Psychological and social factors

Author(s):  
Shaun M. Eack

This chapter on psychological and social factors reviews landmark papers addressing the social and psychological contributors to mental disorders and wellness across a range of psychiatric conditions. These papers provide a foundation for understanding the role of stress and critical social environments in psychoses, the cognitive factors that characterize depressive thinking, the impact of environmental trauma on the development of personality conditions and suicidal behaviour, and important social avenues for protecting against risk and facilitating human resilience. Collectively, this early and landmark literature provides compelling evidence for the social and psychological contributors to the development and maintenance of many psychiatric conditions, and illustrates that garnering a better understanding of such factors has led to numerous advances in the prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Ana Ramsha ◽  
Samrah Hidayat

This study examines the role of social parameters in the choice of address forms used in kinship domain in Punjab, Pakistan. The study targeted 140 respondents in order to test the impact of social factors along with the regional differences in the choices of address forms in kinship domain. Statistical analyses are done by applying t-test for gender in relation to choices of address forms and ANOVA for age, income, education and social class. The study finds out that there is a strong connection of different social parameters not only with language use and practice but also in choices and use of address forms especially in kinship relationships.  Moreover, it is highlighted that gender does not influence in the choices of address forms, even the participants belonging to young and middle categories show no significant difference with regard to the choices of address form despite the fact that all the factors and parameters exert influence on the choices of address forms. Hence address forms as being one of the major traits of language and society is affected by all the social factors around and regional differences are also most important as they give identity and ethnicity to the society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-169
Author(s):  
Joan Edwards ◽  
Jim Lawlor

Technological innovation is a process that involves the intertwining of social, cognitive, and material elements. The relationship among these features is non-linear, complex, and possesses the ability to transform as well as inform the configuration of markets, tools, users, and social environments. The concept of performativity can be used to explain this phenomenon. This paper identifies the performative elements present in the context of technological innovation and maps the social factors and the use of cognitive features in the innovation process. This identification explicitly addresses the entanglement of the material and social influences in the process, defines the agency of technological change, and focuses on the impact the nature of a technology has on the configuration of a market. A conceptual model of performativity in the innovation process is proposed.


Author(s):  
Sloane Speakman

In examining the strikingly high prevalence rates of HIV in many parts of Africa, reaching as high as 5% in some areas, how does the discourse promoted by the predominant religions across the continent, Islam and Christianity, affect the outlook of their followers on the epidemic? This question becomes even more intriguing after discovering the dramatic difference in rate of HIV prevalence between Muslims and Christians in Africa, confirmed by studies that have found a negative relationship to exist between HIV prevalence and being Muslim in Africa, even in Sub-Saharan African nations. Why does this gap in prevalence rates exist? Does Islam advocate participating in less risky behavior more so than Christianity? By comparing the social construction, epidemiological understanding and public responses among Muslim populations in Africa with Christian ones, it becomes apparent that many similarities exist between the two regarding discourse and that, rather than religious discourse itself, other social factors, such as circumcision practices, contribute more to the disparity in HIV prevalence than originally thought.


Author(s):  
Caitlin Vitosky Clarke ◽  
Brynn C Adamson

This paper offers new insights into the promotion of the Exercise is Medicine (EIM) framework for mental illness and chronic disease. Utilising the Syndemics Framework, which posits mental health conditions as corollaries of social conditions, we argue that medicalized exercise promotion paradigms both ignore the social conditions that can contribute to mental illness and can contribute to mental illness via discrimination and worsening self-concept based on disability. We first address the ways in which the current EIM framework may be too narrow in scope in considering the impact of social factors as determinants of health. We then consider how this narrow scope in combination with the emphasis on independence and individual prescriptions may serve to reinforce stigma and shame associated with both chronic disease and mental illness. We draw on examples from two distinct research projects, one on exercise interventions for depression and one on exercise interventions for multiple sclerosis (MS), in order to consider ways to improve the approach to exercise promotion for these and other, related populations.


1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald L. Kanter

Dr. Kanter presents a summary of his research assessing the role of OTC advertising in Influencing drug usage. His work represents the only systematic study of the impact of commercial advertising on drug usage. He stresses that advertising in itself does not directly lead to drug misuse but should be considered as part of a host of factors in the social environment and in the media environment that have significant influence in determining people's behavior. He also urged that the existing pharmaceutical advertising codes, which are often violated, be reviewed and strengthened.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonatan Almagor ◽  
Stefano Picascia

AbstractA contact-tracing strategy has been deemed necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19 following the relaxation of lockdown measures. Using an agent-based model, we explore one of the technology-based strategies proposed, a contact-tracing smartphone app. The model simulates the spread of COVID-19 in a population of agents on an urban scale. Agents are heterogeneous in their characteristics and are linked in a multi-layered network representing the social structure—including households, friendships, employment and schools. We explore the interplay of various adoption rates of the contact-tracing app, different levels of testing capacity, and behavioural factors to assess the impact on the epidemic. Results suggest that a contact tracing app can contribute substantially to reducing infection rates in the population when accompanied by a sufficient testing capacity or when the testing policy prioritises symptomatic cases. As user rate increases, prevalence of infection decreases. With that, when symptomatic cases are not prioritised for testing, a high rate of app users can generate an extensive increase in the demand for testing, which, if not met with adequate supply, may render the app counterproductive. This points to the crucial role of an efficient testing policy and the necessity to upscale testing capacity.


