Infertility affects an estimated 15% of couples worldwide, with male factors contributing to nearly half of the cases. Yet infertility continues to be culturally framed as a woman's problem, positioning women as primary targets of medical investigation and social blame. This study employs a Critical Interpretive Synthesis across sociology, nursing, psychology, anthropology and bioethics to theorise male infertility stigma as a relational inequity rather than an individual burden. To strengthen the empirical grounding of this conceptual analysis, we incorporated a structured secondary analysis of published qualitative quotations from men experiencing infertility. These first‑order accounts illuminate how men narrate stigma, masculinity and relational strain, providing empirical illustrations of four relational mechanisms-concealment, blame transfer, emotional labour and role reconfiguration-through which men's spoiled masculinity invisibly restructures women's roles in reproductive care. By foregrounding women's invisible burdens, the analysis advances a relational sociology of health with direct implications for nursing practice. The findings demonstrate how nurses encounter and mediate stigma spillover in clinical encounters, family systems and community contexts. Applied implications include dyadic, stigma‑sensitive interventions, couple‑centred care pathways and structural reforms that challenge cultural scripts linking masculinity to fertility. Conceptualising infertility stigma as a relational inequity not only extends stigma theory but also strengthens nursing inquiry into gender, caregiving and reproductive justice.

ABSTRACT Research on gay ageing focuses primarily on Western contexts, largely overlooking older sexual minority individuals in Central and Eastern Europe. In Poland, older gay men remain a socially marginalised and largely invisible group, and dominant models of ageing and sexuality fail to capture the specificity of their experiences. This study explored the experiences of ageing with a gay identity at age 50 and older in Poland, focusing on body image, ageism, and functioning within the LGBTQ+ community. Ten cisgender gay men aged 50–74 participated in this qualitative study. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted and subjected to thematic analysis within an interpretive-constructivist paradigm. The analysis revealed three interrelated themes: (1) the non-schematic nature of experiencing gay identity, (2) negotiating visibility and ageism, (3) the struggle to maintain a functional and healthy body. The themes indicate a lack of shared cultural scripts for ageing and the individual construction of ways of functioning in later life. The results show that ageing gay men in Poland function amid limited institutional support, a lack of positive ageing role models, and overlapping forms of marginalisation. Simultaneously, the absence of developmental scripts opens space for diverse trajectories of experiencing old age in a postsocialist context.

The subjective lived experience of schizophrenia among China's Z Generation (born 1995-2009) remains understudied. This population navigates a unique socio-cultural context, making their personal narratives crucial for developing effective, person-centered mental health interventions. We employed a descriptive phenomenological approach, conducting in-depth interviews with four Chinese Z-generation females diagnosed with schizophrenia. A multidisciplinary team analyzed the data to elucidate the essential structure of their lived experience. The essential structure of the lived experience of schizophrenia among Chinese Z-generation individuals is "navigating a fragmented lifeworld through dialectical negotiation to reconstruct coherence and agency." This structure manifested through five interrelated themes: (1) rupture of taken-for-granted reality involving perceptual alterations and loss of control; (2) dialogical encounters with the medical gaze balancing validation and alienation; (3) embodied negotiations with pharmacological treatment mediating bodily alienation and functionality; (4) intersubjective navigation of stigma through strategic disclosure and concealment; and (5) temporal projection through future-oriented life reconstruction. Participants demonstrated remarkable agency as meaning-makers, actively constructing "digital enclaves" for support, employing "cultural polyphony" to integrate diverse explanatory frameworks, and drawing upon Chinese cultural scripts for self-reconstruction. Recovery in schizophrenia should be reconceptualized as actively rebuilding a lifeworld through dialectical negotiation. Clinical practice must evolve from symptom management toward supporting patients' narrative coherence, while valuing their digital practices and cultural resources. This underscores the need for culturally sensitive, responsive, and collaborative mental health support systems.

