentiments related to the bluefish. Our study revealed four major results: (i) similar harvesting patterns (i.e., declared mass and seasonal upload patterns) related to videos by recreational anglers and spearfishers; (ii) higher social engagement (i.e., number of views and likes) for videos by recreational anglers than spearfishers; (iii) differences in themes of discussion, with anglers being mainly interested in fishing strategy and gears and spearfishers being more interested in fishing actions shown on the videos; iv) positive and negative sentiments of both recreational anglers and spearfishers towards the invasiveness and aggressiveness of the species. The latter represents an interesting trade-off associated with recreational fishing of the bluefish: it is perceived as an invasive species, but it is also a valued fish target because its voracity contributes to the quality of the recreational fishing experience. Our study showcases the value of exploring social media and associated data to better understand the ecological and human dimensions of marine recreational fisheries in relation to distributional range shifts of species associated with climate change.

Theoretical and Empirical Modeling of Identity and Sentiments in Collaborative Groups (THEMIS.COG) was an interdisciplinary research collaboration of computer scientists and social scientists from the University of Waterloo (Canada), Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Germany), and Dartmouth College (USA). This white paper summarizes the results of our research at the end of the grant term. Funded by the Trans-Atlantic Platform’s Digging Into Data initiative, the project aimed at theoretical and empirical modeling of identity and sentiments in collaborative groups. Understanding the social forces behind self-organized collaboration is important because technological and social innovations are increasingly generated through informal, distributed processes of collaboration, rather than in formal organizational hierarchies or through market forces. Our work used a data-driven approach to explore the social psychological mechanisms that motivate such collaborations and determine their success or failure. We focused on the example of GitHub, the world’s current largest digital platform for open, collaborative software development. In contrast to most, purely inductive contemporary approaches leveraging computational techniques for social science, THEMIS.COG followed a deductive, theory-driven approach. We capitalized on affect control theory, a mathematically formalized theory of symbolic interaction originated by sociologist David R. Heise and further advanced in previous work by some of the THEMIS.COG collaborators, among others. Affect control theory states that people control their social behaviours by intuitively attempting to verify culturally shared feelings about identities, social roles, and behaviour settings. From this principle, implemented in computational simulation models, precise predictions about group dynamics can be derived. It was the goal of THEMIS.COG to adapt and apply this approach to study the GitHub collaboration ecosystem through a symbolic interactionist lens. The project contributed substantially to the novel endeavor of theory development in social science based on large amounts of naturally occurring digital data.

The Affect Theory of Social Exchange (ATSE) research program has produced cumulative insights on how instrumental exchanges lead to the development of affectual attachments. With its focus on task responsibilities, ATSE leaves space to interrogate how factors not related to task execution are at play in the production of interpersonal bonds. In this paper, we integrate insights from social psychology, cultural sociology and organizational research to develop a theoretical framework suggesting (a) why and how cultural tastes contribute to social cohesion and (b) the conditions under which cultural tastes remain a source of strategic advantage or, worse, symbolic exclusion. Our theory rests on the basic proposition that shared cultural tastes increase the likelihood of experiencing positive emotions, which in turn are key in the development and maintenance of affectual attachments. Variations to this proposition are subsequently introduced, considering culture in declarative and nondeclarative forms.

Like any disaster, COVID-19 laid waste to infrastructure and the ability for a community to do community. But, unlike a tornado or nuclear meltdown, COVID-19 laid waste to social infrastructure in unique ways that only a disease can do. On the one hand, a pandemic brings biological dangers that, in turn, make all individuals—loved ones, too—into potential threats of biological contamination. On the other hand, the efforts to contain diseases present social dangers, as isolation and distancing threatens mundane and spectacular ritualized encounters and mask-wearing heighten our awareness of the biological risk. By exploring the link between disasters and disease, this paper leverages the contamination process, beginning first with the barriers it presents to making and remaking the self in everyday life. Constraints on ritualized encounters, both in terms of delimiting face-to-face interaction and in determining that some spaces have contaminative risks, reduces collective life to imagined communities or shifts to digitally mediated spaces. The former intensifies the sense of anomie people feel as their social world appears as though it were disintegrating while the latter presents severe neurobiological challenges to reproducing what face-to-face interaction habitually generates. Finally, these micro/meso-level processes are contextualized by considering how institutions, particularly polity but also science, manage collective risk and how their efficacy may either contribute to the erosion of solidarity or provide a sense of support in the face of anomic terror. Using the US to illustrate these processes, we are able to show how an inefficacious State response weakens the already tenuous connective tissue that holds a diffuse and diverse population together, while also exposing and intensifying existing political, economic, and cultural fissures, thereby further eroding existing solidarity and the capacity to rebuild post-pandemic cohesion.

