Different Types Of Social Relationships Research Articles

Social Relations Among Diverse Rural Residents in the Scottish Highlands

This article focuses on the development and the limitations of convivial, instrumental, and intimate family relations among diverse rural residents in the Inner Moray Firth area of the Scottish Highlands. Drawing on 22 semi‐structured interviews with international migrants (EU nationals), internal migrants (UK nationals), and participants who were born there and never left, this article identifies and critically discusses how different types of social relations develop, or not, within and between these groups of rural residents. This article indicates that while all participants experienced convivial relations, these encounters did not always transfer into close, meaningful relations. The instrumental and meaningful relations, however, were more ambivalent in practice and related to internal divisions within rural communities defined along the lines of who is perceived to be “local” or “not local.” The instrumental ties were developed among participants with common interests, similar life stages, and experiences and varied in terms of ethnic and national composition. Similarly, while family ties were crucial for a sense of belonging, their ethnic and national composition differed. By illustrating the complex composition of convivial, instrumental, and family ties in rural Highlands, this article highlights that meaningful social relations supporting social integration should not be understood via social encounters with “local” residents only, but also intimate and instrumental social relations within and between migrant populations.

Beyond close relationships: the positive effects of group relationships and group identification on health

IntroductionIt is well-known that social relationships positively impact health, but the direct and indirect ways these lead to better health outcomes remain understudied. Stemming from the concept of multiple levels of analysis, we address this problem by disentangling the links between different types of social relationships and health (including physical health, mental health, and well-being), and comparing the effects of multiple mediators based on two levels of analysis: interpersonal and group.MethodsWe propose a model that uses loneliness and social support as proxies of personal ties (mediators between close relationships and health), and social integration and multiple identities as proxies of group ties (mediators between group relationships and health). Likewise, we also propose a moderating effect of group identification on the association between group ties and health. We collected 848 responses through a self-report online survey and used structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to assess the proposed model.ResultsData yielded that close relationships are stronger predictors of better health outcomes than group relationships. Yet, more importantly, the results also provide strong evidence for the positive effects of the group-level variables. The effect of group relationships on health is significantly positive, and this association is stronger for those who identify more with their group.DiscussionOur findings are closely aligned with the notion that increasing and improving people's social network is an effective way to contribute to better social determinants of health, while demonstrating that it is important to consider which type of relationship is being fostered.

Fluctuations in loneliness due to changes in frequency of social interactions among older adults: a weekly based diary study.

Loneliness functionally varies and is determined by the degree of interaction with others. We examined weekly fluctuations in reported loneliness as a function of frequency of social interactions in old age. We hypothesized that emotional and social components of loneliness would be related to different types of social relationships. Participants reported their feeling of loneliness and their social interaction quantity (frequency of meetings) via a weekly based diary, over 6 weeks. Diary study. The study included 55 older adults with different dwelling arrangements (M = 73.4, SD = 6.97). Measures of Loneliness (the De Jong-Gierveld Loneliness Scale), Social Interaction and Contact, and sociodemographic parameters were used. Social and emotional loneliness fluctuated over the course of the 6-week study. Frequency of meeting friends was related to emotional loneliness and total feelings of loneliness. Frequency of meeting close/trusted figures was related to emotional loneliness which appeared the following week. Other variables were not associated with either changes in loneliness or its dimensions. Loneliness in old age is changeable. The emotional component of loneliness seems to be dominant in determining overall feelings of loneliness and is more sensitive to externally chosen social interaction.

Puberty initiates a unique stage of social learning and development prior to adulthood: Insights from studies of adolescence in wild chimpanzees

In humans, puberty initiates a period of rapid growth, change, and formative neurobehavioral development. Brain and behavior changes during this maturational window contribute to opportunities for social learning. Here we provide new insights into adolescence as a unique period of social learning and development by describing field studies of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Like humans, chimpanzees have a multiyear juvenile life stage between weaning and puberty onset followed by a multiyear adolescent life stage after pubertal onset but prior to socially-recognized adulthood. As they develop increasing autonomy from caregivers, adolescent chimpanzees explore and develop many different types of social relationships with a wide range of individuals in a highly flexible social environment. We describe how adolescent social motivations and experiences differ from those of juveniles and adults and expose adolescents to high levels of uncertainty, risk, and vulnerability, as well as opportunities for adaptive social learning. We discuss how these adolescent learning experiences may be shaped by early life and in turn shape varied adult social outcomes. We outline how future chimpanzee field research can contribute in new ways to a more integrative interdisciplinary understanding of adolescence as a developmental window of adaptive social learning and resilience.