This paper focuses on how divergent but interlinked knowledge cultures shape veterinary professionals’ practices. Embodied sensory and emotional knowing, and local and contextual knowledge, often incorporated within cultural scripts and conventions, constitute the paper's focus. Drawing upon biographic narrative interviews, we demonstrate that these different forms of knowing are enmeshed with scientific knowledge and embedded in veterinarian's interactions and work practices, influencing diagnosis, treatment and other interventions. Here, ‘knowing’ is understood as knowledge cultures that influence communication and professional practice, while transgressing boundaries between tacit and explicit, lay and scientific knowledge. We argue that these disparate yet convergent forms of knowing deepen our understanding of the multidimensionality of veterinary practice and are important for the education and training of veterinarians, their knowledge and expertise claims. We hereby expand sociological discussions of the labyrinthine character of veterinarian's knowledge, highlighting the complex, diverse ways that it intersects with science.

ABSTRACT Vitiligo is a chronic immune-mediated dermatological condition with substantial psychosocial consequences. Patients’ explanatory models shape coping, treatment engagement and quality of life, but evidence on how these models vary by gender outside Western settings remains scarce. Drawing on the biopsychosocial model and the Common Sense Model of self-regulation, we mapped the perceived triggers and progression factors that Brazilian adults with vitiligo deploy when explaining their condition and tested whether men and women converge or diverge in those explanatory accounts. Cross-sectional online survey with a mixed-methods analytic strategy. The sample comprised 232 Brazilian adults with a dermatologist-confirmed diagnosis (68.5% women, M = 37.65 years, SD = 12.43). Open-ended responses to a single attribution prompt were coded inductively by two trained psychologists, with inter-rater agreement assessed by Cohen’s kappa and disagreements resolved through consensus. We computed code freq uencies overall and stratified by gender and used Similarity Analysis (IRaMuTeQ) to map co-occurrences between attributional themes and gender. Psychological attributions dominated the corpus. The most frequent codes were stress, emotional factors, rumination, genetics, depression, family loss and trauma. Within their gender, women cited stress, depression, sadness and anxiety more often than men did. Men were roughly four times more likely than women to cite genetic inheritance. Progression attributions clustered around generalized psychological state and were similar across gender. Brazilian adults with vitiligo construct gendered explanatory models that mirror broader cultural scripts about masculinity, femininity and the legitimacy of emotional disclosure. Care for vitiligo is likely to be improved by gender-responsive psychological assessment, validation of patient explanatory models and integrated dermatological-mental health pathways.

Communication in the intensive care unit: experiences and perspectives of critical care nurses in China.

Epidemics have historically been both biomedical disasters and cultural stories that societies interpret and recount. This study explores the epidemic imaginary, examining how literature and cinema symbolically depict contagion by analysing narratives of contagion produced during the Plague era in literature and modern pandemic representations in film. The research considers some plague-era literature, such as Albert Camus' The Plague (1947) and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (1912), alongside more recent pandemic literature like Dean Koontz's The Eyes of Darkness (1981), as well as two films: Contagion (2011), directed by Steven Soderbergh, and Outbreak (1995), directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Drawing from interdisciplinary fields including literary studies, film theory and medical humanities, the study highlights moments of systemic and existential responses to contagion. It explores recurring themes such as fear, denial, governance, death, mortality and resilience, demonstrating how epidemics serve as meaningful moments for both existential reflection and systemic analysis. I argue that epidemic stories function as cultural scripts, that literature subtly allegorises contagion through introspection, and that cinema vividly dramatises urgency by depicting collapsing systems. Overall, these works highlight how societies narrate and remember solidarity during crises, rearticulating collective resilience in the face of devastation.

This article examines great-grandparenthood as a late-life family role that has remained overlooked in gerontological and sociological research. The study draws on life course theory, critical and narrative gerontology, and the concept of doing family to explore how great-grandparents perceive and negotiate this role in later life. Based on qualitative, timeline-based interviews with ten participants, the analysis applies a thematic narrative approach to examine how meanings of intergenerational connection, family identity, and aging are constructed across the life course. Findings suggest that great-grandparenthood is rarely recognized as a distinct identity and tends to remain relationally and culturally invisible. The role does not emerge automatically from biological status but is enacted through episodic relational engagement, such as presence, emotional rituals, and shared time. It is also shaped by symbolic recognition within family narratives and generational positioning. Positioned at the margins of family life, great-grandparenthood emerges as a liminal late-life identity reflecting broader dynamics of aging, intergenerational relations, and cultural scripts. These findings contribute to gerontological debates on family roles and relational aging by highlighting the symbolic and narrative dimensions of very late-life family positions. They also point to the need for future research incorporating intergenerational perspectives and comparative cultural contexts.

