scholarly journals Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11985
Author(s):  
Iris Vilnai-Yavetz ◽  
Anat Rafaeli
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Social Sustainability ◽  
The Self ◽  
Employee Wellbeing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Workspace Design

Our goal in this paper is to connect workspace design to employee wellbeing and social sustainability. Toward this connection, we introduce and empirically test a new concept of “workspace integration”. This concept refers to the continuum of integration of an employee’s workspace with the organizational, physical space. We further define three workspace affordances that predict the social sustainability of workspace arrangements by influencing employee wellbeing. The three affordances are perceptions of symbolism of the organization and of symbolism of the self, and opportunities for social interactions. We evaluate our theory using data collected from an online survey of British employees (n = 392) working in offices at home and/or in the organization in various industries. As predicted, workspace integration positively influences wellbeing directly as well as indirectly via mediation of symbolism of the organization and opportunities for social interactions. The third affordance—symbolism of the self—positively influences wellbeing, but is not affected by workspace integration. Our findings confirm the impact of workspace affordances on employee wellbeing, and thus their utility for the analysis of social sustainability. The findings also contribute to understanding of the differences between workspace symbolism of the organization and of the self, their impact on wellbeing, and thus their implications for social sustainability.

scholarly journals Out of touch: Touch deprivation and affective touch perception during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Lauren Meijer ◽  
Birgit Hasenack ◽  
Jonas Kamps ◽  
Andy Mahon ◽  
Guilia Titone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Affective Touch ◽  
Interpersonal Touch ◽  
Touch Perception ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Interpersonal touch and affective touch play a crucial role in social interactions and have a positive influence on mental health. The social distancing regulations related to the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced the ability to engage in interpersonal touch. This could cause touch deprivation, and it might alter the way in which affective touch is perceived. To investigate this, we conducted an online survey with 2348 participants, which contained questions regarding the COVID-19 regulations, touch deprivation and the perceived pleasantness of affective and non-affective touch. Results showed that participants reported feelings of touch deprivation. This significantly increased with the duration and severity of the COVID-19 regulations. Participants who experienced more touch deprivation rated videos of affective and non-affective touch as more pleasant. Current results provide insight in the impact of sudden and prolonged COVID-19 regulations and show that increasing the duration and severity of these regulations is associated with a higher desire for touch, which leads to increased perceived pleasantness of touch.

Social comparison orientation and mental health: The mediating role of psychological capital

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoliang Yang ◽  
Zhihua Wang ◽  
Weijiong Wu
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Comparison ◽  
Psychological Capital ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Comparison Orientation ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Little is known about the relationship between social comparison orientation and mental health, especially in the psychological capital context. We proposed a theoretical model to examine the impact of ability- and opinion-based social comparison orientation on mental health using data from 304 undergraduates. We also examined the mediating effect of the four psychological capital components of hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism in the relationship between social comparison orientation and mental health. Results show that an ability (vs. opinion) social comparison orientation was negatively (vs. positively) related to the psychological capital components. Further, the resilience and optimism components of psychological capital fully mediated the social comparison orientation–mental health relationship. Our findings indicate that psychological capital should be considered in the promotion of mental health, and that the two social comparison orientation types have opposite effects on psychological capital.

scholarly journals The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown Measures on Quality of Life among Italian General Population

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Stella Epifanio ◽  
Federica Andrei ◽  
Giacomo Mancini ◽  
Francesca Agostini ◽  
Marco Andrea Piombo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Sampling Strategy ◽  
World Health ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
World Health Organization Quality ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world in the year 2020 has put a strain on our ability to cope with events and revolutionized our daily habits. On 9 March, Italy was forced to lockdown to prevent the spread of the infection, with measures including the mandatory closure of schools and nonessential activities, travel restrictions, and the obligation to spend entire weeks in the same physical space. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on quality of life (QoL) in a large Italian sample, in order to investigate possible differences in QoL levels related to both demographic and pandemic-specific variables. A total of 2251 Italian adults (1665 women, mainly young and middle adults) were recruited via a snowball sampling strategy. Participants were requested to answer to an online survey, which included demographic and COVID-related information items, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life BREF questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The results showed statistically significant differences in QoL depending on a number of variables, including sex, area of residence in Italy, and being diagnosed with a medical/psychiatric condition. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess QoL during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, therefore the present findings can offer guidelines regarding which social groups are more vulnerable of a decline in QoL and would benefit of psychological interventions.

scholarly journals Sociable Spotlight: The Impact of Interactive Artifacts to Ground the Social Interactions

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-300
Author(s):  
Naoki Ohshima ◽  
Yuta Yamaguchi ◽  
P. Ravindra S. De Silva ◽  
Michio Okada
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals The Impact of Self-Management Techniques to Improve University Students’ Social Cognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Mita Sri Handayani ◽  
Muhammad Nur Wangid ◽  
Andre Julius
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
University Students ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Management Techniques ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cognition Scale

