“We Do the Social”

The ethnographic study was conducted in the unplanned settlement of Adjahui, which is located in Port Bouët municipality of the Abidjan metropolis, Côte d’Ivoire, where, after a short period of self-building activities, rental housing was constructed on a massive scale. We asked about the motivations behind these investments into the lowest price segment of rentals in Abidjan and their property management. Findings from interviews with 12 estate agents revealed that small-scale private investors from the middle class and West African migrant background speculated with low-cost housing under extra-legal conditions to accumulate or maintain their wealth. These entrepreneurial landlords delegated construction of courtyard houses and property management to local non-accredited estate agencies. While the deals between investors and estate agents were driven by profit, the occupational history of the estate agents showed how they randomly moved into this business. Their work was also socially motivated, as they expressed responsibility for their customers, who could not afford other rental housing. The paper will discuss how the investments reduced the quantitative deficit in low-cost rental housing.

Older Adult User Feedback on Design and Functionality of EngAGE, a Voice-Activated Exercise Program

The EngAGE Alexa app is a socially motivated exercise program targeting older adult-caregiver dyads to promote mobility independence. EngAGE provides exercise routines that older adults can perform in the home in conjunction with a messaging component to facilitate motivation from caregivers and a tracking component to monitor progress. This presentation will describe the qualitative results that have informed the app’s design and evaluation of its feasibility and functionality following a 14-week feasibility study in 10 dyads of older adult exercisers and their caregivers. The presentation will cover the perceived benefits of EngAGE’s older adult users (including “real world” clinically relevant improvements, the comprehensiveness of the exercises, and exercise knowledge gained), as well as likes and dislikes that contributed to our assessment of the app’s functionality. Finally, we will discuss how the feedback contributes to future directions in the development of the app’s features, supporting materials, design and content.

Descriptive literature review of human resource information systems (HRIS) adoption issues in the health sector, South Africa

No organisation is ever static. For several reasons, each organisation reviews its aims and objectives from time to time. These reasons may be internally or externally driven. They could also be politically, economically and or socially motivated. Research has established that most of the attempts at bringing about change are based on the needs of employees and customers. Essentially, for the purposes of better management of employees and customers, human resource information systems (HRIS) are touted as the panacea for effective and efficient health sector service delivery. Focusing on South Africa, this paper used the descriptive literature review method to determine HRIS adoption issues within the health sector of South Africa. As an important sector in any growing economy, the health sector in our view benefits from a constant review of its mission. Within the context of South Africa, substantial emphasis is yet to be placed on health sector effectiveness. Elsewhere, in other regions and continents, research on HRIS adoption within the health sector suggests that its adoption is problematic but useful. The South African health sector is yet to fully embrace this technology and as a result is suffering from employee dissatisfaction, brain drain, and general maladministration. Investment in HRIS research is therefore instructive especially within the context of South Africa. What we have found through this review is that investing in HRIS is crucial; however, it requires thorough consideration for its funding, infrastructural support, and skilled manpower among others.

Alcohol unleashes homo economicus by inhibiting cooperation

Human behavior lies somewhere between purely self-interested homo economicus and socially-motivated homo reciprocans. The factors that cause people to choose self-interest over costly cooperation can provide insights into human nature and are essential when designing institutions and policies that are meant to influence behavior. Alcohol consumption can shed light on the inflection point between selfish and selfless because it is commonly consumed and has global effects on the brain. The present study administered alcohol or placebo (N = 128), titrated to sex and weight, to examine its effect on cooperation in a standard task in experimental economics, the public goods game (PGG). Alcohol, compared to placebo, doubled the number of free-riders who contributed nothing to the public good and reduced average PGG contributions by 32% (p = .005). This generated 64% higher average profits in the PGG for those who consumed alcohol. The degree of intoxication, measured by blood alcohol concentration, linearly reduced PGG contributions (r = -0.18, p = .05). The reduction in cooperation was traced to a deterioration in mood and an increase in physiologic stress as measured by adrenocorticotropic hormone. Our findings indicate that moderate alcohol consumption inhibits the motivation to cooperate and that homo economicus is stressed and unhappy.

Balancing Work and Life

The present study deals with the current labour law questions of balancing work and private life. The topicality of the study is supported by Directive (EU) 2019/1158 which, built on the existing legislative basis, brings several novelties in this regulative area refreshing the key elements of the criteria of equal employment referring to the employees raising children. The researched regulation fits into the high level, socially motivated; worker-protection Directive designated by the European Pillar of Social Rights, consequently, this aspect also plays a role in elaboration. In my analysis, I concentrate on the regulative background, subject of the new Directive, as well as its connection to fundamental social rights and the new norms describing the potentially strengthening legal protection of workers. I draw conclusions based on their synthesis about the predictable future effects of the new regulation.