Effects of Objective and Perceived Social Isolation on Cardiovascular and Brain Health: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.

BackgroundSocial isolation, the relative absence of or infrequency of contact with different types of social relationships, and loneliness (perceived isolation) are associated with adverse health outcomes.ObjectiveTo review observational and intervention research that examines the impact of social isolation and loneliness on cardiovascular and brain health and discuss proposed mechanisms for observed associations.MethodsWe conducted a systematic scoping review of available research. We searched 4 databases, PubMed, PsycInfo, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health, and Scopus.FindingsEvidence is most consistent for a direct association between social isolation, loneliness, and coronary heart disease and stroke mortality. However, data on the association between social isolation and loneliness with heart failure, dementia, and cognitive impairment are sparse and less robust. Few studies have empirically tested mediating pathways between social isolation, loneliness, and cardiovascular and brain health outcomes using appropriate methods for explanatory analyses. Notably, the effect estimates are small, and there may be unmeasured confounders of the associations. Research in groups that may be at higher risk or more vulnerable to the effects of social isolation is limited. We did not find any intervention studies that sought to reduce the adverse impact of social isolation or loneliness on cardiovascular or brain health outcomes.ConclusionsSocial isolation and loneliness are common and appear to be independent risk factors for worse cardiovascular and brain health; however, consistency of the associations varies by outcome. There is a need to develop, implement, and test interventions to improve cardiovascular and brain health for individuals who are socially isolated or lonely.

Does Turnover Spread through Network Ties? Network Turnover Contagion as Resource Loss

Does turnover travel through social networks and, if so, how? Extant literature suggests that turnover can spread from one departing employee to another through a social influence process. While this assumes the existence of social relations, we lack understanding of whether and how different types of relations affect the contagion process. We build on the turnover literature, which conceives social relations as resources individuals lose when their contacts leave, to distinguish between different types of social relations (instrumental, expressive, energy) and resource providers (peers, supervisors) and examine how their loss relates to turnover contagion. We draw on a unique network dataset of 1,432 employees in the Chinese subsidiary of a Dutch multinational including employees’ date of voluntary departure (271 turnover events). We estimate models inspired from the Relational Event Framework to trace the spread of departures through social ties over time and account for the effect of each departure on the networks of remaining employees. Our results are consistent with considering turnover contagion as resource loss. However, they also suggest that contagion is triggered when losing access to specific resources from particular providers. We elaborate on our results to propose a theory of network turnover contagion.

Morpho-Statistical Description of Networks Through Graph Modelling and Bayesian Inference

Collaboration graphs are relevant sources of information to understand behavioural tendencies of groups of individuals. The study of these graphs enables figuring out factors that may affect the efficiency and the sustainability of cooperative work. For example, such a collaboration involves researchers who develop relationships with their external counterparts to address scientific challenges. As relations and projects change over time, the evolution of social structures must be tackled. We propose a statistical approach considering different structural collaboration patterns and captures the dynamic of the relational structures over the years. Our approach combines spatial processes modelling and Exponential Random Graph Models used to analyse social processes. Since the normalising constant involved in classical Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approaches is intractable, the inference remains challenging. To overcome this issue, we propose a Bayesian tool that relies on the recent ABC Shadow algorithm. The method is illustrated on real data sets from an open archive of scholarly documents. Through a simple formalism, our approach highlights the interactions between the different types of social relations at stake in the collaboration network.

Local, trans-local, and fellow townspeople ties: differential effects of social relations on physical health among China’s rural-to-urban migrants

ABSTRACT Scarce attention has been paid to the distinct health effects of the three layers of social relations a rural-to-urban migrant is commonly embedded in – local connections with local urban communities, trans-local connections with family and hometown communities, and connections with fellow townspeople in the city who are from the same hometown. This study investigates their respective effects on physical health using the data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamics Survey, China’s latest and largest national survey data on rural-to-urban migrants. From regression models with the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment, the results show that the multilayered embeddedness of the migrant gives rise to differing, even diverging health effects of different types of social relations. While creating ties with local urban communities and maintaining ties with hometown communities are beneficial to migrants’ physical health, ties to a larger family and closer ties with fellow townspeople in the city are negatively related to physical health. The findings suggest the multifaceted nature of the linkage between social relations and physical health among migrants. Social relations affect physical health not only in positive ways, but also in negative ways.

