Effects of Perceptions of Climate Change and Flood Risk on Coping Behavior: A Case Study of Taipei, Taiwan

Globalization and population growth have put great pressure on the environment over the last few decades, and climate change has increased associated negative effects. Researchers examine the interactions between human and the environment. Among them, the relationship between place attachment and pro-environmental behavior has attracted particular research attention. However, few studies have addressed the relationships among flood risk perceptions, place attachment, and climate change coping behavior in a densely populated urban area. This study examines the effects of perceptions of climate change and flood risk on coping behavioral intention, and determines whether place attachment plays a mediating or moderating role therein in Taipei, the flood-prone capital city of Taiwan. A total of 1208 questionnaires were collected. An analysis of the mediation effects based on a three-level regression model (Phase I) suggested that place attachment is not a mediator. Adjustment of the model and analysis of moderation effects using structural equation modeling (Phase II) suggested no moderation effect. In Phase III, the mediation effect was reexamined, with the replacement of dependent variables (adaptation/mitigation) with high-effort/low-effort coping behaviors, and one dimension of place attachment was replaced with four dimensions thereof (place dependence and place identity, place satisfaction, place affect, place social bonding). The results thus obtained reveal that the paths of place satisfaction exhibit significant mediating effects between attitudes and high-effort coping behavior. Some paths exhibit significant mediating effects between perceptions and low-effort coping behavior through place satisfaction. Another four paths exhibit partial significant mediating effects through place dependence and place identity and place social bonding. These results suggest that affective attachment of people to local places results in a behavioral tendency to protect or improve those places. The main contribution of this study is its support of meta-analyses of the effects of each dimension of place attachment to provide a better understanding of the effects of place attachment on flood risk perception and coping behavior.

An Evaluation of Social Bridging and Bonding Mechanisms in the Association of Social Networks and Cognitive Function

Background and Objectives Substantial evidence links social connectedness prospectively to cognitive aging outcomes, but there is little agreement about the social processes or mechanisms that drive this relationship. This study evaluated nine measures of social connectedness, focusing on two distinct forms of social enrichment – access to an expansive and diverse set of loosely connected individuals (i.e., social bridging) and integration in a supportive network of close ties (i.e., social bonding). Research Design and Methods This study used egocentric social network and clinical cognitive data from 311 older adults in the first wave of the Social Networks in Alzheimer Disease (SNAD) study. Linear regressions adjusting for gender, age, education, and depression symptoms were used to estimate the association between nine measures of social connectedness and global cognitive function, verbal memory, and attention. Results Measures indicative of social bridging (larger network size, lower density, presence of weak ties, and proportion non-kin) were consistently associated with better cognitive outcomes, while measures of social bonding largely produced null effects. Discussion and Implications: These findings suggest that the protective benefits of social connectedness for cognitive function and memory may operate primarily through a cognitive reserve mechanism that is driven by irregular contact with a larger and more diverse group of peripheral others. Population-level interventions that promote the cultivation of social bridging relationships and activities may have benefits for cognition later in life.

Oxytocin promotes social grooming in bonobos: testing the biobehavioural feedback loop hypothesis

Oxytocin has attracted research attention due to its role in promoting social bonding. One notable recent hypothesis is the biobehavioral feedback loop, which posits that the oxytocin system has evolved to support the formation and maintenance of social bonds through a positive feedback loop, where oxytocin promotes social behaviours which then cause oxytocin release themselves. In the two Pan species, humans’ closest relatives, oxytocin is known to be released following key behaviours related to social bonding, such as social grooming in chimpanzees and female-female sexual behaviour in bonobos. However, no experimental evidence has demonstrated that oxytocin promotes such socio-positive behaviours. To test this, we administered nebulized oxytocin or saline placebo to a group of female bonobos and subsequently observed the change in their gross behavior during free interaction. We found that bonobos groomed other group members significantly more frequently in the oxytocin compared to placebo condition. Other behavioural measures did not largely differ between conditions, except for a nonsignificant trend for reduction in abnormal regurgitation/reingestion behaviour. Overall, we found that oxytocin promoted socio-positive interaction in bonobos, providing support for the biobehavioural feedback loop hypothesis of oxytocin in bonobo social evolution.

