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Paternal incarceration (PI) is recognised as a severely stigmatising event that undermines social connections leaving affected children isolated and vulnerable. However, few studies have explored social group membership as a potential mediator of positive outcomes. This paper analysed data from two national contexts, Scotland and the United States, to examine the potential for social group membership in childhood to mediate the association between PI and child behavioural and emotional outcomes. Study 1 reported on cross‐sectional data from the Growing Up in Scotland dataset of children aged 12 years. Study 2 used longitudinal data from the Fragile Families cohort study (USA) of children aged 9 years and then 15 years. Children and parents completed measures of PI, children's group membership, as well as positive functioning. In Study 1, a mediated indirect effect of PI on prosocial behaviour via children's group membership was observed. In Study 2, children's reported social group membership mediated the effect of PI on positive adolescent functioning longitudinally. Whilst experiences of PI at age 9 were linked with lower group membership at age 15, group membership was associated with higher levels of positive adolescent functioning. This has implications for the support families receive when a parent is incarcerated to avoid children serving sentences for 'the sins of their fathers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are individuals willing to intervene in public violence? Half a century of research on the "bystander effect" suggests that the more bystanders present at an emergency, the less likely each of them is to provide help. However, recent meta-analytical evidence questions whether this effect generalizes to violent emergencies. Besides the number of bystanders present, an alternative line of research suggests that pre-existing social relations between bystanders and conflict participants are important for explaining whether bystanders provide help. The current paper offers a rare comparison of both factors-social relations and the number of bystanders present-as predictors of bystander intervention in real-life violent emergencies. We systematically observed the behavior of 764 bystanders across 81 violent incidents recorded by surveillance cameras in Copenhagen, Denmark. Bystanders were sampled with a case-control design, their behavior was observed and coded, and the probability of intervention was estimated with multilevel regression analyses. The results confirm our predicted association between social relations and intervention. However, rather than the expected reversed bystander effect, we found a classical bystander effect, as bystanders were less likely to intervene with increasing bystander presence. The effect of social relations on intervention was larger in magnitude than the effect of the number of bystanders. We assess these findings in light of recent discussions about the influence of group size and social relations in human helping. Further, we discuss the utility of video data for the assessment of real-life bystander behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary schools do not have the same technical resources and capabilities as universities. They usually need to rely on ready-to-use tools to fulfill their information and communication technology ( ICT) structure. Social networking site ( SNS) has emerged as a practical solution to this need. However, few have collected empirical data on the application of SNS in a secondary school setting. This paper probes into the current condition of SNS usage among secondary school students using a sample of 851 students in Macau, a Special Administrative Region ( SAR) of China. Data in terms of access, profile and activities are collected. The activities on SNSs are analyzed by regression techniques to produce a prediction model relating perceived academic benefit and SNS activities. The model yields a strong positive relationship between that benefit and activities such as raising questions and engaging in study-related discussions. The model also yields a weak dependency on activities such as searching for information and entertainment. The paper also evaluates the actual academic utilization of a Facebook Group for one class of secondary school students for a period of one year. At the end of the year, various opinion parameters are measured, and improvements are observed in most parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here I summarize John A. “Tony” Nevin's evolution as a translational author. All of his publications were classified by title and content as being primarily experimental analysis of behavior or translational. Translational works were subtyped as interpretative, descriptive research, or experimental research. During the first 20 years of his publication career, Tony published exclusively experimental analysis of behavior work. In 1982, he began a series of interpretative translational analyses on topics of significant social importance. These interpretative papers translated behavioral science into logical accounts of issues of war and peace, for example, and performed quantitative analyses of available data to show that social behavior, even at the level of the group or society, conforms to predictions based on established behavioral principles. Tony began experimental translational research in 1990, first to establish whether his analysis of behavioral momentum generalized to humans. Several experimental studies later addressed the persistence of clinically relevant behavior and treatment relapse. The objective descriptions of Tony's publication patterns are punctuated with anecdotes from our 32‐year collaboration and friendship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staging public engagement events to inform health policy is becoming increasingly common. In these events, participation from a diversity of individuals is fostered to enhance the input to policy from those groups of whom individual participants are seen to be are representative. Participants' identities thus come to be seen as constituted by group membership and roles they occupy in society. Recent insights from social psychology and other disciplines suggest that replacing the notion of role with that of subject positioning serves to better understand the multiple and fluid nature of personhood. In this paper we use the notion of subject positions to understand the way in which participants in a particular public engagement (The BC Biobank Deliberation) drew on different aspects of their identity to warrant arguments during deliberation. The aims of the paper are: to create theoretical links between deliberative democracy and positioning theory; to address a gap in knowledge of the process of deliberation itself, and to illustrate the use of positioning theory as a viable analytical lens through which to develop a deeper understanding of the communicative practices that constitute deliberation; and to contribute to the theoretical literature on positioning theory as the