Human Identities, Identity Work, and Organizations

Author(s):  
Tony Watson

A conversation in which we hear an individual ‘working on their identity’ in negotiation with a researcher is used to develop a broadly applicable conceptual scheme for the study of identities and organizations. The crafting of concepts is an essential part of all scientific endeavour but it is often done less well than it might in studies of identity-related issues in organizations. To improve the quality of conceptualization in this area the organizational sociologist must be clear and explicit about their methodological assumptions. A valuable way of doing this is by adopting a Philosophical Pragmatist epistemology focusing on ‘the way the social world works’ alongside an ontological processual/relational conception of the nature of organizations and the nature of human beings. Working within these assumptions, a four-fold conceptual scheme is put forward, this encouraging researchers to examine the interplay between self-identity, social-identities, identity work, and personas. A typology of social-identities (sociological discursive phenomena) is also presented to increase the power of the basic scheme, all of this being intended to be helpful to researchers interested in the relationship between human identities and organizations.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Di Dio ◽  
Federico Manzi ◽  
Giulia Peretti ◽  
Angelo Cangelosi ◽  
Paul L. Harris ◽  
...  

Studying trust within human-robot interaction is of great importance given the social relevance of robotic agents in a variety of contexts. We investigated the acquisition, loss and restoration of trust when preschool and school-age children played with either a human or a humanoid robot in-vivo. The relationship between trust and the quality of attachment relationships, Theory of Mind, and executive function skills was also investigated. No differences were found in children’s trust in the play-partner as a function of agency (human or robot). Nevertheless, 3-years-olds showed a trend toward trusting the human more than the robot, while 7-years-olds displayed the reverse behavioral pattern, thus highlighting the developing interplay between affective and cognitive correlates of trust.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Napora

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to determine the strength of the relationship between a retrospective evaluation of the experienced social support given by grandparents and the material status of the family with the quality of life of the grown-up grandchildren in families of different structures. The formulated expectations have been verified with the Social Support Scale (SSS), Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) and an individual personal survey. The obtained results show that in families of single mothers, the emotional and informative support offered by grandparents was a significant factor improving the quality of the life of the grandchildren. In a complete family, however, the significant forms of support from grandparents were esteem support and its other forms, except for informative support. Moreover, the material wealth of the original family was shown to be an important predictor of the evaluation of the quality of life of the grandchildren; it was judged more negatively by adolescent children of single mothers.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Skinner

This article examines the relationship between gender and cancer survivorship. I argue that gender is as critical as a category of analysis for understanding cancer survivorship as it is missing from survivorship studies, particularly as concerns the identificatory basis of survivor culture and clinical studies regarding survivors’ quality of life (QOL). This under-studied question of the gendering of survivorship is critical because the consequences of the social production of disease is far-reaching, from the nature of medical research to social awareness, to funding to the well-being of cancer survivors themselves.


Author(s):  
Jolanda Jetten ◽  
S. Alexander Haslam ◽  
Tegan Cruwys ◽  
Nyla R. Branscombe

This chapter argues that an understanding of social identity processes is critical to understand when and how stigma affects health. This chapter presents a social identity analysis of the relationship between stigma and health and starts from the premise that it is particularly difficult for individuals who belong to stigmatized groups to derive a positive identity from their social group memberships. However, when individuals turn to the stigmatized group, identify with it, and draw social support from others within it, their health will be buffered against some of the negative consequences of discrimination because group memberships—and the social identities that are derived from them—act as psychological resources. Perceptions of the broader sociostructural context that affect appraisals of discrimination and coping with stigma play an important role in determining whether the curing properties of group memberships are unlocked, turning the curse of belonging to a stigmatized group into a cure.


Author(s):  
Fen LIN

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract in English only.In the dominant discourse of the "human–machine relationship," people and machines are the subjects, with a mutually shaping influence. However, this framework neglects the crux of the current critical analysis of AI. It reduces the problems with new technology to the relationship between people and machines, ignoring the re-shaping of the relationship between "people and people" in the era of new technology. This simplification may mislead policy and legal regulations for new technologies. Why would a robot killing cause more panic than a murder committed by a human? Why is a robot's misdiagnosis more troubling than a doctor's? Why do patients assume that machines make more accurate diagnoses than doctors? When a medical accident occurs, who is responsible for the mistakes of an intelligent medical system? In the framework of traditional professionalism, the relationship between doctors and patients, whether trusted or not, is based on the premise that doctors have specialized knowledge that patients do not possess. Therefore, the authority of a doctor is the authority of knowledge. In the age of intelligence, do machines provide information or knowledge? Can this strengthen or weaken the authority of doctors? It is likely that in the age of intelligence, the professionalism, authority and trustworthiness of doctors require a new knowledge base. Therefore, the de-skilling of doctors is not an issue of individual doctors, but demands an update of the knowledge of the entire industry. Recognizing this, policy makers must not focus solely on the use of machines, but take a wider perspective, considering how to promote the development of doctors and coordinate the relationship between doctors with different levels of knowledge development. We often ask, "In the era of intelligence, what defines a human?" This philosophical thinking should be directed toward not only the difference between machines and people as individuals, but also how the relationship between human beings, i.e., the social nature of humans, evolves in different technological environments. In short, this commentary stresses that a "good" machine or an "evil" machine—beyond the sci-fi romance of such discourse—reflects the evolution of the relationships between people. In today's smart age, the critical issue is not the relationship between people and machines. It is how people adjust their relationships with other people as machines become necessary tools in life. In the era of intelligence, therefore, our legislation, policy and ethical discussion should resume their focus on evolutionary relationships between people.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 41 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.


