A case for de-diagnosis of harms in the social and behavioral sciences

A healthy lifestyle is fundamental for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Investment in primary prevention, including modification of health risk behaviors, could result in a 4-fold improvement in health outcomes compared with secondary prevention based on pharmacological treatment. The American Heart Association (AHA) emphasized the importance of lifestyle in its 2020 goals for cardiovascular health promotion and disease reduction. In addition to defining “cardiovascular health” based on criteria for blood pressure and biochemical markers (lipids and glycemia), the AHA Strategic Planning Committee further identified lifestyle characteristics of central importance: nutrition, physical activity, smoking, and maintenance of a healthy body weight.1 The World Health Organization estimated that ≈80% of NCDs could be prevented if 4 key lifestyle practices were followed: a healthy diet, being physically active, avoidance of tobacco, and alcohol intake in moderation.2 To support healthy lifestyle initiatives, major changes are necessary at the societal level to improve population health. Numerous strategies might help to create a culture that promotes and facilitates healthy behaviors, including creating laws and regulations, mounting large-scale public awareness and education campaigns, implementing local community programs, and providing individual counseling.3 Physicians are uniquely positioned to encourage individuals to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors: Approximately 80% of Americans visit their primary care physician at least once a year. Physicians directly communicate with their patients during clinical encounters across numerous settings, and research indicates that patients highly value recommendations provided by their physicians.4,5 However, data further indicate that lifestyle counseling does not routinely occur in physicians’ offices, thereby representing a lost opportunity. Physicians report that they perform lifestyle counseling during ≈34% of clinic visits.4 Patients, in turn, report an even lower frequency of physician lifestyle counseling. For example, obese patients reported receiving physical activity and …

Social Science and Its Frontiers Myron P. Gutmann (bio) Mark Solovey,Social Science for What? Battles over Public Funding for the “Other Sciences” at the National Science Foundation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2020. X+ 398pp. Figures, notes, index. $50.00. Americans often date the emergence of a strong commitment to government support of science to the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 satellite in October 1957. That event certainly spurred policy decisions that increased federal investments in education and science, and thus is an appropriate starting point for the popular narrative about science. At the same time, policy developments of the Sputnik era built on earlier events, widely recognized by historians of science. That perspective starts the story with the presentation in July 1946 of Vannever Bush’s report, Science, The Endless Frontier, to President Truman, advocating for a large, organized federal investment in scientific research, based on the role of science and technology in the Second World War. Early efforts to enact legislation based on the Bush report failed (Truman vetoed the first bill that passed because it lacked presidential control over the appointment of the Foundation’s leadership), but in 1950 Truman signed the National Science Foundation Act, establishing an enduring basis for publicly—especially federally—funded scientific research in the United States. The debates about the creation of the National Science Foundation pitted progressives against conservatives and advocates of public and congressional control of science against advocates of exclusive control by scientists.1 One of the topics of debate—although hardly the loudest—was whether the social sciences would be included in the Foundation’s charge.2 Vannever Bush was opposed to their inclusion, sometimes arguing that they should be supported by a separate organization; on the other side, Democratic West Virginia Senator Harley M. Kilgore, a leading sponsor of a more progressive approach, supported their inclusion in the Foundation’s mission. In the end, the compromise legislation that Truman signed in 1950 did not include support for the social sciences, but at the same time did not prohibit such support. The Foundation did not totally exclude the social sciences for long; it hired sociologist Harry Alpert in 1953, and in 1954 introduced a first, extremely modest, program to support the linkage between the social and natural sciences. [End Page 396] The first Social Sciences Division was not established until 1960 (in an era in which the Foundation was divided into four scientific divisions reflecting major disciplinary categories). Later, when the Foundation was reorganized into seven directorates (three of them disciplinary, one for education, and three for administrative activities) in 1975, the Divisions of Social Sciences and Behavioral and Neural Sciences were part of an expanded Directorate for Biological, Behavioral and Social Sciences (p. 179). Only in 1991–92 did the Foundation establish a separate Directorate for the Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) Sciences, an organizational status that still exists today. The road from the origin of the Foundation to the creation of the SBE Directorate was not linear, with ups and downs in support for the social and behavioral sciences mostly reflecting political and institutional challenges. This history spanning the period from the first discussions of the National Science Foundation through the end of the 1980s (with an added discussion of recent events and recommendations for the future) is the topic of Mark Solovey’s Social Science for What? Battles over Public Funding for the “Other Sciences” at the National Science Foundation. In this book he builds on his earlier book, Shaky Foundations: The Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus in Cold War America (2013), on extensive archival research, and on interviews with surviving participants. Social Science for What? is an impressive accomplishment, capturing the connections between partisan politics, scientific inquiry, tensions among scientific disciplines, and the institutional development of the Foundation. It is instructive for all readers, including for me, who served for four years (2009–13) as one of the Foundation’s Assistant Directors and head of the Directorate for Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). Social Science for What? articulates consistent themes that define social science at NSF, along with a lively narrative arc. To define that arc, Solovey divides the main...

