Influence Of Social Position Research Articles

Linked lives and convoys of social relations.

We consider linked lives through the Convoy Model of Social Relations to illustrate their complexity, consequences, and development across contexts. To illustrate how the Convoy Model lens provides a unique opportunity to examine the multidimensional and dynamic character of linked lives across time and space, we analyze twenty-three years of longitudinal data from the Social Relations Study (SRS). The SRS is a regionally representative Detroit-area sample (N=1,498) with three waves (1992; 2005; 2015) of data from community dwelling people age 13 to 93. We present three illustrative examples of linked lives: 1) the influence of earlier life social network characteristics (size and closeness) on later life health outcomes; 2) the influence of social position (race and education) on relationship quality with spouse/partner and child over time; and 3) the influence of transitioning from working to retirement on network structure (size and geographic proximity). Findings illustrate linked lives through multiple instances of social relationships and as influenced by various contexts. Further, the consequences of linked lives for mental health are consistent across the life course while influence on physical health is variable. The Convoy Model presents key concepts to situate the ways in which linked lives form and function at various levels and across multiple contexts to have far reaching effects on life outcomes.

The Influence of Gendered Social Position on Cohort Differences in Smoking Among Older Mexican Adults

Disparities throughout the life course, including social position, result in gendered pathways to health, which ultimately result in gender disparities in late life. Using data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study, we explore the concept of gendered social position over the life course (educational achievement, marital history, employment history) and its association with smoking status in old age (current, former, never). We compare two cohorts by gender, those aged 60 to 71 in 2001 (n=4,383) and 60-71 in 2012 (n=5,970), as these cohorts experienced vastly different life courses. Overall, current smoking decreased from 2001 to 2012, but men consistently report higher rates of current and past smoking, compared to women. This presentation will widen the lens of gender to consider the influence of social position established over the life course, on gender differences in smoking, a risk factor for poor health and function in old age.

Degree of affinity among dairy heifers affects access to feed supplementation

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of social position and degree of affinity among heifers attempting to access limited feed supplement. This study was divided into two stages: (1) observation of behaviour at the paddock and (2) arena tests. In stage 1, we measured socio-positive interactions (licking and frequency of proximity among animals) and agonistic interactions in a herd of nineteen dairy heifers. The frequency of proximity between animals of different dominance ranks was used as a measure of the degree of affinity. This measure was considered for two arena tests. In the first we compared pairs with high (PHda, n = 7) and low (PLda, n = 7) degree of affinity. In the second arena test a third neutral middle-ranking animal was included, and we compared triads with a pair with high (THda, n = 7) or low (TLda, n = 7) degree of affinity. In the arena tests, feed supplementation was offered to pairs and triads, and latency to access food, time spent at the feeder, and agonistic interactions were measured. The degree of affinity influenced (p < 0.05) the time at the feeder of the low-ranking animals at the arena test with pairs, but not with triads. Low-ranking animals remained longer (10.36 vs. 8.96 min; p ≤ 0.02) at the feeder in pairs with high degree of affinity. However, latency wasn’t affected by rank nor by affinity among pairs (p ≥ 0.13) High-ranking animals remained longer at the feeder in both treatments (p ≤ 0.02). The latency of low-ranking animals to access the food tended (p = 0.084) to be lower in triads of low degree of affinity. Despite degree of affinity, low-ranking animals were the main victims of aggressive interactions throughout the experimental period. We concluded that the degree of affinity among animals could influence access to food, but that it could not overcome the effects of social dominance.