discursive constraints present in the institutional settings of deliberative forums offer a novel context within which to study subject positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives of homophobia and the repathologization of gay men now emerge and coalesce in often unconsidered ways. Within this paper, we present a deconstructive analysis of a recent paper published within the British Journal of Social Psychology (Crossley, 2004) and highlight how a narrative of repathology emerges through the selective appropriation of particular textual sources. By employing pathological constructions of sexual conduct between men; focusing upon singular homogenized constructions of gay men and simplistic constructions of health promotion and through a process of reconstructing HIV as a gay plague and it is possible to embroider a moral tale which constitutes a further deviant ‘othering’ of gay men. We contend that by employing (functional) discourses of ‘unconscious motivation’, together with a constellation of disclaimers, caveats and tokenistic pluralization, it becomes possible for psychologists to engage in homophobic knowledge production whilst maintaining an identity as a (dis)interested professional. Our analysis raises issues pertinent to all social psychologists engaged in ‘suspicious’ research on ‘the other’. To this end, we expand our critique by employing ideas from Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology to provide more general discussion of ethical and constructive ways of engaging in textual analyses of persons outside one's own tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the nature of educational studies is considered and discussed. Following some introductory comments, the paper deals with philosophy, psychology and sociology in relation to education. This is followed by a section on social psychology and the paper ends with a section on the history of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flickr, the large-scale online photo sharing website, is often viewed as one of the 'classic' examples of Web2.0 applications through which researchers are able to observe the social behavior of online communities. One of the main features of Flickr is groups. These provide a means to organize, share and discuss photos of potential interest to group members. This paper explores the scale of group creation on Flickr and proposes a new set of metrics for characterizing groups on Flickr looking at aspects of membership, communication activity, and communication structure. Data collected from a sample of 1,000 groups was used to confirm the metrics and provide new insights into group formation in Flickr, such as the nature of larger and smaller groups. The contributions of the article are as follows: a set of metrics for characterizing online groups that extend existing schemes; an approach for sampling Flickr to estimate the number of groups; new insights into Flickr groups based on results from analyzing 1,000 randomly selected groups; and reflections on our experiences with using publicly accessible, automatically collected data to characterize the types of groups on Flickr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background People with intellectual disability (ID) who live in regular neighbourhoods have experiences with their neighbours, which are important to understand when studying social integration. Method This study describes and analyses the opinions on, and experiences with, neighbour relationships of 39 people with ID living in neighbourhood housing facilities. Results We found that, while the views of people with ID on ‘good neighbouring’ were consistent with ‘neighbouring’ described in sociological literature, their experiences may be influenced by an organisational context, the tendency to formalise relationships and apprehension towards meeting unfamiliar people. Conclusion Understanding influential factors to neighbouring for people with ID may shed light on the processes involved in social integration of people with ID at a neighbourhood level. This paper contributes to understanding the opinions of people with ID on satisfactory neighbourhood relationships, and explores opportunities to improve them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use social network analysis to test the hypothesis that group ideology affects information exchange among environmental groups. The analysis is based on interviews with leaders of 136 environmental groups in Alabama. This paper adds to the literature on resource mobilization among social movement organizations by exploring information exchange among a wide range of environmental groups across an entire state, and by incorporating ideology into our analysis. A typology of environmental groups was developed based on willingness to engage or not engage in political and legal activism to pursue their goals. We found a level of information exchange between activist groups twice that among all other groups. We also found that differing ideological profiles did not limit the flow of information between groups, taken as a whole. We conclude that the relatively high level of connectivity is attributable in part to the presence of paid staff among several key activist groups, making these groups important resources for technical and non-technical support for all groups across the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of social interactions has recently become an important area of economic research, and the focus of researchers in this area has increasingly shifted toward dynamic models. In one recent contribution, Brueckner and Smirnov (2007) analyze the evolution of population attributes in an exceedingly simple model, where an agent's attributes at time t are equal to the average attribute value among his acquaintances. The pattern of acquaintances in the population is determined by the social network, and Brueckner and Smirnov (BS) explore the effect of network characteristics on the convergence of population attributes over time. They show that some simple sufficient conditions on the network structure ensure convergence to a “melting-pot” equilibrium where attributes are uniform across agents. The present paper provides a generalization of BS's analysis, allowing for a more general form of the rule governing the evolution of population attributes. The analysis shows that BS's previous conclusions continue to hold under this generalization, while also providing a result that can be applied more generally to other models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychology and social network research are both centrally concerned with human sociality. Despite some historically significant interactions between the two, these areas of investigation have not been usefully deployed together in recent research endeavours. The present paper attempts to bring out some points of both theoretical and methodological contentions, to characterize the gap between them, to traverse briefly the trajectories of their historical development, and to provide some concrete instances of these differences. Intellectual resources