Hume observed that our minds are mirrors to one another: they reflect one another's passions, sentiments, and opinions.' This "sympathy," or "propensity we have to sympathize with others, to ... receive by communication [the] inclinations and sentiments [of others], however different from, or even contrary to, our own," he held to be the chief source of moral distinctions.2 Hume presented an account of how this mirroring of minds works. After a brief presentation of the account, I will show how it needs to be updated and corrected in the light of recent empirical research. Then I will give some reasons to think that the mirroring of minds is more pervasive than even Hume had thought: that mirroring is an essential part of the way in which we think about other minds. Finally, I will make some remarks about the relevance of mirroring to ethics.

The majority of respondents who took part in a survey were of the opinion that there should be a greater focus placed on behavioural and social sciences within the curriculum of medical schools. This is done to ensure that graduates of medical schools will be able to practise medicine in a manner that is both safe and effective. Despite the fact that behavioural and social sciences make significant contributions to the effectiveness of health care delivery, traditional medical school curricula have not traditionally placed a significant amount of focus on the study of these subjects. This article's objective is to provide the reader with a more in-depth comprehension of the value of social and behavioural sciences in medical education as well as the breadth of their application in a variety of different settings. Additionally, it discusses the areas of social and behavioural sciences that are significant to medicine, as well as the efficacy of incorporating them into the curricula of medical schools in order to educate and train future medical professionals to practise medicine in a manner that is fully informed. Place of Study: Foundation University Islamabad Study Duration: February 2022 to July 2022 Study Design: Empirical research Conclusion: This study examines the importance of teaching future doctors about medicine's social and behavioural aspects. It gives medical school educators the latest information on how to best teach medical students to succeed in the medical industry. Medical educators, administrators, policymakers, and other stakeholders must work together to integrate social and behavioural sciences into medical curricula. Keywords: Medical curriculum's courses, the social and behavioral sciences, and the foundations of medical education.

Proposed Revisions to the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects in the Behavioral and Social Sciences examines how to update human subjects protections regulations so that they effectively respond to current research contexts and methods. With a specific focus on social and behavioral sciences, this consensus report aims to address the dramatic alterations in the research landscapes that institutional review boards (IRBs) have come to inhabit during the past 40 years. The report aims to balance respect for the individual persons whose consent to participate makes research possible and respect for the social benefits that productive research communities make possible.The ethics of human subjects research has captured scientific and regulatory attention for half a century. To keep abreast of the universe of changes that factor into the ethical conduct of research today, the Department of Health and Human Services published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) in July 2011. Recognizing that widespread technological and societal transformations have occurred in the contexts for and conduct of human research since the passage of the National Research Act of 1974, the ANPRM revisits the regulations mandated by the Act in a correspondingly comprehensive manner. Its proposals aim to modernize the Common Rule and to improve the efficiency of the work conducted under its auspices. Proposed Revisions to the Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects in the Behavioral and Social Sciences identifies issues raised in the ANPRM that are critical and feasible for the federal government to address for the protection of participants and for the advancement of the social and behavioral sciences. For each identified issue, this report provides guidance for IRBs on techniques to address it, with specific examples and best practice models to illustrate how the techniques would be applied to different behavioral and social sciences research procedures.