This paper investigates the death practices in the largely undocumented linguaculture (interwoven ways of speaking and living) of the Circassian-speaking village of Kfar Kama in Israel. It employs two approaches, ethnography and the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). Through the ethnographic approach, the paper provides a detailed account of what happens from the moment a person dies in Kfar Kama to the 40th-day memorial. Using NSM, the paper presents eight explications (simple definitions) and cultural scripts (short texts capturing cultural norms) related to death practices in Kfar Kama. The findings contribute to the fields of linguistics, thanatology, and anthropology, among other fields.

ABSTRACT Adolescent suicidality remains a major public health concern in North America and is shaped by developmental, relational, and sociopolitical conditions. This conceptual article synthesises literature on Latinx immigrant and immigrant-origin youth to examine how suicidality has been interpreted in relation to cultural contradiction, constrained belonging, and limited future possibility. Using a critical interpretive synthesis approach, the article brings narrative identity theory, cultural psychology, and suicidology into conversation through four themes: (1) role disintegration and cultural conflict, (2) narrative foreclosure and identity incoherence, (3) emotional suppression and suicidal silence, and (4) existential isolation and disconnection from belonging. Together, these themes suggest that suicide-related vulnerability may be understood in relation to unstable role positioning, constrained self-authorship, inhibited disclosure, and threatened belonging. The Existential Network of Suicidal Identity (ENSI) is used as a heuristic lens to organise these patterns around belonging, meaning, and self-continuity. The synthesis highlights how discrimination, institutional exclusion, and legal precarity shape the conditions under which identity, disclosure, and future orientation become difficult to sustain.

Abstract This essay challenges the assumption that emotional labour primarily benefits organisations, demonstrating how mandated emotional displays can damage corporate image in cross-cultural settings. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of Amway in 1990s Poland, the research proposes the Cultural-Historical Filters of Emotional Labour model to explain the reception of imported management styles. The analysis reveals how standardised technologies of enthusiasm were refracted through the Polish cultural script of sincerity ( szczerość ) and a reactive post-socialist emotional regime. Triggered by critical media framing, this multidimensional dissonance led to a ‘spiral of silence’ and severe reputational stigma. The study concludes that historical legacies and collective memory act as decisive structural filters in global emotion management.

In recent years, chemsex has attracted growing scholarly attention for its intersections with health, pleasure, and sexuality. Scholarship largely produced in the Global North, has focused on health risks, recreational use, and the emergent meanings of chemsex subcultures. Yet the voices of chemsex participants in contexts marked by drug prohibition and the political silencing of homosexuality remain limited, though equally important to examine. This study investigates the sexualised use of cannabis and poppers among gay men in China, exploring how participants narrate their drug use in relation to sexual pleasure and, in doing so, construct and affirm a distinct chemsex subculture. Drawing on in-depth online interviews (N = 20) conducted in 2022, we conceptualise this practice as weak chemsex to examine how drug use operates as a cultural script showing sexual pleasures and mediating sexual roles and power relations in one-to-one encounters. Findings indicate that, while substances facilitate pleasure, reduce discomfort, and enable role conformity, they also foster a form of non-critical obedience among bottoms, reinforcing intra-community sexual inequalities. By situating weak chemsex within the broader socio-political climate of drug prohibition and enduring stigma toward homosexuality, the study calls for culturally attuned approaches that address the relational and power-laden dimensions of sexualised drug use.

On November 20, 2025, Matthew Kriner presented Countering Violent Extremism: Emerging Trends and Challenges at the 2025 West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with audience members and CASIS Vancouver executives. The session examined contemporary pathways to radicalisation, with particular focus on Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE), the role of school shooter cultural scripts, and the increasing uptake of non-ideological violence frameworks within online extremist ecosystems.

