The Social Contexts of Jesus the Teacher: Construction or Reconstruction

1987 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Gerald Downing
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Current Survey

The importance of an awareness of the wider social context of any movement or individual is widely acknowledged, and does not need arguing. It constitutes a necessary criterion of the adequacy of any historical account. Yet there does not seem to have been any significant development in our critical appraisal of it among other criteria, and we still fail to produce agreed results. As a check on how things stand with other historians we may take, as a typical current survey, C. Behan McCullagh,Justifying Historical Descriptions. McCullagh makes a distinction that I have myself made before, but he makes it rather more elegantly. It lies in a contrast between the explanatory ‘scope’ and the ‘power’ of an historical account. An historical reconstruction may have a very wide scope, appearing to include all the data that is conventionally allowed to be relevant, and thus seem very persuasive. But the question remains to be asked, what power has it to exclude competing explanations?

scholarly journals Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick A. R. Jones ◽  
Helen C. Spence-Jones ◽  
Mike Webster ◽  
Luke Rendell
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Behavioural Phenotype ◽  
Social Species ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.

A Qualitative Study on Friends and the Social Context of Sexual Victimization: Implications for Campus-Based Interventions

2020 ◽  
pp. 107780122095427
Author(s):  
Jessica A. Blayney ◽  
Tiffany Jenzer ◽  
Jennifer P. Read ◽  
Jennifer Livingston ◽  
Maria Testa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Sexual Victimization ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Potential Danger ◽  
The Social ◽  
Barriers To Implementation ◽  
College Drinkers

Sexual victimization (SV) risk can begin in social contexts, ones where friends are present, though it is unclear how friends might be integrated into SV prevention. Using focus groups, female college drinkers described (a) the role of friends in preventing SV, (b) the strategies friends use to reduce vulnerability, and (c) the barriers to implementation. Friends-based strategies (keeping tabs on one another, using signals to convey potential danger, interrupting escalating situations, taking responsibility for friends, relying on male friends) and barriers (intoxication, preoccupation, situation ambiguity, social consequences) were discussed. Interventions can draw on these strategies, but must address the critical barriers.

Profiling “User Bases” of Online Social Contexts

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-126
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Current User ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Common Practices

One aspect of profiling to enhance teaching and learning involves the various contexts in which learners will engage, such as particular social media ecosystems and their attendant microcultures (the social norms and common practices in these spaces), particularly if learners will be engaging with individuals outside of the formal classroom. Understanding the larger online social context helps define the affordances and constraints of what can be effectively taught and learned. This involves profiling the current user base of the online social spaces where the learners will be engaging and interacting and co-creating knowledge.

scholarly journals Dialog Structure Through the Lens of Gender, Gender Environment, and Power

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-55
Author(s):  
Vinodkumar Prabhakaran ◽  
Owen Rambow
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
Automatic Methods ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Textual Content

Understanding how the social context of an interaction affects our dialog behavior is of great interest to social scientists who study human behavior, as well as to computer scientists who build automatic methods to infer those social contexts. In this paper, we study the interaction of power, gender, and dialog behavior in organizational interactions. In order to perform this study, we first construct the Gender Identified Enron Corpus of emails, in which we semi-automatically assign the gender of around 23,000 individuals who authored around 97,000 email messages in the Enron corpus. This corpus, which is made freely available, is orders of magnitude larger than previously existing gender identified corpora in the email domain. Next, we use this corpus to perform a largescale data-oriented study of the interplay of gender and manifestations of power. We argue that, in addition to one’s own gender, the “gender environment” of an interaction, i.e., the gender makeup of one’s interlocutors, also affects the way power is manifested in dialog. We focus especially on manifestations of power in the dialog structure — both, in a shallow sense that disregards the textual content of messages (e.g., how often do the participants contribute, how often do they get replies etc.), as well as the structure that is expressed within the textual content (e.g., who issues requests and how are they made, whose requests get responses etc.). We find that both gender and gender environment affect the ways power is manifested in dialog, resulting in patterns that reveal the underlying factors. Finally, we show the utility of gender information in the problem of automatically predicting the direction of power between pairs of participants in email interactions.

scholarly journals Conversational Pragmatics: Memory Reporting Strategies in Different Social Contexts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Martín-Luengo ◽  
Karlos Luna ◽  
Yury Shtyrov
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Incentive Structures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Different Levels

Conversational pragmatics studies, among others, factors that affect the information we share with others. Previous research showed that when participants are unsure about the correctness of an answer, they report fewer answers. This behavior strongly depends on the incentive structure of the social context where the question-response exchange takes place. In this research we studied how the different incentive structure of several types of social contexts affects conversational pragmatics and the amount of information we are willing to share. In addition, we also studied how different levels of knowledge may affect memory reporting in different social contexts. Participants answered easy, intermediate, and difficult general knowledge questions and decided whether they would report or withhold their selected answer in different social contexts: formal vs. informal, and constrained (a context that promotes providing only responses we are certain about) vs. loose (with an incentive structure that maximizes providing any type of answer). Overall, our results confirmed that social contexts are associated with a different incentive structure which affect memory reporting strategies, and that the effect of social contexts depended on the difficulty of the questions. Our results highlight the relevance of studying the different incentive structures of social contexts to understand the underlying processes of conversational pragmatics, and stress the importance of considering metamemory theories of memory reporting.