A typology for unpacking the diversity of social innovation in energy transitions

Academic research and policy have focused on sustainable energy transitions for addressing the societal challenge of climate change for a long time, but the concept of ‘social innovation’ has only been recently taken up. This concept refers to different social phenomena relating to changes in socio-technical systems. Moving beyond narrow perspectives on social innovation, this article asks how we can capture the diversity of social innovation, taking the example of the energy sector. It proposes a comprehensive typology of social innovation that allows to capture the phenomenon in its empirical diversity, and to more systematically investigate processes of social innovation and their contributions to making socio-technical systems more sustainable. The typology is based on a conceptual understanding of social innovation in energy (SIE) as comprising changing social relations involving new ways of doing, thinking and/or organising energy. It is empirically grounded in mapping and analysing 500 SIE-initiatives across eight European countries. Such a conceptually-informed and empirically-grounded understanding of SIE sheds light on the ‘social’ as an object of innovation, the agency of a multitude of actors, and the different types of social relations and activities pursued by energy system actors. It also opens the possibility to publicly discuss the diverse social innovations and their interdependencies, (un)desirability, as well as transformative potentials in energy transitions.

Semantic Social Networks Constructed by Topical Aspects of Conversations: An Explorative Study

As the number of social networking services (SNS) and their users grow, so does the complexity of individual networks as well as the amount of information to be consumed by the users. Users of SNS exchange short and instantaneous messages interactively, which can be seen as conversations. We explore this conversational aspect of SNS and show how refined topic-based semantic social networks can be formed in order to reduce the complexity and information overload. Among other possibilities, we use the notion of topic diversity and topic purity of SNS conversations between two users and show different types of social relationships can be identified in that they break down a huge “syntactic” social network into topic-based ones based on different interaction types. Resulting semantic social networks can be useful in designing various targeted services on online social networks.

The dual effect of social ties on COVID-19 spread in Japan

We investigate why some communities experience worse COVID-19 outcomes than others. Past studies have linked the resilience of communities against crisis to social vulnerability and the capacity of local governments to provide public goods and services like health care. Disaster studies, which frequently examine the effect of social ties and mobility, may better help illuminate the current spread of COVID-19. We analyze Japan’s 47 prefectures from February 12 to August 31 using 62,722 individual confirmed cases of COVID-19, paired with daily tallies of aggregate Facebook user movement among neighborhoods. Controlling for mobility levels, health care systems, government finance, gender balance, age, income, and education levels of communities, our analysis indicates that areas with strong linking social ties see no or far lower levels of COVID-19 case rates initially. However, case fatality rates rise in such communities once the disease enters as they lack horizontal (bonding) ties which can mitigate its health impacts. We anticipate this study to be a starting point for broader studies of how social ties and mobility influence COVID-19 outcomes worldwide along with shining a light on how different types of social relationships play different roles as a crisis or disaster progresses.

Negative Life Events, Social Ties, and Depressive Symptoms for Older Adults in China

Negative life events are considered important risk factors of depression among older adults. An overwhelming amount of literature suggests that individuals with the most supportive social relations tend to make a better recovery from stressful life events. As for which types of ties matter the most, whether being family, relatives, friends or the broader community, existing literature is much less consistent and has documented varying effects across different contexts. This study is set in China, which traditionally relies on family systems and filial obligations for old-age support. Using two waves of data from China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey, we examine the protective effect of different types of social relations on depressive symptoms, including those who are living in the household, children who live close by or far away, as well as their ties with family, relatives, and friends.