The impacts of work-integrated learning (WIL) on first-generation students are mixed. WIL can help first-generation students gain the social, cultural, and human capital needed to succeed in the workplace, capital possessed by their continuing-generation peers; yet the equity-deserving status of many first-generation students may create barriers to accessing WIL obstacles to completing WIL, and even negative relationships between participating in WIL and securing a job. Given this lack of consensus, we argue for more research on first-generation students that highlights student voices. Building on studies exploring first-generation students’ perceptions of higher education as well as recent scholarship on students’ reflections of work quality in WIL, we explore how they see “work” in WIL contexts and negotiate intersecting identities. By examining students’ “workview,” a framework from Designing Your Life that applies design thinking principles to life and career development, this study illuminates how these students navigate “cultural scripts”—the expectations and realities of WIL environments—and negotiate multifaceted identities. We compare cultural scripts about work between first-generation and continuing-generation students and explore how identity negotiation within WIL reshapes these scripts.

Police murders of unarmed Black people in the United States are recurring sociocultural events rooted in racist systems and ideologies. Developmental research has examined the content and frequency of parent-child conversations in response to such events, yet how these discussions may reflect a cultural script of race and policing remains underexplored. Using the master narrative (MN) framework (McLean & Syed, 2015), which describes how cultural scripts shape (re)constructions of sociocultural events, we examined whether Black (n = 343) and white (n = 371) parents told their 8-to-11-year-old children about the murder of George Floyd and how their retellings reinforced or disrupted a color-evasive, ahistorical, individualistic, and dehumanizing MN of racialized policing. Our mixed-method analysis revealed that 77.31% of parents reported discussing George Floyd; of the 552 who did, 46.01% disrupted the MN, the majority of whom were Black. We present qualitative findings and discuss implications for antiracist parental racial socialization.

Purpose This study aims to examine consumer perceptions of gendered power dynamics in sexualized advertising, with a specific focus on how audiences interpret advertisements that reinforce versus reverse traditional gender roles. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative photoelicitation approach, 350 participants from the USA and the UK viewed advertisements depicting either male dominance or female dominance and provided open-ended responses. Data were analyzed through the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework and schema theory to examine cognitive and affective processing patterns and resulting evaluative outcomes. Findings Results reveal clear asymmetries in interpretation. Male-dominant portrayals commonly elicited outrage, discomfort and sometimes resigned acceptance as a familiar (if criticized) advertising code. Female-dominant portrayals were frequently interpreted as humorous, exaggerated, confusing or illegitimate, often neutralizing the intended disruption of gender norms. Across conditions, male objectification generated stronger resistance than female objectification, reflecting persistent gendered biases in how sexualized power is evaluated. Overall, gender role reversals appear to trigger cognitive dissonance and shape brand perceptions and purchase-related judgments. Research limitations/implications This study relies on qualitative, open-ended responses and a defined stimulus set; findings are interpretive rather than causal. The sample is limited to two national contexts (the USA and UK), suggesting opportunities for cross-cultural replication and experimental follow-up to test boundary conditions and downstream behavioral effects. Practical implications Marketers should recognize that attempts to challenge gender stereotypes through sexualized female dominance can backfire if audiences interpret the execution as parody or inauthentic. Practitioners should pretest for schema-violation responses (e.g. humor, disbelief, skepticism) and design portrayals of gender power that challenge norms without undermining credibility. Policymakers and advocacy stakeholders can use these insights to anticipate when “subversive” portrayals may inadvertently reinforce existing scripts. Social implications The social implications of this study reveal how gender-stereotyped and overly sexualized ads reinforce harmful societal norms, particularly around women’s roles and authority. These advertisements contribute to a culture that diminishes women’s power, as both male and female participants struggled to perceive women as authoritative figures. This perpetuates inequality and shapes internalized perceptions of femininity, impacting self-confidence. The study suggests that biased representations in media influence societal views on gender roles, contributing to mental health challenges. Encouraging more equitable portrayals in advertising could help break these damaging stereotypes and foster a more inclusive and balanced societal mindset. Originality/value This study extends advertising and gender research by explaining why sexualized role reversals are processed asymmetrically through entrenched gender schemas. It advances S-O-R applications by showing how cultural scripts filter organism-level reactions into patterned attitudinal outcomes, and it highlights how consumer critique can function as a normalization mechanism rather than straightforward resistance.