The aim of the current study was to assess associations between loneliness and personal wellbeing among young people. Framed by social ecological theory, the study examined demographic, social, and community factors associated with personal wellbeing and, critically, identified malleable moderators of the relationship between loneliness and personal wellbeing that could be targeted in intervention efforts.We used cross-sectional, secondary data from 965 young people (aged 16-24) from the Community Life Survey in England. Loneliness was measured using a single-item direct measure; personal wellbeing was measured through a composite measure containing items relating to happiness, life satisfaction and a sense that life is worthwhile (α = 0.88). Regression techniques were used to assess direct associations between individual, social, and community factors and personal wellbeing, and identify factors that moderate the association between loneliness and personal wellbeing. Loneliness was negatively associated with wellbeing. Frequency of chatting with neighbours and having people to provide help moderated the relationship between loneliness and personal wellbeing. Young people who were full-time students or reported good physical health had higher personal wellbeing, while being a carer was predictive of decreased wellbeing. Having people to count on was the only social variable significantly associated with personal wellbeing, while all community factors were found to be strongly associated with increased wellbeing. Our results advance the current literature by identifying that supportive social relationships and close community ties are important for reducing the negative impact of loneliness on youth wellbeing. Intervention efforts to improve wellbeing could benefit from specifically targeting these aspects of young people’s social and community lives, while acknowledging individual vulnerabilities, such as poor physical health.

Youth currently entering the job market are part of Generation Z. Research suggests that this generation is different from others in their values and life priorities and will challenge organizations who wish to attract, develop, and retain its members while ensuring the same level of operations. We present a simulation-based approach to understanding how peer selection and peer influence drive the spread of behaviors, values, and beliefs through social networks of youths, and how organizations can use influence pathways in such networks to recruit and develop their personnel. We illustrate our approach on a case study of United States Marine Corps (USMC) recruiting and training. We detail the logic and theoretical underpinnings of our model and describe how it allows to understand the driving forces of generational changes in the young American population and how they might be addressed. We show that while peer influence with respect to relevant Marines' traits is a highly elastic process, peer selection is rooted in deep-seated, slowly changing individual perceptions. We further show that peer influence is confined to intimate networks, making intervention difficult. Finally, we discuss recommendations for Marine Corps training and recruiting approaches as implied by the findings from our model.

What is the nature of the relationship between online and offline social life? Specifically, how does participation in the traditional forms of social life of a community shape social media adoption? Using a unique, two-wave panel dataset with saturated network data from over 20,000 students in 56 New Jersey middle schools, we test how measures of integration into a community are associated with adoption and discontinuation of social media platforms over the course of a school year. Social media adoption and discontinuation are related to the extent of students’ bonding integration (social connections and social support) and competitive integration (related to status and dominance hierarchies) into the social life of the school, where more integrated students are more likely to adopt more social media platforms. Social media provides a space for community members to be in the know and to be known, both of which are more valuable with greater social integration.

In sociology, a cultural object is the “binding” of significance to a material form. But, how do people “bind” otherwise discrete elements as a single element? In cognitive neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, this is known as the “binding problem.” Sociologists can learn from research on binding, as it deepens our understanding of cultural objects, learning, and social change. Binding is the process by which a material “token” is assimilated into (or expands the boundaries of) a cognitive “type,” or resists such typification thereby leading to the formation of a new cognitive “type.” Cultural objects are simultaneously types and tokens, and the interplay between them results in a fundamental cultural instability. “Binding” is an attempt to stabilize meaning in two ways: the first, innovating, is implicated in the emergence of a cultural object, and the second, indexicalizing, in its maintenance and extension. However, even the process of indexicalizing a well-established type—i.e., the proliferation of tokens—provides the material fodder from which to innovate new types. Attention to binding processes in the production and reception of cultural objects reveals important insight into the dynamics of cultural change and stability.

There is a burgeoning interest in human–animal relations across the social sciences and humanities, accompanied by an acceptance that nonhuman animals are active participants in countless social relations, worthy of serious and considered empirical exploration. This article, the first of its kind as far as the authors are aware, reports on an ongoing qualitative exploration of an example of contemporary human–animal interaction on the fringes of a British city: volunteer shepherding (‘lookering’). Participants are part of a conservation grazing scheme, a growing phenomenon in recent years that relies on increasingly popular volunteer programmes. The primary volunteer role in such schemes is to spend time outdoors checking the welfare of livestock. The first section of the article summarises developments in more-than-human and multispecies research methodologies, and how the challenges of exploring the non- and more-than-human in particular are being addressed. In the second section, we frame our own approach to a human–animal relation against this emerging literature and detail the practicalities of the methods we used. The third section details some of our findings specifically in terms of what was derived from the peculiarities of our method. A final discussion offers a reflection on some of the methodological and ethical implications of our research, in terms of the question of who benefits and how from this specific instance of human–animal relations, and for the development of methods attuned to human–animal and multispecies relations more generally.