Comunicar ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (41) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristóbal Casanueva-Rocha ◽  
Francisco-Javier Caro-González

At a time when academic activity in the area of communication is principally assessed by the impact of scientific journals, the scientific media and the scientific productivity of researchers, the question arises as to whether social factors condition scientific activity as much as these objective elements. This investigation analyzes the influence of scientific productivity and social activity in the area of communication. We identify a social network of researchers from a compilation of doctoral theses in communication and calculate the scientific production of 180 of the most active researchers who sit on doctoral committees. Social network analysis is then used to study the relations that are formed on these doctoral thesis committees. The results suggest that social factors, rather than individual scientific productivity, positively influence such a key academic and scientific activity as the award of doctoral degrees. Our conclusions point to a disconnection between scientific productivity and the international scope of researchers and their role in the social network. Nevertheless, the consequences of this situation are tempered by the nonhierarchical structure of relations between communication scientists. En un momento en que la actividad académica en el ámbito de la comunicación se valora principalmente por el impacto de las revistas y los medios de comunicación científica y por la productividad de los investigadores, surge la cuestión de si los factores sociales pueden condicionar la actividad científica con la misma fuerza que estos elementos objetivos. Esta investigación analiza la influencia de la productividad científica y de la actividad social en el ámbito de la comunicación. Se ha identificado la red social de los investigadores de comunicación a partir de las tesis doctorales. Para los 180 investigadores más activos en los tribunales de tesis se ha calculado su producción científica. Se utiliza el análisis de redes sociales para estudiar las relaciones que se producen en los tribunales de tesis doctorales. Los resultados muestran que los factores sociales influyen positivamente en una actividad académica y científica tan relevante como la obtención del grado de doctor, mientras que la productividad científica individual no lo hace. Como conclusiones cabe señalar que existe una desconexión entre la productividad científica y la proyección internacional de los investigadores y su papel en la red social. Las implicaciones de este hecho están matizadas por una estructura no jerarquizada de las relaciones entre los científicos de comunicación.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nando Sigona ◽  
Jotaro Kato ◽  
Irina Kuznetsova

AbstractThe article examines the migration infrastructures and pathways through which migrants move into, through and out of irregular status in Japan and the UK and how these infrastructures uniquely shape their migrant experiences of irregularity at key stages of their migration projects.Our analysis brings together two bodies of migration scholarship, namely critical work on the social and legal production of illegality and the impact of legal violence on the lives of immigrants with precarious legal status, and on the role of migration infrastructures in shaping mobility pathways.Drawing upon in-depth qualitative interviews with irregular and precarious migrants in Japan and the UK collected over a ten-year period, this article develops a three-pronged analysis of the infrastructures of irregularity, focusing on infrastructures of entry, settlement and exit, casting a comparative light on the mechanisms that produce precarious and expendable migrant lives in relation to access to labour and labour conditions, access and quality of housing and law enforcement, and how migrants adapt, cope, resist or eventually are overpowered by them.


Author(s):  
V.B. Belov

The article examines the results of the last Bundestag elections. They marked the end of the Angela Merkel era and reflected the continuation of difficult party-political and socio-economic processes in the informal leader of the European Union. The main attention of the research focuses on the peculiarities of the election campaign of the leading parties and of the search for ways of further development of Germany in the face of urgent economic and political challenges. These challenges include the impact of the coronavirus crisis, the impact of the energy and digital transition to a climate-neutral economy, and the complex international situation. Based on original sources, the author analyzes the causes of the SPD victory and the CDU/CSU bloc defeat, the results of the negotiations of the Social Democrats with the Greens and Liberals, the content of the coalition agreement from the point of view of the prospects for the development of domestic and foreign policy and the economy of Russia's main partner in the west of the Eurasian continent. The conclusion is made about the absence of breakthrough ideas, the consistent continuation of the course started by the previous government for a carbon-free economy and the strengthening of the role of Germany in Europe and the world. For this course, conflicts and problems in achieving the set goals will be immanent due to the compromising nature of the coalition agreements.


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