How Does Social Class Affect Need for Structure during the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Moderated Mediating Model Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic is profoundly affecting the minds and behaviors of people worldwide. This study investigated the differences in the need for structure among people from different social classes and the psychological mechanisms underlying this need, as well as the moderating effect of the threat posed by the pandemic. Using data collected from non-student adults in China, we found that the lower an individual’s social class, the lower their need for structure, and this effect was based on the mediating role of perceived control. However, the mediating effect was moderated by pandemic threat, and the above relationship existed only when this threat was low. When the level of pandemic threat was higher, neither the effect of social class nor of perceived control on the need for structure were significant. Specifically, in higher-threat situations, the need for structure among individuals from higher social classes and who had a higher sense of control increased significantly, meaning the mediating effect was no longer significant. This finding showed that under the threat of a pandemic, individuals who have a lower need for structure will still pursue and prefer structure and order. The theoretical and practical implications of the research are also discussed.

TRANSTORNO MENTAL E COMPORTAMENTAL NO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO: VARIAÇÕES DA MORTALIDADE E MORBIDADE DE 2017 A 2020

Mental and behavioral disorders are influenced by a combination of factors that affect an individual's emotional balance and affect people of all ages, sex and social classes, although each group has its specificities. The present study aims to determine the prevalence of hospitalizations caused by Mental and Behavioral Disorders (CMD), considering an age group, gender and an ICD-10 morbidity list in the State of São Paulo between the years 2017 to 2020. This research was an ecological study on the prevalence of cases of mental and commercial disorders in the State of São Paulo. Data were collected on the DATASUS platform, where the number of admissions according to gender, age and ICD-10 morbidity list in the 2017-2020 period were surveyed. The results obtained revealed a growing increase in CMD cases in the state, especially from 2018 to 2019 with a subsequent fall in 2020, with, from 2017 to 2020, approximately 58.81% prevalence of CMD in sex and approximately 41.19% prevalence in sex female, mainly affecting people aged 30 to 39 years, higher prevalence of mood in females (67.18%) and CMD due to alcohol use in females (87.89%). It is concluded that amidst the pandemic against COVID-19, several patients considered without a diagnosis of Mental and Behavioral Disorders, because of this, it is possible that after the pandemic there are a greater number than expected of patients with more advanced conditions due to the absence of an early diagnosis.

Understanding Intelligence

Have you ever wondered why psychologists still can't agree on what intelligence is? Or felt dismayed by debates around individual differences? Criticising the pitfalls of IQ testing, this book explains the true nature of intelligent systems, and their evolution from cells to brains to culture and human minds. Understanding Intelligence debunks many of the myths and misunderstandings surrounding intelligence. It takes a new look at the nature of the environment and the development of 'talent' and achievement. This brings fresh and radical implications for promoting intelligence and creativity, and prompts readers to reconsider their own possibilities and aspirations. Providing a broad context to the subject, the author also unmasks the ideological distortions of intelligence in racism and eugenics, and the suppressed expectations across social classes and genders. This book is a must-read for anyone curious about our own intelligence.

Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in 80 Days’: Multilingualism, Multiculturalism and Symbols

In this announcement, the various –linguistic and non-linguistic- symbols used in the literary work 'Around the world in 80 days', written by Jules Verne, are examined from an intertemporal and contemporary point of view. The references through these points of view, in matters of multiculturalism and multilingualism, are becoming classical in nature: they concern the necessity of the applied ability to communicate between individuals who belong to different social classes and age groups, speak the same or different languages, come from different cultures, with rights and obligations in their various areas of life, etc. Key-words: linguistics, multilingualism, multiculturalism, semiotics, semiotic systems, symbols

Bridging the gap among social classes in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)

The Biafra War has been the subject of many historical accounts and literary texts. Among the novels produced about the Biafra War is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) where the author recounts not only the events leading to the war but also those during and just after the conflict. Though the events of the Biafra War constitute the central theme in Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie also deals with the relationships among social classes in this novel. One may wonder why the author shows that some upper-class people are keen on their difference, their ‘superiority’, and, on the other hand, people of the upper and middle classes are human and respectful towards lower-class persons. What is the purpose of the writer in drawing this parallel? From a socialist and humanist perspective, this article deals with “bridging the gap among social classes in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.” Based on sociology, psychology, socialism, and humanism, the paper will first deal with the criticism of the Nigerian upper class and then with Adichie’s advocacy for a socialist and humanist society.