Higher empathy is associated with stronger social bonding when moving together with music

Empathy—understanding and sharing the feelings and experiences of others—is one of our most important social capacities. Music is a social stimulus in that it involves communication of mental states, imitation of behavior, and synchronization of movements. As empathy and music are so closely linked, we investigated whether higher empathy is associated with stronger social bonding in interpersonal interactions that feature music. In two studies, participants watched videos in which we manipulated interpersonal synchrony between the movements of a virtual self and a virtual other person during walking with instrumental music or a metronome. In both studies, temporally aligned movements increased social bonding with the virtual other and higher empathy was associated with increased social bonding in movement interactions that featured music. Additionally, in Study 1, participants with lower empathy felt more connected when interacting with a metronome compared to music. In Study 2, higher trait empathy was associated with strong increases of social bonding when interacting with a temporally aligned virtual other, but only weak increases of social bonding with a temporally misaligned virtual other. These findings suggest that empathy plays a multifaceted role in how we enjoy, interpret, and use music in social situations.

Social context facilitates visuomotor synchrony and bonding in children and adults

Interpersonal synchrony is a fundamental part of human social interaction, with known effects on facilitating social bonding. Moving in time with another person facilitates prosocial behaviour, however, it is unknown if the degree of synchronisation predicts the degree of social bonding. Similarly, while people readily fall in synchrony even without being instructed to do so, we do not know whether such spontaneous synchronisation elicits similar prosocial effects as instructed synchronisation. Across two studies, we investigated how context (social vs non-social stimulus) and instruction (instructed vs uninstructed) influenced synchronisation accuracy and bonding with the interaction partner in adults and children. The results revealed improved visuomotor synchrony within a social, compared to non-social, context in adults and children. Children, but not adults, synchronised more accurately when instructed to synchronise than when uninstructed. For both children and adults, synchronisation in a social context elicited stronger social bonding towards an interaction partner as compared to synchronisation in a non-social context. Finally, children’s, but not adults’, degree of synchrony with the partner was significantly associated with their feelings of social closeness. These findings illuminate the interaction of sensorimotor coupling and joint action in social contexts and how these mechanisms facilitate synchronisation ability and social bonding.

Aligning bodies and minds: New insights about synchrony's effects on creative thinking, cohesion and positive affect

<p>Researchers conjecture that rituals have been prevalent in human activities for millennia due to tacit evolutionary functions of solidarity and cooperation. A key element of ritualistic behaviours is synchrony, defined as the matching of actions in time with others. Synchrony has been associated with a range of phenomena, including increased affiliation, connectedness, and cooperation among group members. However, there have been a number of failed replications of key studies. Furthermore, synchrony research has focused mainly on social and affective responses. Synchrony’s effects on cognitive processes remain largely unexamined, even though synchronous actions require social cognition. In this thesis, I investigate the link between synchrony and creative thinking, a basic and distinctively human cognitive process. This thesis reports four empirical studies conducted to investigate two main aims: (1) synthesise existing synchrony literature to determine synchrony’s overall effect on previously studied outcomes; and (2) investigate the relationship between synchrony and creative thinking. The focus on creativity is theoretically relevant because both sociological speculations about synchrony’s role on cultural conformity and real-world observations on reduced decision quality in highly cohesive groups (e.g., groupthink) suggest that synchrony may have detrimental effects on creativity. To address the first aim, a meta-analysis (Study 1) of experimentally manipulated synchrony studies showed that synchrony was positively associated (small to medium effect sizes) with prosocial behaviour, social bonding perceptions, partner cognition, and positive affect. Three experimental studies were conducted to address the second aim. Study 2 investigated the direct association between synchrony and two components of creative thinking – convergent thinking (i.e., synthesis of ideas toward a single creative solution) and divergent thinking (i.e., generation of multiple alternative ideas) – and aimed to replicate shared intentionality (i.e., shared goal/purpose) on positive social and affective responses. Shared intentionality has been argued as one of the main mechanisms amplifying synchrony’s positive social effects. In this study, I found that synchrony impaired convergent thinking when paired with shared intentionality, but I did not find support for a statistically significant effect of synchrony on divergent thinking. Additionally, I replicated synchrony’s positive social and affective effects. Broadening the scope, ritualistic behaviours in real-world contexts often vary in synchronicity and physical intensity simultaneously. Intensity has been shown to increase social bonding, well-being, and certain cognitive processes; therefore, it is important to study the separate effects of synchrony and intensity on these outcomes. To do so, I conducted a naturalistic field study (Study 3) of group exercises varying in synchrony and intensity, and Study 4 examined the same associations with a controlled experiment. I found that synchrony impaired divergent thinking, but high intensity facilitated divergent and convergent thinking. Synchrony paired with shared intentionality as well as high intensity increased cohesion among participants. Moreover, performing movements together regardless of synchronicity may be sufficient to increase positive affect. My thesis offers a novel theoretical and empirical contribution to knowledge by revealing that although synchronised actions may have been evolutionarily adaptive for prosocial behaviours, cohesion, and well-being, synchrony also appears to inhibit cognitive processes such as creative thinking.</p>