BACKGROUND. Experimental vignette research methods have been used to study a diverse range of theoretical and practical issues. Vignettes are designed to create hypothetical cultural/normative contexts for the study of variation in self-reported attitudes. A key problem in such research, however, is potential social desirability response bias. METHOD. A vignette experimental test of an hypothesis derived from a dual-process theory (the MODE framework initially developed by Fazio) linking explicit vs. implicit self-reported attitude measurement and social desirability response bias is reported here. RESULTS. The data show that measuring the social approval of a central vignette character explicitly results in greater social desirability responding than measuring such approval implicitly, supporting MODE theory. CONCLUSIONS. Vignette research methodologies provide a rich, flexible toolkit for studying many important social psychological topics, including issues of inequality and equity. However, researchers can and should design a measurement strategy that carefully manages inferences drawn in light of conditions likely to produce social desirability response bias.

While Americans desire a more economically equitable society and progressive economic policies are generally popular, economically progressive candidates rarely win elections in the U.S., a pattern we call the “progressive paradox.” We test the idea that economically progressive candidates often lose because they speak less to conservative values that are widely held by the American public. Using machine learning-based measures of candidates’ economic policy positions and text-based measures of value framing, we find that candidates with economically progressive policies appeal less to conservative values than candidates with economically conservative policies. Next, we test if economically progressive candidates gain electoral support by reconciling their policies with conservative values. We found in two experiments (total n=4,138), including a pre-registered experiment using a national probability sample, that a presidential candidate who framed a progressive economic platform in terms of conservative values (as opposed to liberal values or a neutral framing), was supported significantly more by conservatives and, unexpectedly, by moderates as well. These effects were driven by increased value similarity. Our results suggest that the alignment between values and economic policies is malleable, enabling economically progressive candidates to counter the hegemony of economic elites by reframing the values associated with their policy platforms.

Theories of social roles neglect social clusters. However, accounting for clusters is essential because individuals in social networks (e.g., social media) cannot oversee the whole network and have to restrict their interactions to local substructures. Roles that do not account for this cluster formation may lead to misinterpretations of the network’s dynamics and functions. This article proposes a theory of social roles in large social networks. We group roles detected in previous empirical studies into meta-roles and embed them along two dimensions, strategicness describing whether the person works towards a particular goal or not, and the type of strategy (selfish or group-oriented). We extend this framework by adding a cluster dimension describing to what extent a person’s interactions are embedded locally or globally in the network. We argue that empirical role analyses would benefit from our theory by systematically accounting for complex structures specific to the network perspective, generalising empirical findings beyond individual case studies, and understanding human interactions better.

The stereotype of the “ideal victim” often determines who is considered deserving of victim status, especially in sexual violence cases. In this Chapter, we explore how is the so-called “ideal victim” stereotype constructed and what are the elements necessary for the perception of “ideal victimhood.” We use empirical data from an unmoderated anonymous Estonian online forum that hosts various topic threads from children and young people, including posts about personally experienced sexual violence (N=28) and replies to these posts (N=361). The data was analyzed by combining a discursive psychological approach with qualitative thematic analysis. Results reveal and illustrate how the stereotype is constructed from various elements and characteristics of social scripts, perceived gender roles, and misconceptions about sexuality. We unveil how these social constructions affect responses and attitudes towards sexual abuse victims to provide input for designing prevention efforts that support disclosure and help-seeking.This Chapter will soon appear in the book Child Sexual Abuse and the Media (publisher: NOMOS).

Despite the importance of concealing information as a way to establish boundaries between the self and others, avoid stigma, and define the situation, sociology is missing a comprehensive understanding of what people conceal, as well as a general account of concealment that is broadly applicable to many types of concealable matters. In this paper, we address these gaps in knowledge in two ways. First, we examine a wide range of concealable topics, and investigate individual- and group-level differences in what people conceal from friends and family. Second, we propose that a norm of concealment motivates concealment across a range of situations and matters. Using data from a general population survey of U.S. adults (N = 4,092), we find that a norm of concealment strongly predicts counts of concealment as well as membership in unique subgroups of concealers. Our findings constitute a general explanation of what motivates individuals to conceal from close others, and a way to augment and synthesize the literature.

Individuals living with type 1 diabetes (T1D) or type 2 diabetes (T2D) can experience conflict between self-presentation and their symptoms or management regimens. In this article, I explain how these individuals might use their illness management techniques to aid in successfully self-presenting, or having their identities verified. Interview respondents associate conflicts brought on by symptoms or management regimens with identity processes and report some instances when illness management enables them to successfully perform identities. Researchers have previously found ways that individuals work to renegotiate or preserve their identities by suppressing or hiding their illnesses. I additionally highlight instances where individuals embrace illness management to successfully perform identities, a process I call integrating illness management into the identity verification process. The importance of research on access to illness management tools and education is emphasized, as researchers aid individuals not only in maintaining good health, but also being their best social selves.