Etude des deux formes de communication utilisee par les humains : le langage et la communication non verbale ; cette derniere forme etant utilisee par les primates pour communiquer. Commentaires, reponse de l'auteur.

Objectives Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a part of the computer science field for many decades, it has only recently been applied to different areas of behavioral and social sciences. This article provides an examination of the applications of AI methodologies to behavioral and social sciences exploring the areas where they are now utilized, the different tools used and their effectiveness. Methods The study is a systematic research examination of peer-reviewed articles (2010–2019) that used AI methodologies in social and behavioral sciences with a focus on children and families. Results The results indicate that artificial intelligence methodologies have been successfully applied to three main areas of behavioral and social sciences, namely (1) to increase the effectiveness of diagnosis and prediction of different conditions, (2) to increase understanding of human development and functioning, and (3) to increase the effectiveness of data management in different social and human services. Random forests, neural networks, and elastic net are among the most frequent AI methods used for prediction, supplementing traditional approaches, while natural language processing and robotics continue to increase their role in understanding human functioning and improve social services. Conclusions Applications of AI methodologies to behavioral and social sciences provide opportunities and challenges that need to be considered. Recommendations for future research are also included.KeywordsArtificial intelligenceBehavioral and social sciencesMachine learningFamiliesChildren

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a part of the computer science field for many decades, it has only recently been applied to different areas of behavioral and social sciences. This article provides an examination of the applications of AI methodologies to behavioral and social sciences exploring the areas where they are now utilized, the different tools used and their effectiveness. The study is a systematic research examination of peer-reviewed articles (2010–2019) that used AI methodologies in social and behavioral sciences with a focus on children and families. The results indicate that artificial intelligence methodologies have been successfully applied to three main areas of behavioral and social sciences, namely (1) to increase the effectiveness of diagnosis and prediction of different conditions, (2) to increase understanding of human development and functioning, and (3) to increase the effectiveness of data management in different social and human services. Random forests, neural networks, and elastic net are among the most frequent AI methods used for prediction, supplementing traditional approaches, while natural language processing and robotics continue to increase their role in understanding human functioning and improve social services. Applications of AI methodologies to behavioral and social sciences provide opportunities and challenges that need to be considered. Recommendations for future research are also included.