ETHNIC TOLERANCE IN THE YOUTH ENVIRONMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The article presents the study on university students’ ethnic tolerance. Tolerance is regarded as an essential element in modern culturally, ethnically, religiously and politically multi-ethnic society. The development of the concept of an ethnic tolerance in modern psychology is reviewed. It has been revealed that ethnic tolerance is related with social processes and interethnic interactions. The influence of interethnic interactions on ethnic tolerance was determined. Many theoretical models exists the field of intergroup relations, but the concept of social tolerance is still very ambiguous. The formation of ethnic tolerance reflects the psychological aspects of inter-ethnic communications associated with different types of social relations in society. The article puts a special emphasis on tolerance in the students’ environment, because tolerance among students has great practical significance, especially in multi-ethnic societies. Also, the article presents the research methods used in the modern psychology to study the complexity, uniqueness, specificity of ethnic tolerance in society. The need for a practical study of ethnic tolerance has been proved.  The prospects for further research on ethnic tolerance and ethnic identity has been determined. The results of the study on students’ ethnic tolerance are presented in the article. The data analysis revealed the factors influencing students’ ethnic tolerance in the Lviv Polytechnic National University (Ukraine), the study involved 152 students. The obtained results showed that chosen methods were valid and reliable tools for ethnic tolerance assessment. The prospects for further research on ethnic tolerance are determined. The conclusion is made on the need for further study of the formation of good ethnic tolerance in order to harmonize interethnic relations of young people. The model of ethnic tolerance formation can be applied in psychological research of all countries. &nbsp

The theory of collectivity of drinking cultures: how alcohol became everyone's problem.

The theory of collectivity of drinking cultures: how alcohol became everyone's problem.

The success of short-term study abroad programs: a social networks perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of individual difference variables and social relationships on student learning outcomes of short-term study abroad programs.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a social network analysis (SNA) approach to examine the effects of friendship, advice and communication networks on student learning outcomes.FindingsResults indicated that demographic characteristics (e.g. sex, years of work experience) did not influence learning outcomes nor the enjoyment of the experience. Social networks positively influenced students’ perceived improvement in managerial skills, their ability to reflect on their international experience and their intercultural sensitivity.Research limitations/implicationsSocial relationships may be an important factor to consider in understanding the relationship between short-term study abroad programs and learning outcomes.Practical implicationsProgram directors and faculty members need to consider the design of assignments and activities that may facilitate the development of specific types of social relationships (e.g. friendship, communication and advice). These specific social relationships may have unique influences on specific learning outcomes of short-term study abroad programs.Originality/valueThis study is the first study that examined the effects of different types of social relationships on learning outcomes for short-term study abroad programs. The results have important implications for both future research and the design of international study-abroad programs.

Stance polarity in political debates: A diachronic perspective of network homophily and conversations on Twitter

In the last decade, social media gained a very significant role in public debates, and despite the many intrinsic difficulties of analyzing data streaming from on-line platforms that are poisoned by bots, trolls, and low-quality information, it is undeniable that such data can still be used to test the public opinion and overall mood and to investigate how individuals communicate with each other. With the aim of analyzing the debate in Twitter on the 2016 referendum on the reform of the Italian Constitution, we created an Italian annotated corpus for stance detection for automatically estimating the stance of a relevant number of users. We take into account a diachronic perspective to shed lights on users’ opinion dynamics. Furthermore, different types of social network communities, based on friendships, retweets, quotes, and replies were investigated, in order to analyze the communication among users with similar and divergent viewpoints. We observe particular aspects of users’ behavior. First, our analysis suggests that users tend to be less explicit in expressing their stances after the outcome of the vote; simultaneously, users who exhibit a high number of cross-stance relations tend to become less polarized or to adopt a more neutral style in the following phase of the debate. Second, despite social media networks are generally aggregated in homogeneous communities, we highlight that the structure of the network can strongly change when different types of social relations are considered. In particular, networks defined by means of reply-to messages exhibit inverse homophily by stance, and users use more often replies for expressing diverging opinions, instead of other forms of communication. Interestingly, we also observe that the political polarization increases forthcoming the election and decreases after the election day.