The background of the current study is the urgency of possessing good social cognition to adapt to the social changes that are happening quickly. Weak social cognition makes individuals less in empathy, aggressive or unhappy in their daily life. The link between self-management and social cognition lies in cognitive adjustment. Hence, the authors think it is important to do research that focuses on the implementation of counseling with self-management techniques in developing social cognition. The authors aimed to investigate the effectiveness of self-management in improving social cognition. The present study used one group pretest-posttest quasi-experiment. We invited 10 students from Universitas Ma'soem, Indonesia to participate in the experiment. They were selected based on a low social cognition score after filling the self-report of nineteen items social cognition scale. The results showed counseling with self-management techniques effective in improving university students' social cognition. Besides, limitations and recommendations are discussed.

scholarly journals Study of student’s self-isolation adaptation strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Nadezhda Sivrikova ◽  
Elena Chernikova ◽  
Elena Kharlanova ◽  
Tatyana Ptashko ◽  
Artem Perebejnos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Correlation Analysis ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
The Self ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Average Strength ◽  
The Social ◽  
Behavior Strategies ◽  
Positive Correlations

The COVID-19 epidemic, which turned into a pandemic, has led to the introduction of lockdown in many countries as a measure to prevent the spread of the virus. Significant changes have occurred in the lives of Russian students. The research objective is to study students’ strategies of adaptation to the self-isolation caused by the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19. To achieve this purpose, an online survey of students was conducted, followed by a correlation analysis of the data. The survey involved 269 students aged 17-21. In self-isolating conditions, students prefer to use strategies aimed at self-change. Two groups of strategies are distinguished in the structure of students’ adaptive behavior, between which there are positive correlations of average strength. The first group includes students’ preferable behavior strategies (accommodating, self-change, and self-immersion). The second group consists of strategies that are not popular among students (environment changing, waiting, avoidance, and passive self-representation). Male students are more active in solving problems than female students. The research results expand the existing understanding of students’ reactions to changes related to self-isolation. They can be useful to teachers, psychologists involved in assessing the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on students.

scholarly journals Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Gouveia ◽  
Vasco Ramos ◽  
Karin Wall
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Family Routines ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Household Diversity ◽  
Probabilistic Sample ◽  
The Impact

Throughout the world, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted family routines, relationships, projects and sociability, threatening the health, income, social cohesion, and well-being of individuals and their families. Lockdown restrictions imposed during the first wave of the pandemic challenged the theories, concepts, and methods used by family sociologists and the intersecting fields of gender and social inequality. By restricting physical interactions to co-resident family members, the household regained a privileged role as a crucial social laboratory for studying the impact of COVID-19 on family life. The difficulties encountered by individuals in maintaining and dealing with close relationships across households and geographical borders, in a context in which relational proximity was discouraged by the public authorities, exposed the linked nature of family and personal relationships beyond the limits of co-residence. The main aim of this article is to investigate the social impacts of the pandemic on different types of households during the first lockdown at an early stage of the pandemic in Portugal. Drawing on an online survey applied to a non-probabilistic sample of 11,508 households between 25 and 29 March 2020, the authors combined quantitative and qualitative methods, including bi-variate inferential statistics, cluster analysis and in-depth case studies. The article distinguishes between different household types: solo, couple with and without children, extended, friendship, lone-parent families, and intermittent arrangements, such as shared custody. A cross-tabulation of the quantitative data with open-ended responses was carried out to provide a refined analysis of the household reconfigurations brought about during lockdown. The analysis showed how pre-existing unequal structural living conditions shaped the pathways leading to household reconfiguration as families sought to cope with restrictions on mobility, social distancing norms, and other lockdown measures. The findings stress that, in dealing with a crisis, multilevel welfare interventions need to be considered if governments are to cater to the differentiated social needs and vulnerabilities faced by individuals and families.

Mind the gaps: Universal Credit and self-employment in the United Kingdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-217
Author(s):  
Kevin Caraher ◽  
Enrico Reuter
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The Self ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Roll Out

Self-employment in the United Kingdom rose steadily until 2017, as part of wider changes in labour markets towards more flexible and potentially more vulnerable forms of employment. At the same time, welfare reform has continued under the current and previous governments, with a further expansion of conditionality with respect to benefit recipients. The incremental introduction of Universal Credit is likely to intensify the subjection of vulnerable categories of the self-employed to welfare conditionalities and to thus accentuate the ambivalent nature of self-employment. This article analyses the impact of Universal Credit on the self-employed by first discussing elements of precarity faced by the self-employed, and, second, by exploring the consequences of the roll-out of Universal Credit for those self-employed people who are reliant on the social protection system.

Festival value in multicultural contexts: City festivals in South Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 135481662093280
Author(s):  
Jen D Snowball ◽  
Geoff G Antrobus
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
South African ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
The Social ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

Worldwide, the number and variety of cultural festivals have grown dramatically. Many areas see festivals as an important way to attract tourists, and their spending, to a region, resulting in a positive economic impact. While they offer important opportunities for artistic producers and audiences, there is growing pressure for festival organizers to demonstrate their value to society beyond their economic impact. Like many countries, South Africa has a strong focus on increasing diverse cultural participation, demonstrating the social, nonmarket values of events that receive public funding. Using data from two South African festivals, the article uses a valuation framework developed by the South African Cultural Observatory to demonstrate measures of audience diversity, the use of quality of life measures to gauge the impact of culture on well-being, and the use of community focus groups to assess the impact of participation on social cohesion and capacity building.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document