Political science and other closely related social science disciplines could certainly benefit from the creation of a Directorate for the Social and Behavioral Sciences within the National Science Foundation. I present the case for such organizational restructuring on behalf of the American Political Science Association and the Western Political Science Association, and as a charter member and former President of the Social Science History Association. That a benefit would accrue from a reorganization would seem likely in the face of two organizational imperatives. First, political science and its sister disciplines need direct representation by senior officers of their own directorate in the policy making and resource allocation of at least three additional existing directorates: the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, and the Directorate for Scientific, Technological and International Affairs. The needs of political science in these three domains are similar to those of the other social sciences and are distinctly different from the needs of either the life sciences, the geosciences or the mathematical and physical sciences. Social science needs will not, and most likely cannot, be articulated by Foundation officers whose organizational responsibilities are overwhelmingly defined by the needs -and current resources-of the biosciences and whose professional backgrounds lie in one of the biosciences. We believe that the manifold resources of the Foundationprofessional and technical as well as budgetary-have not successfully addressed the needs of the social sciences in large part because the social sciences are not directly represented at the appropriate organizational level within the Foundation. The second organizational imperative stems from the need for greater organizational differentiation within the social sciences. Even though few of the social and behavioral science disciplines are as diverse as the array of subfields in chemistry or its sister disciplines, the full panoply of research specialties across the several social sciences is on a par with the diversity represented in the other substantive directorates. Many of the existing activities of the present Division of Social and Economic Science could be relocated as divisions of the new directorate. For example, without attempting to provide an organizational blueprint for the future, it may be suggested that, as with the other substantive directorates, each of the present disciplinary programs in S.E.S. might well be a division within a Social and Behavioral Science Directorate. They might be joined by a Division of Methods, Measurement and Instrumentation needed to address those problems of data generation and analysis that the disciplinary divisions have in common. Similarly, there should also be a separate division for large-scale multi-purpose data collection and resource development. A quite new division might also be established for activities centered on increasing the scientific usefulness of data generated by governmental agencies. Finally, and still illustratively, a separate division might be created for multi-disciplinary or multi-institutional projects or programs. To give greater clarity to the foregoing prescriptions, consider the following. First, with regard to representing social science needs in other directorates, the computer has become as central-and totally indispensable-to the work ways of social science as to the other sciences. And yet the central tasks for the computer are somewhat different. Certainly in contrast to mathematics, social science does much more data management of numeric data, more archiving and retrieval of non-quantitative materials, and much less sheer computation. On a quite different dimension, social science has its own version of the adaptation of the computer to data generation. In the harnessing of the computer in Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing, in improving methods of textual analysis, and in the use of the lap top computer for data collection in the field (and quite apart from use in simulation exercises), we are only beginning to exploit fully this technological wonder. As a third illustration, it can be noted that in the absence of large laboratories or research centers which bring together scientists working on common problems, the computer network is becoming an essential feature of the social scientist's life. Both the transmission of data by computer nets and inter-personal exchanges among scientists are probably more crucial for the maturing social sciences than for the more developed disciplines. Many of these and other needs of the social scientist are served indirectly and inadvertently by computer developments in other realms. However, without a new directorate in the Foundation, it seems unrealistic if not unreasonable to expect strong and direct representation of social science computing needs that should affect future Foundation policy and resource allocation. A separate Directorate for the Social and Behavioral Sciences is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition to have an impact on Foundation decisions concerning the development of computer and information science.

Social and behavioral sciences, a cross-disciplinary field that examines the interaction among behavioral, biological, environmental, and social factors, has contributed immensely to some public health achievements over the last century. Through collaboration with community organizations and partners, social and behavioral scientists have conducted numerous program interventions involving community engagement and advocacy efforts at the local, state, federal, and international levels. This article traces select historical underpinnings of the applications of social and behavioral sciences theories and evidence to public health and highlights 4 areas in which health education specialists have distinctly contributed to public health achievements by building on theory and evidence. Applied social and behavioral sciences have formed the basis of various health education interventions. These 4 areas include the following: (1) Theory, Model Development, and the Professionalization of Health Education; (2) Participation and Community Engagement; (3) Health Communication; and (4) Advocacy and Policy. We present contemporary challenges and recommendations for strengthening the theory, research, and practice of health education within the context of social and behavioral sciences in addressing emerging public health issues.

Increasing blood donor recruitment and retention is of key importance to transfusion services. Research within the social and behavioral science traditions has adopted separate but complementary approaches to addressing these issues. This article aims to review both of these types of literature, examine theoretical developments, identify commonalities, and offer a means to integrate these within a single intervention approach. The social and behavioral science literature on blood donor recruitment and retention focusing on theory, interventions, and integration is reviewed. The role of emotional regulation (anticipated anxiety and vasovagal reactions) is central to both the behavioral and the social science approaches to enhancing donor motivation, yet although intentions are the best predictor of donor behavior, interventions targeting enactment of intentions have not been used to increase donation. Implementation intentions (that is, if-then plans formed in advance of acting) provide a useful technique to integrate findings from social and behavioral sciences to increase donor recruitment and retention. After reviewing the literature, implementation intention formation is proposed as a technique to integrate the key findings and theories from the behavioral and social science literature on blood donor recruitment and retention.