Based on a large dataset (N=13293) of Reddit comments collected on the topic, this article takes a qualitative approach to examine Reddit users’ views and attitudes about the sexualization of minors (SOM) in deepfakes and hentai. The analysis captured five major themes in the discussion over SOM: illegality, art, promoting pedophilia, increase in offending and general harmfulness. Furthermore, the discussion was underscored by the central question of who is a minor, which feeds the already problematic definitional ambiguity and keeps the perceived discursive boundaries of the illegality of SOM in flux. Current study adds to the existing literature by presenting information that could be useful in designing prevention and awareness efforts addressing SOM and CSAM, particularly to the general public.

Patterns of racial inequality are well-documented in domains like criminal justice, but the interactional mechanisms that produce these inequalities and constitute race remain underspecified. In this paper, I use conversation analytic research methods to examine police service calls as one site of such mechanisms. Drawing on analysis of 64 police-relevant emergency service calls placed in the United States 2005-2015, I show how the institution of emergency calls relies upon the racial categorization practices of callers and call-takers. I further show that this routine reliance on race opens the door for participants to use racist inferences to make sense of reported complaints. In this way, I illustrate how racial projects are enacted through situated social practices.

Background Although the COVID-19 pandemic has led to worsening mental health outcomes throughout the Canadian population, its effects have been more acute among already marginalized groups, including people with disabilities and chronic health conditions. This paper examines how heightened fears of contracting the virus, financial impacts, and social isolation contribute to declining mental health among this already vulnerable group. Objective/hypothesis This paper investigates how increases in anxiety, stress, and despair are associated with concerns about getting infected, COVID-19-induced financial hardship, and increased social isolation as a result of adhering to protective measures among people with disabilities and chronic health conditions. Methods This study uses original national quota-based online survey data (n=1027) collected in June 2020 from people with disabilities and chronic health conditions. Threelogistic regressionmodels investigate the relationship between COVID-19’s effects on finances, concerns about contracting the virus, changes in loneliness and belonging, and measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19 and reports of increased anxiety, stress, and despair, net of covariates. Results Models show that increased anxiety, stress, and despair were associated with negative financial effects of COVID-19, greater concerns about contracting COVID-19, increased loneliness, and decreased feelings of belonging. Net of other covariates, increased measures taken to combat COVID-19 was not significantly associated with mental health outcomes. Conclusions Findings address how the global health crisis is contributing to declining mental health status through heightened concerns over contracting the virus, increases in economic insecurity, and growing social isolation, speaking to how health pandemics exacerbate health inequalities.

This study examines how people with disabilities and chronic health conditions—members of a large and diverse group often overlooked by Canadian public policy—are making sense of the Canadian federal government’s response to COVID-19. Using original national online survey data collected in June 2020 (N= 1,027), we investigate how members of this group view the government’s overall response. Although survey results show broad support for the federal government’s pandemic response, findings also indicate fractures based on disability type and specific health condition, political partisanship, region, and experiences with COVID-19. Among these, identification with the Liberal party and receipt of CERB stand out as associated with more positive views. Further examination of qualitative responses shows that these views are also linked to differing perspectives surrounding government benefits and spending, partisan divisions, and other social and cultural cleavages. La présente étude porte sur la façon dont les personnes atteintes de handicap ou de maladie chronique — appartenant à un vaste groupe diversifié, souvent ignoré des politiques publiques canadiennes — interprètent la réaction du gouvernement fédéral canadien à la COVID‑19. À l’aide de données nationales exclusives tirées d’un sondage en ligne effectué en juin 2020 (N= 1 027), nous analysons le point de vue des membres de ce groupe quant à la réaction globale du gouvernement. Bien que les résultats du sondage témoignent d’un large appui à la réaction du gouvernement fédéral à la pandémie, nos observations révèlent également des failles selon la nature du handicap et les particularités liées à l’état de santé, l’allégeance politique, la région et les expériences en ce qui a trait à la COVID‑19. Entre autres éléments, l’allégeance au Parti libéral et le statut de bénéficiaire de la PCU se signalent comme étant associés à des points de vue plus positifs. Un examen plus approfondi des réactions qualitatives montre que ces points de vue sont également liés à des perspectives divergentes entourant les prestations et les dépenses gouvernementales, les divisions partisanes et autres clivages sociaux et culturels.

[View the peer-reviewed publication for free at https://rdcu.be/cFkw1] To achieve a sustainable future, it is imperative to transform human actions collectively and underlying social structures. Decades of research in social sciences have offered complementary insights into how such transformations might occur. However, these insights largely remain disjunct and of limited scope, such that strategies for solving global environmental challenges remain elusive. There is a need to integrate approaches focusing on individuals and social structures to understand how individual actions influence and are in turn influenced by social structures and norms. In this paper, we synthesize a range of insights across different schools of thought and integrate them in a novel framework for transformative social change. Our framework explains the relationships among individual behaviors, collective actions, and social structures and helps change agents guide societal transitions toward environmental sustainability. We apply this framework to the global wildlife trade – which presents several distinct challenges of human actions, especially amidst the Covid-19 pandemic – and identify pathways toward transformative change. One key distinction we make is between different individual actions that comprise the practice itself (e.g., buying wildlife products; private action) and those that push for a broader system change in practice (e.g., signaling (dis)approval for wildlife consumption; social-signaling action, and campaigning for policies that end unsustainable wildlife trade; system-changing action). In general, transformative change will require an integrative approach that includes both structural reforms and all three classes of individual action.