Aligning bodies and minds: New insights about synchrony's effects on creative thinking, cohesion and positive affect

<p>Researchers conjecture that rituals have been prevalent in human activities for millennia due to tacit evolutionary functions of solidarity and cooperation. A key element of ritualistic behaviours is synchrony, defined as the matching of actions in time with others. Synchrony has been associated with a range of phenomena, including increased affiliation, connectedness, and cooperation among group members. However, there have been a number of failed replications of key studies. Furthermore, synchrony research has focused mainly on social and affective responses. Synchrony’s effects on cognitive processes remain largely unexamined, even though synchronous actions require social cognition. In this thesis, I investigate the link between synchrony and creative thinking, a basic and distinctively human cognitive process. This thesis reports four empirical studies conducted to investigate two main aims: (1) synthesise existing synchrony literature to determine synchrony’s overall effect on previously studied outcomes; and (2) investigate the relationship between synchrony and creative thinking. The focus on creativity is theoretically relevant because both sociological speculations about synchrony’s role on cultural conformity and real-world observations on reduced decision quality in highly cohesive groups (e.g., groupthink) suggest that synchrony may have detrimental effects on creativity. To address the first aim, a meta-analysis (Study 1) of experimentally manipulated synchrony studies showed that synchrony was positively associated (small to medium effect sizes) with prosocial behaviour, social bonding perceptions, partner cognition, and positive affect. Three experimental studies were conducted to address the second aim. Study 2 investigated the direct association between synchrony and two components of creative thinking – convergent thinking (i.e., synthesis of ideas toward a single creative solution) and divergent thinking (i.e., generation of multiple alternative ideas) – and aimed to replicate shared intentionality (i.e., shared goal/purpose) on positive social and affective responses. Shared intentionality has been argued as one of the main mechanisms amplifying synchrony’s positive social effects. In this study, I found that synchrony impaired convergent thinking when paired with shared intentionality, but I did not find support for a statistically significant effect of synchrony on divergent thinking. Additionally, I replicated synchrony’s positive social and affective effects. Broadening the scope, ritualistic behaviours in real-world contexts often vary in synchronicity and physical intensity simultaneously. Intensity has been shown to increase social bonding, well-being, and certain cognitive processes; therefore, it is important to study the separate effects of synchrony and intensity on these outcomes. To do so, I conducted a naturalistic field study (Study 3) of group exercises varying in synchrony and intensity, and Study 4 examined the same associations with a controlled experiment. I found that synchrony impaired divergent thinking, but high intensity facilitated divergent and convergent thinking. Synchrony paired with shared intentionality as well as high intensity increased cohesion among participants. Moreover, performing movements together regardless of synchronicity may be sufficient to increase positive affect. My thesis offers a novel theoretical and empirical contribution to knowledge by revealing that although synchronised actions may have been evolutionarily adaptive for prosocial behaviours, cohesion, and well-being, synchrony also appears to inhibit cognitive processes such as creative thinking.</p>

The kinship greetings of blood and marital ties in the Minangkabau community

This study aimed to explore the use of regional languages regarding forms of kinship based on blood and marital ties greetings by the Minangkabau's in the Bromo area. To analyze the forms of blood and marriage-related kinship greetings, a sociolinguistic study was applied. The data collection was listening to the informants' conversation regarding greetings for the Minangkabau community, followed by talking engaging techniques. The analyzed using the equivalent method with the qualitative approach. The results showed that form of blood kinship greeting such as Apak, Amak, Uda, Uni, Adiak, Anduang, Mak Gaek, Angku, Ungku, Pak Gaek, Mak Dang, Mak Wo, Mak Etek, Etek, Apak, Andeh, and Pak Etek. There are several types such as Uda, Ajo, Adiak, Abak, Amak, Uda, Ajo, Uni for marital ties greetings. These greetings, both blood, and marital kinship ties indicate cultural resistance and social bonding, which have roles in daily communication among the Minangkabau people.