The Social Context

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasana T. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Sudden Death ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social

The seventh chapter argues for the importance of the social context in continuing to influence whether social cognition is engaged or not, and describes a version of the delayed sudden death virus outbreak thought experiment without the death and virus components, set in modern society. This chapter then reviews classical social psychological studies that illustrate the power of the social context in shaping social cognition and resulting behaviour. It describes different types of social contexts, and explores the role of consistency motives in guiding human behaviour. Finally, it makes an appeal for a spectrum metaphor for social behavior, rather than alternative metaphors that categorise the phenomenon too narrowly.

scholarly journals Is Complexity Leadership Theory Complex Enough? A critical appraisal, some modifications and suggestions for further research

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Tourish
Keyword(s):  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Leadership Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Complexity Leadership ◽  
Complexity Leadership Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Enduring Power

Scholars are increasingly seeking to develop theories that explain the underlying processes whereby leadership is enacted. This shifts attention away from the actions of ‘heroic’ individuals and towards the social contexts in which people with greater or lesser power influence each other. A number of researchers have embraced complexity theory, with its emphasis on non-linearity and unpredictability. However, some complexity scholars still depict the theory and practice of leadership in relatively non-complex terms. They continue to assume that leaders can exercise rational, extensive and purposeful influence on other actors to a greater extent than is possible. In effect, they offer a theory of complex organizations led by non-complex leaders who establish themselves by relatively non-complex means. This testifies to the enduring power of ‘heroic’ images of leader agency. Without greater care, the terminology offered by complexity leadership theory could become little more than a new mask for old theories that legitimize imbalanced power relationships in the workplace. This paper explores how these problems are evident in complexity leadership theory, suggests that communication and process perspectives help to overcome them, and outlines an agenda for further research on these issues.

Perceptions of Water Quality in First Nations Communities: Exploring the Role of Context

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Baird ◽  
Ryan Plummer ◽  
Diane Dupont ◽  
Blair Carter
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Social Context ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Adaptive Governance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

Drinking water quality problems are persistent and challenging for many of Canada's First Nations communities despite past and ongoing initiatives to improve the situation. These initiatives have often been employed without consideration for understanding the social context that is so critical for the development of appropriate water governance approaches. This article offers insights about the relationship between institutions for water governance and perceptions in three Ontario First Nations communities. Similarities among communities were particularly noticeable for gender where women valued water more highly and were less content with water quality. The findings presented here highlight potential impacts of displacement, gender, and water sources on perceptions of water quality and offer initial insights that indicate the need for further research to consider the potential for adaptive governance approaches that enhance fit between problem and social contexts.

scholarly journals Exploring the Influence of Local Social Context on Strategies for Achieving Fire Adapted Communities

Fire ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis B. Paveglio ◽  
Catrin M. Edgeley ◽  
Matthew Carroll ◽  
Mark Billings ◽  
Amanda M. Stasiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Wildfire Management ◽  
Management Planning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Fire Adapted Communities

There is a growing recognition that the social diversity of communities at risk from wildland fire may necessitate divergent combinations of policies, programs and incentives that allow diverse populations to promote fire adapted communities (FACs). However, there have been few coordinated research efforts to explore the perceived utility and effectiveness of various options for FACs among residents, professionals, and local officials in disparate communities with different social contexts. The research presented here attempts to systematically explore the combination of local social factors that influence support for coordinated wildfire risk management across locations. We conducted 19 interactive focus groups across five communities spanning five Western U.S. states using a mixed-method design that allowed for the collection of quantitative and qualitative data. Results indicate a number of significant differences in effectiveness ratings for adaptation approaches across communities, including requirement of vegetation mitigations on private properties, fostering Firewise communities, and zoning efforts in fire-prone areas. We used qualitative data to help explain the differences between communities as a function of unique local social context operating in each location. We also compare our results with existing frameworks promoting community “archetypes” to evaluate their continued use in wildfire management planning or response.

The Appalachian Social Context and the Battering of Women

1993 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 20-24
Author(s):  
Judith Fiene
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Battered Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Family Roles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Context Variables ◽  
Abuse Of Women

The battering of women by their partners is a common occurrence around the world, and historical records show that the abuse of women has been legitimized through the ages. In the United States battering is to be found in all social classes and across all racial and ethnic groups. However, the experience of being battered is structured by the social contexts in which it occurs. How victims perceive and react to that experience is influenced by their social world, the construction of gender and family roles and interpersonal relationships in their community, and the response of local people to male violence. These social context variables must be considered as well in programs designed to assist battered women and to prevent further battering.

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