Author(s):  
Byron L. Sherwin

This chapter focuses on the relationship between Judah Loew's theological constructs and his program for social reform. By intertwining his mystical theology with his social dissent, Judah Loew follows a pattern characteristic of the Western mystical tradition in general and of the Jewish mystical tradition in particular. The chapter then explores Loew's views on contemporary social issues, specifically the quality of rabbinic leadership, and the theory, practice, and content of Jewish education. It is clear that his social criticism, his mystical theology, and his personal concerns, rather than being separate and disjoined, coalesce to form a comprehensive whole. One may not separate Loew the educator from Loew the mystic. One may not disassociate Loew the social reformer from Loew the theologian. One may not disjoin the mystical theology of the Maharal of Prague, nor his social dissent, from the man whose legacy they are.


Folia Medica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 157-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasiya G. Trenova ◽  
Georgi S. Slavov ◽  
Maria G. Manova ◽  
Jana B. Aksentieva ◽  
Lyuba D. Miteva ◽  
...  

Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a socially significant immune-mediated disease, characterized by demyelination, axonal transection and oligodendropathy in the central nervous system. Inflammatory demyelination and neurodegeneration lead to brain atrophy and cognitive deficit in up to 75% of the patients. Cognitive dysfunctions impact significantly patients’ quality of life, independently from the course and phase of the disease. The relationship between pathological brain findings and cognitive impairment is a subject of intensive research. Summarizing recent data about prevalence, clinical specificity and treatment of cognitive disorders in MS, this review aims to motivate the necessity of early diagnosis and complex therapeutic approach to these disturbances in order to reduce the social burden of the disease.


1992 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. D'Attilio ◽  
Brian M. Campbell ◽  
Pierre Lubold ◽  
Tania Jacobson ◽  
Julie A. Richard

The relationship between both the quantity and perceived quality of social support and suicidal risk was examined in a sample of 50 adolescents whose ages ranged from 16 to 20 years. A multiple regression analysis was performed, using scores from Cull and Gill's 1983 Suicide Probability Scale as the criterion measure along with the predictor variables of quantity and quality of experienced social support as measured by the 1983 Social Support Questionnaire of Sarason, Levine, Basham, and Sarason. Analysis showed the social support variables accounted for over 52% of the variance in suicide potential. The greatest proportion of the variance in suicide risk was attributable to the quality of the perceived social support. Adolescents at greater risk for suicide were significantly less satisfied with the quality of their social support.


2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Farr-Wharton ◽  
Yvonne Brunetto

AbstractThe paper used a social exchange lens to explore the impact of the quality of the relationship between supervisors and service employees on individual and organisational outcomes. The findings provide further evidence that the quality of the relationship between supervisors and service employees is a significant factor - in this case explaining almost half of the reasons as to why employees accepted or rejected organisational changes. Using the social exchange lens, the theory argues that the same characteristics evident in high quality leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships (effective levels of information, feedback and respect) are also likely to provide the ideal conditions for employees' to address their fears and answer their questions about potential organisational changes. As a result, service employees are more likely to accept the organisational changes. In addition, this study suggests that approximately half of job productivity and satisfaction is affected by the way LMX firstly affects employees' satisfaction with organisational communication processes, and secondly, their acceptance of organisational changes within SMEs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (20) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro M. S. Alves

Discussing from a phenomenological stance the distinction between hyletic and expressive conceptions of norms, I stress that phenomenology is able to develop an analysis of nomothetic intentionality that can surmount the opposition presented by Alchourrón and Bulygin. However, this entails a revision of the Husserlian analysis of the relationship between judgments and norms, namely of his thesis concerning the foundation of every intentional act in objectifying acts. I highlight the specificity of normative intentionality, its non-dependence on objectifying acts, and I propose to name the quality of normative acts as “ductive force”. Then, I take distance to the classical analysis of normative judgments as having the ought-form, outlining a more detailed analysis of them, namely stressing that the juridical propositions must have a richer content in order to describe norms. Then, I propose my own account based on the concept of “ductive force”. I affirm that the ductive force of norms cannot be identified only with coercion. I show that there is, even inside the juridical sphere, a variety of ductive forces, going from sheer coercion to council and recommendation. Finally, I stress the centrality of the concept of “ductive force” for a phenomenology of the social world.


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