How do automatic vs. controlled, hot vs. cold, and agentic vs. communal facets of cultural cognition operate together in a perspective informed by social neuroscience? This question is explored by re-imagining Malinowski’s classic ethnographic case study of the Kula in light of a contemporary social exchange theory of negotiation networks. We propose: (1) sub-institutional patterns of power-dependence form a structural foundation for the rise of tacit meanings, which evolve through social negotiation into explicit, cultural meaning agreements; (2) crucial sub-cultural categories form around the pursuit of both agentic benefits and communal benefits; (3) an individual is culturally shaped through externalization, socialization, and internalization to value and be motivated to seek both kinds of benefits; (4) an individual faces the existential task of navigating both agentic and communal situations across the negotiation network; (5) the basic individual mechanism underlying such navigation entails motivated behavioral choice and motivated cultural cognition; (6) a behavioral choice rests on automatic, largely implicit and hot cognitive processing; (7) motivated cultural cognition rests mostly on the deliberate, mostly explicit, and cool selection of materials from the prevailing cultural toolkit for assembling a justification, but whose underlying trajectory is biased by an automatic, hot value-position, whether agentic or communal. Based on the analysis, some directions for future empirical research are suggested.

Since 2016, Russia has engaged in a dedicated influence operation against the United States to exacerbate existing cleavages in American society and to undermine US national security. Although distinctly modern in its use of social media platforms, the current methods align with old Soviet doctrine using information warfare to gain a strategic edge over competitors. We examine Russia’s use of military-related content and profiles in their influence operation on Twitter and, in particular, the strategic deployment of military narratives. Using data from Twitter’s comprehensive data archive of state-backed information operations, we find that 12.14% of the 1,408,712 tweets in English from 2009 through February 2021 contain military-related content. In addition, of the 2,370 fake accounts on Twitter tied to the IRA and GRU, 148 were from accounts posing as military or military-adjacent, and these accounts posted 12.7% of the influence operation’s tweets. Together, tweets containing military-related content or coming from fake military and military-adjacent profiles account for 22.6% of the tweets identified as part of the Russian influence operation on Twitter. The Russians used narratives related to veterans, particularly sacrifice narratives and post-Vietnam government betrayal of sacrifice narratives. Patriotic sacrifice narratives were used to gather and engage an audience and to legitimize and amplify the content and accounts. In contrast, betrayal of sacrifice narratives were weaponized to amplify and escalate divisive social issues by tying them to veterans’ sacrifices. We conclude the Russians amplified existing military narratives in American culture and used fake American military profiles to wrap anti-government sentiment in patriotic trappings to exacerbate existing social divisions. Turning Americans against their government achieves Russian strategic goals of removing American influence abroad and allowing Russia to have greater impact on the levers of international power that serve Russian interests.

Since 2016, Russia has engaged in a dedicated influence operation against the United States. Although distinctly modern in its use of social media platforms, the current methods align with old Soviet doctrine using information warfare to gain a strategic edge over competitors. Using the WARP framework, a heuristic tool for understanding narrative weaponization for mobilization and radicalization, we focus on Russia’s use of narratives to exacerbate existing cleavages in American society and to undermine US national security. Using data from Twitter’s comprehensive data archive of state-backed information operations, we find that military and patriotic narratives constitute one of the most frequently deployed narrative sets (second only to Trump), comprising 12.9% of the 1,357 million English-language tweets. The Russians weaponized these narratives and profiles to support or smear a variety of political actors and to escalate the urgency of various social causes. Moreover, these narratives actively recruited audiences to embrace New War cultural identity, an anti-government ideology focused on defending their families from an increasingly hostile state and world. Using a variety of persuasive strategies, the Russians leveraged these narratives to deliver emotionally resonant signals about allies and perceived enemies, both foreign (e.g. Muslims and immigrants) and domestic (e.g. government officials and the media), and to set the groundwork for potentially violent mobilization. Impersonating military profiles increased message resonance, and posturing as credible sources may have aided normalization and legitimization of New War cultural identity and divisive messaging. We conclude the Russians used military and patriotic narratives and profiles to wrap anti-government sentiment in patriotic trappings and to set the stage for Americans to engage in armed domestic conflict.