Examining the link between emotional childhood abuse and social relationships in midlife: The moderating role of the oxytocin receptor gene

BackgroundA single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs53576, of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) has been associated with fundamental aspects of social processes and behaviors. Compared to A carriers, GG individuals have enhanced social competencies and tend to elicit more positive responses from social partners. However, the G allele of the OXTR rs53576 has also been associated with greater social sensitivity. ObjectiveThe current study examined the unique influence of emotional childhood abuse on positive and negative aspects of different types of social relationships (e.g., family, spouse/partner, and friends) in midlife and whether genetic variations of OXTR rs53576 moderated these associations.Participants and Setting: A total of 614 participants in midlife (aged 40–65), recruited for a large-scale study of Phoenix metropolitan residents (AS U Live Project), answered self-report questionnaires and provided blood samples for DNA genotyping. MethodsHierarchical multiple regression analyses tested whether emotional childhood abuse predicted social support and strain for each relationship type and whether these potential linkages differed by OXTR genotype (GG versus AA/AG). ResultsOverall, individuals with a history of emotional childhood abuse had less supportive and more strained relationships in midlife. For supportive family relationships, the effect of emotional childhood abuse was moderated by OXTR rs53576 (p < .001). Under conditions of experiencing more emotional abuse in childhood, GG individuals had more supportive family relationships in midlife compared to A carriers. ConclusionsOverall, genetic variations of OXTR rs53576 may be an important candidate in understanding the development of social functioning within the context of emotional childhood abuse.

What’sAlterGot to Do with It? A Consideration of Network Content and the Social Ties That Provide It

The strength of weak ties is among the most important theories in the social sciences. One paradoxical element of the theory has been widely understood and valued—that weak ties connect disparate regions of social structure. Less appreciated, however, is the arguably more paradoxical implication that someone only weakly connected to another would provide value beyond that which is provided by the recipient’s (ego’s) strong ties. Once this paradoxical feature of the theory and associated empirical literatures is acknowledged, the interests of the resource provider (alter) demand consideration. To do so faithfully requires first, the concession that different types of content can be transmitted across ties (e.g., financial, informational, physical, social) and content varies in important ways that relate to alter’s interests and concerns. This article considers social network content and the strength of ties that provide different forms of it. The case of startups is used as a fruitful strategic research site because of the varied resources required at various stages of the startup process. Novel insights are proposed concerning what content flows across different types of social relationships in the context of “nascent” entrepreneurship. Examples from other contexts such as job search are also discussed to exemplify scope. Importantly, this article takes the perspective of the resource provider, alter, and considers her concerns about trust, misuse, and unauthorized transfer in dyadic exchange. In the process, a second paradoxical feature of the theory is identified and theorized, which usefully reveals the boundaries of exchange.

The costs of being consequentialist: Social inference from instrumental harm and impartial beneficence

Previous work has demonstrated that people are more likely to trust “deontological” agents who reject harming one person to save many others than “consequentialist” agents who endorse such instrumental harms, which could explain the higher prevalence of non-consequentialist moral intuitions. Yet consequentialism involves endorsing not just instrumental harm, but also impartial beneficence, treating the well-being of every individual as equally important. In four studies (total N = 2086), we investigated preferences for consequentialist vs. non-consequentialist social partners endorsing instrumental harm or impartial beneficence and examined how such preferences varied across different types of social relationships. Our results demonstrate robust preferences for non-consequentialist over consequentialist agents in the domain of instrumental harm, and weaker – but still evident – preferences in the domain of impartial beneficence. In the domain of instrumental harm, non-consequentialist agents were consistently viewed as more moral and trustworthy, preferred for a range of social roles, and entrusted with more money in economic exchanges. In the domain of impartial beneficence, preferences for non-consequentialist agents were observed for close interpersonal relationships requiring direct interaction (friend, spouse) but not for more distant roles with little-to-no personal interaction (political leader). Collectively our findings demonstrate that preferences for non-consequentialist agents are sensitive to the different dimensions of consequentialist thinking and the relational context.

Attacked ravens flexibly adjust signalling behaviour according to audience composition.

A fundamental attribute of social intelligence is the ability to monitor third-party relationships, which has been repeatedly demonstrated in primates, and recently also in captive ravens. It is yet unknown how ravens make use of this ability when dealing with different types of social relationships simultaneously during complex real-life situations. Free-ranging non-breeder ravens live in societies characterized by high fission–fusion dynamics and structured by age, pair-bond status and kinship. Here, we show that free-ranging ravens modify communication during conflicts according to audience composition. When being attacked by dominant conspecifics, victims of aggression signal their distress via defensive calls. Victims increased call rates when their kin were in the bystander audience, but reduced call rates when the bystanders were bonding partners of their aggressors. Hence, ravens use social knowledge flexibly and probably based on their own need (i.e. alert nearby allies and avoid alerting nearby rivals).