Identifying Childhood Expressive Language Features That Best Predict Adult Language and Communication Outcome in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Purpose Several studies have reported that “useful speech” at 5 years of age predicts outcomes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but this skill has been vaguely defined. This study investigates which specific aspects of expressive language in children with ASD best predict adult language and communication outcomes. Method Language samples from 29 children (ages 47–72 months) enrolled in a longitudinal project (e.g., Lord et al., 2006 ) were transcribed and coded for spoken language features. Hierarchical linear regression was used to compare the following childhood variables as predictors of adult language and communication outcomes: noun diversity, verb diversity, mean length of utterance, and proportion of utterances that were socially motivated. Results Childhood verb diversity was a value-added predictor of all four adult outcome measures (i.e., verbal IQ, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule Communication + Social Interaction Algorithm totals, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores, and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Communication Domain scores), while noun diversity and proportion of utterances that were socially motivated were not value-added predictors of any adult outcome measures. In a second set of regression analyses, mean length of utterance was substituted for verb diversity and was a value-added predictor of two out of four adult outcome measures (i.e., verbal IQ and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Communication Domain scores). The pattern of findings for the other predictors remained the same as in the previous analyses. Conclusion These results have implications for our understanding of early language in ASD and for clinical decision making in early childhood.

An effort-based social feedback paradigm reveals aversion to popularity in socially anxious participants and increased motivation in adolescents

We created a novel social feedback paradigm to study how motivation for potential social links is influenced in adolescents and adults. 88 participants (42F/46M) created online posts and then expended physical effort to show their posts to other users, who varied in number of followers and probability of positive feedback. We focused on two populations of particular interest from a social feedback perspective: adolescents relative to young adults (13–17 vs 18–24 years of age), and participants with social anxiety symptoms. Individuals with higher self-reported symptoms of social anxiety did not follow the typical pattern of increased effort to obtain social feedback from high status peers. Adolescents were more willing to exert physical effort on the task than young adults. Overall, participants were more likely to exert physical effort for high social status users and for users likely to yield positive feedback, and men were more likely to exert effort than women, findings that parallel prior results in effort-based tasks with financial rather than social rewards. Together the findings suggest social motivation is malleable, driven by factors of social status and the likelihood of a positive social outcome, and that age, sex, and social anxiety significantly impact patterns of socially motivated decision-making.

Determinan Perilaku Merokok Keluarga Penerima Manfaat PKH di Kecamatan Kembangan Jakarta Barat Tahun 2019

Purpose: Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) is a strategic government program that wants to help the poor meet their health needs. However, there are still PKH beneficiaries who do not understand the health mission of this program. This study intends to explore smoking behavior among PKH families beneficiaries and whether program providers pay attention to promoting healthy living for their beneficiaries. Method: This study uses primary data with cross-sectional design and multiple logistic regression. The number of samples analyzed was 379 households in the Kembangan Region of West Jakarta. Results: Eighty-two percent of PKH recipients were smokers. The four variables related to smoking are low education, low income, smoking psychological dependence, and socially motivated smoking. The psychological and social factors of smoking were among strong predictors and deserve attention in the PKH program. Conclusion: The long-term goal of PKH is to improve the health quality. Smoking reduces the health quality of PKH beneficiaries. The Ministry of Social Affairs needs to coordinate with the Ministry of Health to make this program an entry point for the movement of healthy living in PKH recipient families.

LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENTS AS A SOCIALLY MOTIVATED SPEECH ACTION (BASED ON ENGLISH LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENTS OF THE MID XIX – EARLY XXI CENTURES)

A Last Will and Testament as a legal document of Inheritance Law is of particular importance for the life of modern societies of all developed and underdeveloped countries. However, the study of the genre of legal discourse has hardly been the object of linguistic research. The article focuses on the analysis of the study of English Last Will and Testament as a social and communicative phenomenon which reflects socially determined needs of a testator in the situation of bequest. English Last Wills and Testaments often illustrate individual experience, every day life, social relations and even power. They also touch upon the questions of moral values in the society: evaluate right versus wrong, justify decisions, intentions and actions. The article presents an attempt to cover one aspect of the genre research, namely performative speech acts which are typical for wills. Genre performative modelling is carried out and it is proposed to consider English Last Will and Testament to be a complex performative. It is revealed that three types of explicit performatives singled out by J. Austin are common for wills: 1) I verb that; 2) I verb to; 3) I verb. Performative speech acts have been singled out: exersitives show the decision of a testator about the distribution of property to a certain person and appointment of executives (bequeath, direct, give, order, direct, declare, devise, leave, further, appoint, nominate, constitute, empover, vest, entitle, assign); expositives reveal the act of revocation (revoke, (make) void, rescind, annul, disallow); commissives express inclination to a certain action (request, declare my intention). The novelty is given to the analysis of Last Will and Testament as a social and communicative phenomenon which is generated in the situation of bequest. A method of lingual and pracmatic interpretation was applied in the article. A model of analysis has the following structure: communicative intention of a testator → act of bequest → linguistic means to carry actions in performative speech acts. The corpus of the research contains 400 Last Wills and Testaments written between 1837 and 2015 in England.