The contribution focusses on Covid-19 associated discrimination (CAD) in Germany and asks whether immigrants from Asian origin are increasingly discriminated against during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether other immigrant groups face similar threats. Using data from the COVID-19 add-on-survey for CILS4EU-DE (CILS4COVID), we demonstrate that immigrants from Asian origin report an increasing CAD during the pandemic, which is more pronounced for respondents residing in administrative districts with a more dynamic COVID-19 situation. Similar results can be found for respondents originating from both American continents and from countries of the former Soviet Union. Given that COVID-19 was first reported in Asia, but with rather low number of infections later on, and the rather high infection rates on both American continents and in Russia, we conclude that CAD experienced by these groups might happen in a reaction to both realistic and symbolic threats posed by the virus.

Why do people adorn themselves with elaborate body piercings or tattoos, wear obstructing garbs, engage in life-threatening competitions and other wasteful and harmful but socially stipulated practices? Norms of cooperation and coordination, which promote the efficient attainment of collective benefits, can be explained by theories of collective action. However, social norms prescribing wasteful and harmful behaviours have eluded such explanations. We argue that signalling theory constitutes the basis for the understanding of the emergence of such norms, which we call signalling norms. Signalling norms emerge as a result of the uncertainty about who is a friend and who is a foe. The need to overcome this uncertainty arises when different groups compete for scarce resources and individuals must be able to identify, trust and cooperate with their fellow group members. After reviewing the mechanisms that explain the emergence of cooperation and coordination norms, we introduce the notion of signalling norms as markers of group distinction. We argue that adherence to signalling norms constitutes a commitment promoting parochial cooperation rather than a quality-revealing signal facilitating partner choice. We formalize our argument in a game-theoretic model that allows us to specify the boundary conditions for the emergence of signalling norms. Our paper concludes with a discussion of potential applications of our model and a comparison of signalling norms with related concepts.This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

En este artículo presento una discusión teórica sobre cómo se pueden entender lo psicológico y la experiencia luego de los desafíos a los que dichas nociones han sido sometidas por los estudios sociales de ciencia y tecnología (CTS). Los CTS han desarrollado una forma de crítica constructivista que se opone a lo que han denominado "bifurcación de la naturaleza", es decir, la división del mundo entre cualidades primarias -lo material, la realidad en sí-, y cualidades secundarias: experiencia, conciencia y asuntos humanos. Tomando como guía interrogantes surgidas durante una investigación empírica sobre la "experiencia de ser paciente" en usuarios policonsultantes de salud pública, planteo que la crítica a la bifurcación de la naturaleza suele asumir nociones de lo psicológico y la experiencia humana que las sitúan como un callejón sin salida. Argumento entonces que la filosofía de procesos presenta argumentos útiles para rebatir esta simplificación, entendiendo lo psicológico como un flujo de constante co-afectación entre lo humano y el mundo, donde la experiencia no resulta separada de la naturaleza. In this article I present a theoretical inquiry into the ways in which we can understand the psychological and experience, considering the challenges posed to these notions by the field of science and technology studies (STS). STS have developed a form of constructivist critique that rejects the 'bifurcation of nature', that is to say, the divide of the world between primary qualities -the material world, reality itself-, and secondary qualities -experience, consciousness and human affairs. Taking as guideline theoretical questions that emerged during an empirical research about public health users' "experience of being a patient", I argue that the critique of the bifurcation of nature often assumes notions of the psychological and human experience that positions them as a dead end. I claim that process philosophy provides useful tools to refute this simplification, articulating the psychological as a constant flux of co-affectation of the human and the world, where experience is not separated from nature.

In recent years, cultural sociologists have analyzed how “diversity” emerged as the dominant framework for discussing racial and ethnic inequality in neighborhoods, schools, and organizations. Less attention has been paid to what people actually consider “diverse”. Social psychologists have studied how evaluations of racial and ethnic diversity vary systematically across individuals of different racial identities, but they have not theorized the role of socially shared reference points in shaping these judgments, or how evaluations may vary across other salient dimensions, such as political party affiliation. Using a survey experiment (N= 2009), I examine how ratings of diversity for white-majority neighborhoods and white-minority neighborhoods vary by respondents’ political party affiliations and how the presence of commonly shared demographic reference points shapes these judgments. When evaluating white-majority populations, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans draw different qualitative interpretations from the same quantitative data, but this evaluative disagreement is ameliorated when people are anchored with shared reference points. This research contributes to our understandings of how people interpret and evaluate racial diversity, and to how people make meaning from numbers in the absence of strongly institutionalized commensuration.

