Contagion

Author(s):  
Mark Davis ◽  
Davina Lohm

Contagion is an age-old method of signifying infectious diseases like influenza and is a rich metaphor with strong biopolitical connotations for understandings of social distance, that is, the self as distinct from the other in the sense of space and identity. Contagion is therefore an important metaphor for the social distancing approaches recommended by experts during a pandemic, as was the case in 2009. This chapter, therefore, examines how research participants enacted social distancing as a method for reducing risk. It reflects on how these narratives reflected the meanings of contagion linked with distance, in particular, the notion that threat emerges elsewhere and in the figure of the other.

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaël De Clercq ◽  
Charlotte Michel ◽  
Sophie Remy ◽  
Benoît Galand

Abstract. Grounded in social-psychological literature, this experimental study assessed the effects of two so-called “wise” interventions implemented in a student study program. The interventions took place during the very first week at university, a presumed pivotal phase of transition. A group of 375 freshmen in psychology were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, social belonging, and self-affirmation. Following the intervention, students in the social-belonging condition expressed less social apprehension, a higher social integration, and a stronger intention to persist one month later than the other participants. They also relied more on peers as a source of support when confronted with a study task. Students in the self-affirmation condition felt more self-affirmed at the end of the intervention but didn’t benefit from other lasting effects. The results suggest that some well-timed and well-targeted “wise” interventions could provide lasting positive consequences for student adjustment. The respective merits of social-belonging and self-affirmation interventions are also discussed.


Lexicon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yemima Febriani ◽  
Sharifah Hanidar

This research aims to analyze the request strategies used in an American TV Series entitled Full House season 7 episodes 1-12. The main characters are family members from three different age groups (adult, teenager, and children). This research attempts to see if there is any difference on the choice of request strategies used by the three age groups. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s (1984) theory on request directness level is used to classify the requests. Relative power and social distance are also studied to see how they influence the characters in making their requests. The results show that mood derivable is the most frequent strategy used by all age groups. Specifically, direct request is highly used by the adult age groups. On the other hand, indirect request is mostly used by the younger age groups. The results also show that all age groups tend to use direct strategy when the social distance is negative. However, when the social distance is positive, the choice of strategy depends on the authority of the speaker.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mohamed Buheji ◽  
Ana Vovk Korže ◽  
Sajeda Eidan ◽  
Talal Abdulkareem ◽  
Nikolay Perepelkin ◽  
...  

COVID-19 raised lots of issues relevant to the status, the readiness and the capacity of the self-sufficiency of the different communities and countries during conditions of lockdown and requirements for social distancing, during the first four months of the pandemic.An international multidiscipline scholars discussion on zoom, a multi-media conferencing app, is categorised according to the subjects of the self-sufficiency practices that are reflections of the specific attitudes and behaviours that shape the social demands during the COVID-19 pandemic. The scholars discuss the requirements of re-building the self-sufficiency social beliefs which the capital economy destroyed. Based on the methodology of discussion from the different background scholar, the challenges and then the outcome of self-sufficiency projects are defined.


1976 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Otto Zinser ◽  
Roger C. Bailey ◽  
Ralph M. Edgar

Thirty-six preschoolers and 41 second graders were asked: (a) to rank, in order of preference, a white child, a black child, and an Indian child as recipients of sharing; (b) to share with the preferred recipient items of low and high value; and (c) to rank the three recipients as companions in several hypothetical, social interaction situations varying in social distance. The distributions of first choices for sharing indicated that the preschool subjects preferred the white recipient most, the Indian recipient next, and the black recipient least, while the second graders preferred the Indian recipient over the white and black recipients. The second graders who preferred the black recipient shared a larger number of items than those who preferred to share with one of the other two recipients. The distributions of first choices for the social distance items were generally consistent with those for sharing, and subjects from one school exhibited some differential sensitivity to the items of the social distance scale. The results of this investigation and those of previous research suggest that the influence of the race of the recipient on sharing behavior varies with the experimental design used.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (01) ◽  
pp. 1350015 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA STENZEL ◽  
ERIS CHINELLATO ◽  
ANGEL P. DEL POBIL ◽  
MARKUS LAPPE ◽  
ROMAN LIEPELT

In human–human interactions, a consciously perceived high degree of self–other overlap is associated with a higher degree of integration of the other person's actions into one's own cognitive representations. Here, we report data suggesting that this pattern does not hold for human–robot interactions. Participants performed a social Simon task with a robot, and afterwards indicated the degree of self–other overlap using the Inclusion of the Other in the Self (IOS) scale. We found no overall correlation between the social Simon effect (as an indirect measure of self–other overlap) and the IOS score (as a direct measure of self–other overlap). For female participants we even observed a negative correlation. Our findings suggest that conscious and unconscious evaluations of a robot may come to different results, and hence point to the importance of carefully choosing a measure for quantifying the quality of human–robot interactions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Kelly Oliver

In The Right to Narcissism: A Case for Im-Possible Self-Love, Pleshette DeArmitt opens the space for an alternative to origin story so popular with political philosophers, namely, the social contract, which assumes a rational and self-identical subject.  She does this obliquely by deconstructing narcissism as love of the self-same, or, love of what Kristeva might call “the clean and proper self.”  Like Echo interrupting Narcissus’s soliloquy of deadly self-absorbed pleasure and his solitary auto-affection upon seeing his own reflection, Pleshette interrupts the seeming proximity of self-same, the closeness of near, and the propinquity of proper by deflecting the image of Narcissus onto the voice of Echo, who comes into her own by repeating his words.  How, asks Pleshette, can Echo’s reiteration of the words of another be anything more than mere repetition or reduplication?  Echoing Derrida, she answers that it is through a declaration of love.  Echo’s repetition of the words of Narcissus take on new meaning, and allow her to express herself, and her love, through the words of the other.  After all words are words of the other.  Language comes to us from the other.  Echo becomes a self, a “little narcissist,” through an address from and to the other, through the appropriation and ex-appropriation of the other’s words. 


Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liviu-Adrian Cotfas ◽  
Camelia Delcea ◽  
R. John Milne ◽  
Mostafa Salari

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has imposed the need for a series of social distancing restrictions worldwide to mitigate the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. This applies to many domains, including airplane boarding and seat assignments. As airlines are considering their passengers’ safety during the pandemic, boarding methods should be evaluated both in terms of social distancing norms and the resulting efficiency for the airlines. The present paper analyzes the impact of a series of restrictions that have been imposed or mooted worldwide on the boarding methods used by the airlines, featuring the use of jet-bridges and one-door boarding. To compare the efficacy of classical airplane boarding methods with respect to new social distancing norms, five metrics were used to evaluate their performance. One metric is the time to complete the boarding of the airplane. The other four metrics concern passenger health and reflect the potential exposure to the virus from other passengers through the air and surfaces (e.g., headrests and luggage) touched by passengers. We use the simulation platform in NetLogo to test six common boarding methods under various conditions. The back-to-front by row boarding method results in the longest time to complete boarding but has the advantage of providing the lowest health risk for two metrics. Those two metrics are based on passengers potentially infecting those passengers previously seated in the rows they traverse. Interestingly, those two risks are reduced for most boarding methods when the social distance between adjacent passengers advancing down the aisle is increased, thus indicating an unanticipated benefit stemming from this form of social distancing. The modified reverse pyramid by half zone method provides the shortest time to the completing boarding of the airplane and—along with the WilMA boarding method—provides the lowest health risk stemming from potential infection resulting from seat interferences. Airlines have the difficult task of making tradeoffs between economic productivity and the resulting impact on various health risks.


Author(s):  
Michaela Prachthauser ◽  
Jeffrey E. Cassisi ◽  
Thien-An Le ◽  
Andel V. Nicasio

Background: This paper describes the development of a brief self-report screening measure of adherence to social distancing and self-protective behaviors in pandemic situations. Items measured behaviors currently established as primary strategies to prevent and reduce the spread of the COVID-19 infection. Methods: An item pool of 29 questions was generated with the aim of estimating the frequency of specific behaviors and were written to avoid confounding the description of behavioral actions with evaluative judgements. Responses were collected from 401 young adults using an anonymous online survey. Results: An Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted with the purpose of item reduction and subscale development. A 14-item Social Distance Scale emerged, consisting of four subscales: Isolation from Community (IC), Work from Home (WH), Family Contact (FC), and Protective Behaviors (PB). The initial psychometric evaluation of the scales indicated adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. (4) Conclusions: The Social Distance Scale (v1) is a promising new instrument which may be applied at the population or individual level. It may be used in conjunction with COVID-19 testing to measure interactions between social distancing factors and transmission. In addition, a reliable screening measure has utility for health service providers to assess patient risk and to provide educational/counseling.


2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1932) ◽  
pp. 20201039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea K. Townsend ◽  
Dana M. Hawley ◽  
Jessica F. Stephenson ◽  
Keelah E. G. Williams

The ‘social distancing’ that occurred in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in humans provides a powerful illustration of the intimate relationship between infectious disease and social behaviour in animals. Indeed, directly transmitted pathogens have long been considered a major cost of group living in humans and other social animals, as well as a driver of the evolution of group size and social behaviour. As the risk and frequency of emerging infectious diseases rise, the ability of social taxa to respond appropriately to changing infectious disease pressures could mean the difference between persistence and extinction. Here, we examine changes in the social behaviour of humans and wildlife in response to infectious diseases and compare these responses to theoretical expectations. We consider constraints on altering social behaviour in the face of emerging diseases, including the lack of behavioural plasticity, environmental limitations and conflicting pressures from the many benefits of group living. We also explore the ways that social animals can minimize the costs of disease-induced changes to sociality and the unique advantages that humans may have in maintaining the benefits of sociality despite social distancing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Drott

This article interrogates music’s role in the work of social reproduction by bringing into dialogue two seemingly antithetical approaches to thinking music’s relation to the social. One is historical materialism; the other is work informed by the “practice turn” in music sociology, exemplified by Tia DeNora’s studies of music as a “technology of the self.” By taking seriously the proposition that under certain conditions music may itself function as a technology, and by reframing this proposition along materialist lines, this article aims to shed light on the changing functions music has come to assume in late neoliberalism. In particular, new modalities of digital distribution like streaming, by simultaneously driving down the cost of music and normalizing its therapeutic, prosthetic, and self-regulatory uses, increasingly cast it as a cheap resource that can be harnessed to replenish the cognitive, affective, and/or communicative energies strained by the current crisis of social reproduction.


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