Objectives China has a substantial population of older adults, defined as individuals aged 60 and above. In mainstream social and cultural scripts, older Chinese adults are frequently portrayed in a desexualized or asexual manner, reflecting traditional cultural norms that regard seniors as paragons of virtue. However, it is vital to acknowledge that older adults possess sexual desires, needs, and expressions, even though discussions about older sexuality are often viewed as taboo in Chinese society. Methods In accordance with PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews, this study included 42 English-language and 13 Chinese-language articles published between 2005 and 2025. The R programming was utilized to assist in thematic analysis. Furthermore, a policy review was undertaken to examine China’s aging policies and assess the extent to which they address older sexual health. Results Four primary themes were identified: older adults’ attitudes toward sex, their sexual activeness, the adverse health outcomes associated with risky sexual behaviors, and current levels of sexual health literacy. The findings indicate that a substantial proportion of older Chinese individuals maintain sexual desires and needs, which are often suppressed by prevailing societal and cultural scripts. It not only negatively impacts their well-being but also contributes to further health risks, including a rise in extramarital or other risky sexual behaviors. The policy review further revealed that sexual health issues among the older population are largely overlooked in China’s active aging policies. Conclusion Recommendations are offered for sexual education toward older Chinese adults based on the framework of sexual health literacy, which highlights the importance of accessing, understanding, evaluating, and practicing sexual health knowledge that are related to pursuing sexual pleasure and engaging in sexual behaviors. Particular attention should be given to disadvantaged subgroups, including older adults with lower socioeconomic status, those who self-identify as sexual minorities, and individuals living with HIV.

Negative premenstrual embodiment and body dissatisfaction are influenced by cultural discourse but remain underexplored in culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) migrant women. This qualitative analysis of 305 surveys and 20 interviews in Australia examined how CALD women construct and experience the premenstrual body. Reflexive thematic analysis revealed dual surveillance, where cultural scripts of purity, modesty, and silence intersected with Western ideals of thinness and control, intensifying distress and body dissatisfaction. Migration provided alternative frameworks that allowed individuals to challenge and resist negative reproductive discourses embedded in their cultures of origin. Findings highlight the need for culturally responsive healthcare and community education to support CALD women’s well-being.

This study examines the non-linear process of leaving violent dating relationships among young Iranian immigrant women in Canada. Using a qualitative design, semi-structured interviews with 17 participants were analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. Framed by Collins' Matrix of Domination, the research explores how intersecting social divisions shape the leaving trajectory. Findings reveal that aggressors' coercive control tactics are instrumentalized through cultural scripts of honor, community surveillance, and a transnational distrust of legal institutions. The study concludes that systemic barriers within the migration context complicate relationship termination, necessitating culturally grounded support strategies.

ABSTRACT The present study investigated whether remembering the distant versus the recent personal past influences self-continuity levels and expected future event characteristics in a sample of immigrants. Seventy-three Turkish immigrants living in Denmark participated in three sessions involving questionnaires and life story interviews. In the first session, participants completed baseline measures of self-continuity, psychological wellbeing, acculturation, and demographics. In the second and third sessions, they recalled significant events and narrated life stories from pre-migration (distant past) and post-migration (recent past), followed by measures of self-continuity and wellbeing. After each memory recall, participants described three expected future events and rated them on phenomenological characteristics such as vividness and emotional valence. We analyzed differences in self-continuity and future event characteristics between the pre- and post-migration conditions, as well as the relationships among the variables, thematic content of future events, and their resemblance to cultural life scripts. Results revealed no significant differences in future event characteristics between the conditions. However, a small difference emerged in self-continuity levels: contrary to expectations, participants reported slightly higher self-continuity in the pre-migration condition than in the post-migration condition. These findings contribute to understanding of how autobiographical memory relate to future thinking and self in the context of migration.