available to Asian social psychology are reviewed, which may help bridge the gap between the two areas of research. We conclude by calling for a greater integration of social psychology and social network perspectives in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sociological tradition, status characteristics and patterns of interpersonal relations within a social network are considered important in explaining organizational behaviour (e.g. influence, cooperation). In the social identity tradition, perceptions of shared psychological group membership and group prototypicality are considered important in explaining many of the same organizational behaviours. The present paper explores core variables within each of these perspectives as predictors of advice seeking among supervisors in a manufacturing facility. Dyadic measures of group assignment are found to better predict advice seeking than measures taken at the individual level. Identification with work groups predicted advice seeking from those perceived to be in the same group, and also from structural equivalents. Implications for theory and further research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the social psychology of uncertainty management is used to explain reactions to socially deviating people. In Study 1, we examine how people react to a person communicating negative messages about their home country; in Study 2, how a representative sample of the Dutch society reacts to encounters with a homeless person; and in Study 3, what the behavioral and psychological reactions are of people in an anticipated interaction with a homeless individual. All 3 studies reveal that personal uncertainty—whether made salient in a subtle manner or measured by means of individual differences in the extent to which uncertainty is considered an emotionally threatening experience—is an important determinant of reactions to socially deviating persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper proposes a model of knowledge sharing, in which coworker congruence, outcome interdependence, perceived organizational support, and procedural justice influence knowledge sharing indirectly through the mediation of instrumental ties and expressive ties, and examined gender differences in causal connections within the model. In a sample of employees in Taiwan, it was shown that the influence of instrumental ties on knowledge sharing is stronger for females than for males; the influence of expressive ties on knowledge sharing is stronger for males than for females; the influence of coworker congruence on expressive ties is stronger for females than for males; the influence of outcome interdependence on instrumental ties is stronger for females than for males; and the influence of perceived organizational support on instrumental ties is stronger for males than for females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas of community and social capital have received much attention in the last decade, but are plagued by a multitude of conceptualizations, definitions, and operationalizations. This confusion is problematic for both researchers and policymakers trying to use these concepts. While numerous efforts have been made to clarify “social capital” and “community,” too often the two are simply conflated. This paper attempts to distinguish between them by looking at the various ways they are related in concrete examples. Drawn largely from the literature, five examples are offered that together describe the complex interactions of place-based communities and social capital networks. These examples also demonstrate distinctions between community and social capital with regard to boundaries, the qualities of social relations and trust in each, instrumentality, the consequences of one for the other, and issues related to multiple communities in a single place. It is hoped that these distinctions will inform the ongoing efforts to develop unique and useful conceptualizations of these two terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the recent and rapid newcomer,be like, the English quotative system is a good place to catch language change in action. However, since most previous analyses target people in their early twenties, little is known about howbe likeis diffusing. In this paper we conduct an analysis of Canadian youth between ten and nineteen years old and compare the results with an earlier study. There is a dramatic increase inbe likein real time. In apparent time, the content of the quote and grammatical person are significant and the constraints are parallel for all ages except one. The effect of content of the quote has reversed among the oldest speakers, aged between 17 and 19. Moreover, there is a clear shift in the social evaluation ofbe like: sex is significant and strong for 15–16 year olds onwards, revealing that age and sex interact in sociolinguistic change. Furthermore, we establish ongoing grammaticalization ofbe like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together the educational psychology and place experience literatures to explore 8 children's experiences of school behavior settings. Within this framework, the goal is to think of school as a place comprised of multiple behavior settings, disentangle behavior and engagement, and problematize the construct of engagement. Results indicate that children liked places where the physical space was open, and they had some autonomy, independence, choice, opportunities for leadership, and social support. Conversely, they disliked places that were physically chaotic, where they perceived an abuse of power, and that inhibited choice, independence, and autonomy. Finally, children engaged their disliked places by attempting to personalize these spaces to bring in other parts of their identities. Implications include creating behavior settings that lead to positive experiences, attending to social justice. and the use of project-based pedagogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that social networks mediate social functioning, self-esteem, mental health and quality of life. This paper presents findings concerning changes in the social lives, skills, behaviour and life experiences of a group of people with intellectual disabilities ( n = 18), who gained support from an employment agency to find paid work. The composition and quality of individuals’ social networks were mapped using a Social Network Guide. Changes in skills, behaviour and life experiences were assessed using standardized measures. The social network size of participants increased over time, with most social contacts being drawn from community contexts. This linked to improvements in life experiences, particularly in relation to leisure activities. Some improvements in adaptive behaviour were also found over time but no significant relationship between social network size and changes in adaptive behaviour were evident. Whilst work will not guarantee social relationships, it can help maintain network size and provides a good opportunity for people with intellectual disabilities to meet others who are not associated