Does digital media empower or disempower workers? In existing studies on how information and communication technologies influence work, researchers investigate work-life boundaries and how workers use digital media to obtain more control. This article focuses on how digital media influences daily interpersonal interactions in the workplace: how does social media use influence workplace hierarchies and power dynamics? Based on 56 in-depth interviews with WeChat users in Chinese workplaces, I find that lower-ranked individuals were compelled to constantly express loyalty and appreciation, and publicly submit to their superordinates by clicking “like” or commenting on their WeChat posts. They also had to provide immediate and polite responses to their superordinates in WeChat group chats after work hours or to non-work-related issues. The distinctive features of online interaction—lack of physical interaction spaces, recordability of past conversations, and n-adic nature of online disclosures—created an environment where past encounters were omnipresent and accessible, and placed workers under permanent observability. This social interaction environment leaves little room for forms of resistance and, in response, employees retreat into cynical performances of submission. This study finds that, under certain circumstances, WeChat use actually intensifies workplace hierarchies and power dynamics, thereby sharpening social inequality, rather than eliminating it.

Foreign influence operations are an acknowledged threat to national security. Less understood is the data that enables that influence. This paper argues that governments must recognize microtargeting – data informed individualized targeted advertising – and the current advertising economy as enabling and profiting from foreign and domestic information warfare being waged on its citizens. The Department of Defense must place greater emphasis on defending servicemembers’ digital privacy as a national security risk. Without the ability to defend this vulnerable attack space, our adversaries will continue to target this for exploitation.

It is known that the new coronavirus (COVID-19) is disproportionately affecting the elderly, those with underlying medical conditions, and the poor. What is the effect of informing the public about these inequalities on people’s perceptions of threat and their sensitivity to the outbreak’s human toll? This study answers this question using a novel survey experiment and finds that emphasis on the unequal aspect of the pandemic, especially as it relates to the elderly and those with medical conditions, could be causing the public to become less concerned about the outbreak and its human toll. Discussion situates this finding in the literature on scientific communication and persuasion and explains why language that emphasizes the impact of the virus on all of us—rather than singling out certain groups—could be more effective in increasing caution among the general public and make them take the situation more seriously.

Traditional religions play a decreasing role in Western societies. In addition, the pandemic has forced us to re-evaluate some of our behaviours and decisions. The pandemic could transform the way we understand religious faith, define the function it plays in society and describe it as a useful, efficient support system to address the current problems we are facing.

This paper refines and further develops the concept of soft power with the aim of exploring the ways human power works and the assets that give rise to soft power. To this end, the paper will answer three central questions: What is soft power? Where does soft power come from? How does soft power works? Answering these questions requires fundamentally a global and systematic mapping of the power behaviors. This paper maps the power behaviors by identifying the basic ways of power, which include a hard way and a soft way of power-over and a hard way and a soft way of power-with. Soft power results from the soft way of power-with. The assets that give rise to soft power are positive agential qualities, not intangible resources as many assume. These positive agential qualities include not just kindness and its kin but also competence and commitment and their cognate qualities. This paper outlines the process that generates soft power and sheds light on the causal mechanisms, both at the behavioral and the psychological levels, through which soft power works. The paper benefits greatly from research in multiple disciplines, including biology, psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, and political science. It involves substantially and links together various phenomena discussed in different fields of study: signaling, indirect reciprocity, generalized exchange, prestige, status, and leadership. With the integration of these phenomena into a theory of soft power, the paper is able to provide a better explanation of indirect reciprocity, a more comprehensive explanation of the strategic logic of prestige-seeking, and a deeper explanation of charisma, among others.

Armed conflicts frequently fuel tensions between groups. The “cognitive perspective” of group identification offers a possible explanation, but is tacit on exact causal pathways. We predict that indiscriminate violence by armed actors induces fear of future attacks which in turn leads to prejudice, enhanced in-group cohesion, and calls for segregation. Selective violence does not have these effects. Relying on panel surveys conducted in Nairobi and Mombasa during the violent Kenyan elections in the Summer of 2017, we find evidence for the predicted effects among Christians in 2-way Fixed Effects estimation and an endorsement experiment.

This article explores the gender complexities of men caught between social power and powerlessness. Specifically, I consider the cases of Jewish men and gay men in the late modern West, two demographics with deep historic ties to both abjection and privilege. Such "in-between-ness” steers many, especially those who are white, cisgender, and/or otherwise privileged, toward what I term liminal complicity, a normative adaptation whereby men embrace manly ideals while disavowing femininity in themselves and others. I synthesize cultural, interactionist, and psychoanalytic literatures on stigma, boundaries, and gender practice to articulate liminal complicity as both an emotional retreat from stigmatization and a rational means of accruing status and redrawing social boundaries. I conduct a comparative-historical analysis of gendered discourses and practices at different historical junctures to show how analogous processes of (1) normative identification, (2) self-transformation, and (3) distinction from and (4) aggression toward feminized others enable historically subordinated men to elevate themselves without disrupting broader systems of domination.