A Review of the Literature on Food Values and Their Potential Implications for Consumers’ Food Decision Processes

This article offers a semi-systematic literature review on the concept of food values. Specifically, 36 relevant research articles were analyzed. The results underscore the novelty and rapid popularity of this concept in different professional, scientific, and academic fields. Among the findings, the article highlights how the concept of food values has evolved to accommodate the features and behaviors of specific markets. Nonetheless, one can group food values into three distinct clusters. This article expands our understanding on the evolution of food values along different dimensions (various clusters and segments related to geographic regions and social classes). It also identifies several research gaps and translates them into different research proposals.

A estratégia hegemônica do realismo na narrativa venezuelana e haitiana no início do século XXI / The Hegemonic Strategy of Realism in the Venezuelan and Haitian Narrative in the Beginning of the 21st Century

Resumo: O trabalho analisa dois textos realistas latino-americanos, Bicentenaire (2004) do escritor haitiano Lyonel Trouillot e Yo maté a Simón Bolívar (2010) do venezuelano Vicente Ulive-Schnell, como produtos simbólicos em circulação num campo comunicacional amplo no qual o sentido das obras como mensagens interage com o horizonte ideológico de época. A leitura literária da identidade dos personagens se fará tomando em conta o conceito de articulação de Gramsci (2011). A relação complementar entre obra e mercado se fará partindo do conceito gramsciano de hegemonia, revisado em sentido pós-estrutural por Laclau e Mouffe (2001), e também da leitura política da literatura proposta por Jameson (1994) e Rancière (2000; 2007). A tensão nas identidades marginalizadas e classes sociais articuladas nos romances aponta para uma exibição crítica da vida nacional e a desigualdade socioeconômica e, além disso, para a construção de uma nova hegemonia cultural. Porém, as obras e seus autores lidam com a frustração de observar os limites do mercado literário no debate nacional ao se deparar com o baixo índice de leitura de sociedades dominadas hegemonicamente por outros horizontes, mercados e suportes comunicacionais.Palavras-chave: romance; Haiti; Venezuela; articulação identitária; hegemonia cultural.Abstract: The article analyzes two realist Latin American texts, Bicentenaire (2004) by Haitian writer Lyonel Trouillot and Yo maté a Simón Bolívar (2010) by the Venezuelan Vicente Ulive-Schnell, as symbolic products in circulation in a broad communicational field in which the meaning of the works as messages interacts with the ideological horizon of the time. The literary reading of the characters’ identities will be done taking into account the concept of articulation by Gramsci (2011). The complementary relationship between literary work and market will be based on his concept of hegemony, reviewed in a post-structural sense by Laclau and Mouffe (2001), and also on the political reading of literature proposed by Jameson (1994) and Rancière (2000; 2007). The tension in marginalized identities and social classes articulated in the novels points to a critical exhibition of national life and socioeconomic inequality and, moreover, to the construction of a new cultural hegemony. However, the works and their authors deal with the frustration of observing the limits of the literary market in the national debate when faced with the low reading rate of societies dominated hegemonically by other horizons, markets and communicational supports.Keywords: novel; Haiti; Venezuela; identitary articulation; cultural hegemony.

Gifts, Weapons, and Values

Central Americans from a variety of religious traditions and social classes speak freely of lo espiritual, or “that which is spiritual,” but they do so in widely diverging ways. This chapter attempts to make sense of the vast and varied ways in which Central Americans reference spirituality by describing four common threads of usage. Evangelical-Pentecostal pastors sometimes frame social problems like gang violence as having both spiritual causes and spiritual solutions. Other Central Americans use the term “spiritual” to describe supernatural entities with a strong bearing on political structures. Meanwhile, some Central Americans have come to use the term “spirituality” to refer to beliefs and practices with roots in precolonial Mayan narratives. A fourth means of utilizing the language of spirituality is as a catch-all term for quasi-religious meditative practices and prosocial values formation. In conclusion, religious background and social class influence how people define and conceive of “the spiritual.”

GENDERED GEOGRAPHIES OF POWER

This paper poses a parallel analysis of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark, two novels set in London around the First World War that complement one another with regard to representation of women in the city. In focus are Woolf’s and Rhys’s heroines who belong different social classes. With a view to producing a fuller picture of the London strata of the time, the essay concentrates on a dual front: it examines the position the protagonists enjoy in respect to their gender as well as in respect to their social status. While Rhys’s Anna is a young woman from a distant colony, that is an outsider with no permanent residence in London, Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway, however seemingly privileged, is greatly disadvantaged by her restricted experience of the metropolis. The essay argues that in these two novels London is a source of double marginalisation – a city unjust to the colonial subjects but unjust to women of all strata. As a theoretical background, the essay uses the concept of gendered geographies of power, which are supposed to help us reveal how different power structures affect the cityscape on both macro and micro level.