with intellectual disability services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of perceived organisational support as a mediator of the relationship between perceived situational factors and affective organisational commitment. Perceived situational factors examined were: procedural justice, distributive justice, communication satisfaction with supervisor, and labor-management relationship climate. Analysis of data from a sample of 185 pharmaceutical sales representatives from India indicated that perceived organisational support fully mediates the relationship between each of these perceived situational variables and affective commitment to the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews developments in the field of close relationships from an interdependence theory perspective. It concludes that focusing on the relational, dyadic aspects of relationships has led to a much better understanding of social cognition and of interpersonal processes. In this vein, the nature and function of relational schemas seems a particularly promising new direction for research. It encompasses recent work on self-in-relation-to-other schema structure, the organization of schemas in cognitive networks, motivated construal in service of a need for felt security, and the dynamics of attachment and dependency regulation. Despite some impressive advances in research on close relationships, however, a more social psychological emphasis on the causal influence of features of social situations on cognition and behavior is important for the future health of the field. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether persons' cognitive representations of valued group identities differ in content from their representations of their personal identity. The results showed differences between participants' qualitative descriptions of their group identities and their personal identities. Values, emotions, and personal relationships were more often listed in group identity representations than in personal identity representations. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the causal and explanatory role assigned to intrapersonal (or P-) variables in the recent sociological literature on collective behavior. In Part I emphasis is on the use—or nonuse—of P-variables as factors mediating between collective behavior episodes and their antecedent social and situational determinants. It is suggested that P-variables have been (1) excluded on methodological grounds in favor of more directly observable and/or manipulable behavior, (2) analyzed as dependent variables, defined by and contingent on antecedent social and situational considerations, or (3) introduced as independent variables and therefore significantly figuring in any explanatory account of collective behavior. Part II deals with the conceptually deeper issue concerning the terminology and metaphors employed in the literature regarding collective behavior and its causal antecedents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moscovici has ushered in the 'era of social representations', widely welcomed as a European alternative to what are increasingly regarded as the shortcomings of mainline' American social psychology. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption by many psychologists of Moscovici's theoretical approach has not so far evoked a great deal of critical appraisal of the ideas he put forward. The present paper seeks to make a start in filling this gap by an examination of the conceptual structure and sonic of its underlying assumptions. There appear to be a number of internal inconsistencies and some doubt concerning the logical status of social representations'. It is suggested that clarification of such issues, together with the establishment of closer links with the findings of neighbouring disciplines, would help to strengthen what is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating new departures in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relative impact of two sources of sociocultural influence on racial identification. Using interviews with 225 African-American adults (Thompson Sanders, 1994), the relative influence of within-group vs. intergroup interaction variables was assessed. The data were collected using a structured interview protocol and a 30-item racial identification questionnaire. Information on the level and quality of intragroup interaction, experiences with race relations, political activism, age, gender, income, education, and orientation on four parameters of racial identification--psychological, physical, cultural, and sociopolitical--was collected. The results suggest that within-group contact variables have a strong association with the psychological and physical parameters of racial identification. The extent and quality of intergroup interaction with non-African Americans were associated with the sociopolitical parameter. Cultural racial identification was largely determined by demographic variables. These data suggest a model of racial identification based on a complex set of within-group, intergroup, and demographic variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary immigration to the United States and the formation of new ethnic groups are the complex and unintended social consequences of the expansion of the nation to its post-World War II position of global hegemony. Immigrant communities in the United States today are related to a history of American military, political, economic, and cultural involvement and intervention in the sending countries, especially in Asia and the Caribbean Basin, and to the linkages that are formed in the process that open a variety of legal and illegal migration pathways. The 19.8 million foreign-born persons counted in the 1990 U.S. census formed the largest immigrant population in the world, though in relative terms, only 7.9% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, a lower proportion than earlier in this century. Today's immigrants are extraordinarily diverse, a reflection of polar-opposite types of migrations embedded in very different historical and structural contexts. Also, unlike the expanding economy that absorbed earlier flows from Europe, since the 1970s new immigrants have entered an "hourglass" economy with reduced opportunities for social mobility, particularly among the less educated, and new waves of refugees have entered a welfare state with expanded opportunities for public assistance. This paper seeks to make sense of the new diversify. A typology of contemporary immigrants is presented, and their patterns of settlement, their distinctive social and economic characteristics compared to major native-born racial-ethnic groups, and their different modes of incorporation in - and consequences for - American society are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a special issue of the journal Personal Relationships dealing with context and relationships. It reflects on the state of the literature and discusses five approaches to the interplay of context and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]