Do humans have bigger or smaller social networks today? We reflect on the state of this research question and assert that an updated approach is needed to understand the effects of emergent technologies on network structure. Although the absolute changes in average network size are likely to remain elusive, recent perspectives converge on the idea that online technologies make it easier for individuals to shape—or curate—their social connections. Here we merge conflicting views and specify mechanisms through which curation technologies may impact personal network structure. Looking forward, we suggest personality will become more influential in network formation and maintenance when aided by technological levers. Consequently, curation technologies have the potential to increase differences in networks between types of people (for example, extroverts vs introverts) and thus generate new forms of social stratification, despite preserving a stable network size on average. The Comment concludes with empirical and theoretical implications, including the importance of attending to dispersion and examining the societal ramifications of personality-driven curation.

This paper explores the possibilities to explain the stylized facts of empirically observed ideological landscapes through the bounded confidence model of opinion dynamics. Empirically, left-right self-placements are often not normally distributed but have multiple peaks (e.g. extreme-left-center-right-extreme). Some stylized facts are extracted from histograms from the European Social Survey. In the bounded confidence model, agents repeatedly adjust their ideological position in their ideological neighborhood. As an extension of the classical model, agents sometimes completely reassesses their opinion depending on their ideological openness and their propensity for reassessment, respectively. Simulations show that this leads to the emergence of clustered ideological landscapes similar to the ones observed empirically. However, not all stylized facts of real world ideological landscapes can be reproduced with the model. Changes in the model parameters show that the ideological landscapes are susceptible to interesting slow and abrupt changes.A long term goal is to integrate models of opinion dynamics into the classical spatial model of electoral competition as a dynamic element taking into account that voters themselves shape the political landscape by adjusting their positions and preferences through interaction.

It is known that Americans’ preferences for redistribution are generally not very elastic in relation to their perceptions of inequality. Even localized crises such as Hurricane Katrina that lay bare existing inequalities in society seem to do little to nothing in moving public opinion on this matter. However, the coronavirus pandemic presents a new opportunity for social scientists and policy experts to test whether large-scale national crises can lead to changes in people’s opinions. What is the impact of a crisis of this proportion on Americans’ attitudes towards inequality? More specifically, is there an “added value” to being informed about class inequalities in the context of the coronavirus outbreak compared to being informed about such inequalities in general terms without reference to this extraordinary event? This study answers these questions using an online experiment that manipulates the information respondents receive prior to answering survey questions. I find that receiving information about class inequalities specifically in relation to the outbreak tends to be much more effective in moving people’s opinions compared to receiving that information in a way that does not directly relate it to coronavirus. This suggests that attitudes can be moved by something as widespread and salient as the pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic is affecting mental health and wellbeing across populations. The continued burden of psychosocial stressors in different contexts necessitates multipronged interventions that address mental health problems and associated disparities. Global evidence suggests that social capital plays a critical role in determining mental health outcomes in communities, which can be leveraged for improving mental health in COVID-19. As communities with better social capital is likely to have a lower burden of mental disorders, it is necessary to assess potential measures to use social capital for mental health promotion in vulnerable populations. The existing forms of social capital may provide social support within and between communities that are critically affected by COVID-19. Alongside faster recovery from socioeconomic challenges, social capital interventions may strengthen the social determinants of mental health and empower communities to alleviate the psychosocial consequences of this pandemic.

India has always been in a conflicting state in itself. The term largest democracy helps to bind an understanding regarding the reason and rise in violence. Different age groups with different mindset living on same land make them vulnerable and intolerable due to their living condition. A slight change in their routine has an effect on their actions. This became an objective to study a rise in the number of violence during coronavirus lockdown. There are multiple factors which trigger different forms of outrage and anger among people forcing them to indulge in an act of violence. Factors triggering violence can be social and cultural norms or can be political norms. These norms help in shaping individual behaviour both negatively and positively. The leading indicators of these norms are income, employment, stress is a result in itself not a factor perse, religious, gender disparity and literacy. The understanding of norms cannot remain error free until seen from the lens of policy implication. It will give a ground reality of its existence. However, there are constant efforts to deal with such atrocities. The paper will try to address the question of such violence that have existed and still continue to grow even when the Government have stringent policies to address such issue.

Why do humans cooperate? Lab experiments have found that cooperation may emerge in part because humans have intrinsically egalitarian motives, meaning that they resist inequality even at some personal cost. But outside the lab, economic inequality is high and on the rise, yet survey data suggest that people do not prioritize policies intended to address inequality. If people are intrinsically egalitarian, why are dramatic increases in inequality not a bigger concern? One possibility is that most people care more about unfairness than inequality per se. Here, we report the results of a networked, online experiment designed to unpack the relationship between fairness and inequality. In our experiment, we create fair and unfair wealth allocations by experimentally manipulating two factors: wealth distribution (i.e., whether starting wealth is equal vs unequal) and wealth source (i.e., the specific mechanism through which wealth (in)equality comes about, earned vs random). Our results show that the source of subjects’ wealth has important effects on their attitudes and behavior: when subjects “earned” their endowments, they perceived their wealth regimes to be more fair, and they were less likely to cooperate. These findings suggest that it can be misleading to study inequality without accounting for subjects’ understanding of how that inequality arose.