Communication Climate as Predictor of Perceived Corporate Governance and Organizational Success

Travel for this study was supported by a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Foundation Fund award. 1Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-BA-358 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1988), 49-57. Until 1982, data on the prevalence of infertility were not reliable, and today there is still no conceptual or methodologic consensus concerning how to determine its prevalence. The literature on infertility characteristically refers to the rising incidence of this dysfunction, but there is no hard evidence that the percentage of marital pairs in the United States unable to have the children they desire has, over the past century, been lower than 10 percent or higher than 20 percent. Within any one time period, estimates vary over this range. Although changes in the incidence of infertility in subgroups, such as black women, and in the incidence of certain diseases or conditions associated with infertility, such as venereal diseases and dietary deficiencies, have occurred, the overall prevalence appears to be rather stable. See W. R. Keye, "Psychosexual Responses to Infertility," Clinics in Obstetrics and Gynecology 27 (September 1984): 760-66, esp. 760; P. Cutright and E. Shorter, "The Effects of Health on the Completed Fertility of Nonwhite and White U.S. Women Born between 1867 and 1935," Journal of Social History 13 (Winter 1979): 191-217; E. Shorter, A History of Women's Bodies (New York: Basic, 1982), esp. 266-67, and "Women's Diseases before 1900," in New

Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never the behavioral sciences. This book introduces a novel version of scientific realism, Measured Realism, that characterizes the kind of theoretical progress in the social and psychological sciences that is uneven but indisputable. It proposes a theory of measurement, Population-Guided Estimation, that connects natural, psychological, and social scientific inquiry. Presenting quantitative methods in the behavioral sciences as at once successful and regulated by the world, the book will engage philosophers of science, historians of science, sociologists of science, and scientists interested in the foundations of their own disciplines. Part I introduces measured realism beginning with a novel realist theory of measurement (Population-Guided Estimation, or PGE). It examines two other versions of scientific realism — minimal (Hacking) and robust (Boyd, Putnam, and Newton-Smith) — and advances measured realism as best supported by the evidence in the behavioral sciences. It also critically evaluates the anti-realist arguments of van Fraassen, Laudan, and Fine. Part II formulates and develops a version of epistemological naturalism most appropriate to measured realism. Drawing upon the realist theory of measurement developed earlier, it favorably appraises a variety of statistical methods in the behavioral sciences against selected criticisms. It concludes that traditional, narrative methods in the behavioral and social sciences are unreliable by the measures of epistemological naturalism.

The behavioral and social sciences are central to understanding and addressing oral and craniofacial health, diseases, and conditions. With both basic and applied approaches, behavioral and social sciences are relevant to every discipline in dentistry and all dental, oral, and craniofacial sciences, as well as oral health promotion programs and health care delivery. Key to understanding multilevel, interacting influences on oral health behavior and outcomes, the behavioral and social sciences focus on individuals, families, groups, cultures, systems, societies, regions, and nations. Uniquely positioned to highlight the importance of racial, cultural, and other equity in oral health, the behavioral and social sciences necessitate a focus on both individuals and groups, societal reactions to them related to power, and environmental and other contextual factors. Presented here is a consensus statement that was produced through an iterative feedback process. The statement reflects the current state of knowledge in the behavioral and social oral health sciences and identifies future directions for the field, focusing on 4 key areas: behavioral and social theories and mechanisms related to oral health, use of multiple and novel methodologies in social and behavioral research and practice related to oral health, development and testing of behavioral and social interventions to promote oral health, and dissemination and implementation research for oral health. This statement was endorsed by over 400 individuals and groups from around the world and representing numerous disciplines in oral health and the behavioral and social sciences. Having reached consensus, action is needed to advance and further integrate and translate behavioral and social sciences into oral health research, oral health promotion and health care, and the training of those working to ensure oral health for all.