Age and body mass are more important than horns to determine the social position of dairy cows

The aims of this observational study were to (1) define which animal’s phenotypic characteristics determine social position in the context of a commercial organic farm with mixed herd (horned and non-horned cows) and (2) determine the influence of social position on the time at the feeder. We took the following measurements from 27 dairy cows in lactation: body mass, age, body condition score, body length, withers height, distance between horns, horn circumference and length. Replacement and time at the feeder were recorded for 1 h at the time of supplementation. Dominance values for each animal were calculated and the herd was divided into three social categories: dominant (D), intermediate (I) and subordinate (S). Age, body length and body mass influenced (p < 0.001) dominance value of all animals. The presence of horn influenced (p = 0.034) the dominance value of the I and S animals because it was a unique characteristic of these categories. Dominant (84.3%) and intermediate (75.2%) animals spend more time (p < 0.05) at the feeder than the subordinate (59.5%); however, dominant animals tended (p = 0.093) to spend more time at the feeder than the intermediate animals. The social position of an animal was influenced by its age, body mass and body length, and its social position influenced the time at the feeder.

Effects of social position and competition on tree transpiration of a natural mixed forest in Chongqing, China

Key message This study explored the influence of social position and competition on tree transpiration using spatial structure parameters and competition indices.

Social Position Influencing the Water Perception Gap Between Local Leaders and Constituents in a Socio‐Hydrological System

AbstractHow well city leaders represent their constituents and meet their needs are key concerns in transitioning to local sustainable water governance. To date, however, there is little research documenting the influence of social position between elected leaders who make policy, career staff water managers who design and operate systems and implement policies, and the members of the public whose individual water use behaviors are important drivers of water sustainability outcomes. In this study, we ask: “How does social position explain variation in water perceptions and concerns between different actors in a socio‐hydrological system?” Using a mixed method approach with survey and interview data, we explore the ways that positioning within the governance system, geographic context, and citizen engagement in local government mediate perceptions of the urban water system. Regardless of local biophysical water supply conditions, residents showed most concern about future water shortages and high water costs, while their leaders were consistently most concerned about deteriorating local water infrastructure. Further, constituents who received water‐related information directly from public utility mailings or served on community committees and boards had perceptions that were more aligned with leaders' concerns. The importance of social structure over natural and built environments in shaping water issue perceptions underscores the value of social analysis in socio‐hydrology studies. Further, practitioners looking to increase consensus for a transition to sustainable water governance might work to develop institutional mechanisms to increase opportunities for water user involvement in local water system governance.

Passion on the plate: A critical reflection on career change and personal cheffing

ABSTRACTThe culinary profession and discourses advocating the pursuit of passions have gained prominence in the American cultural landscape, along with having captured scholarly attention. Yet, research on career changes into culinary entrepreneurship is lacking. Drawing on interview and survey data, this article examines career changers' motivations for pursuing personal cheffing. Participants wanted to follow their passion, and they also were attracted to the autonomy and flexibility of personal cheffing. Most were satisfied with their new work, but this study also suggests some limitations to discourses promoting the pursuit of self-fulfillment through work. The physical toll and low and/or unstable pay were not ideal, and not everyone can feasibly prioritize self-fulfillment. Moreover, the social/cultural context and/or one's social position influence what passions are seen as possible careers and what activities feel self-fulfilling. The impetus to do what you love has the potential to reproduce existing social divisions and inequalities.

Social network analysis in medical education.

Humans are fundamentally social beings. The social systems within which we live our lives (families, schools, workplaces, professions, friendship groups) have a significant influence on our health, success and well-being. These groups can be characterised as networks and analysed using social network analysis. Social network analysis is a mainly quantitative method for analysing how relationships between individuals form and affect those individuals, but also how individual relationships build up into wider social structures that influence outcomes at a group level. Recent increases in computational power have increased the accessibility of social network analysis methods for application to medical education research. Social network analysis has been used to explore team-working, social influences on attitudes and behaviours, the influence of social position on individual success, and the relationship between social cohesion and power. This makes social network analysis theories and methods relevant to understanding the social processes underlying academic performance, workplace learning and policy-making and implementation in medical education contexts. Social network analysis is underused in medical education, yet it is a method that could yield significant insights that would improve experiences and outcomes for medical trainees and educators, and ultimately for patients.

Social participation and mortality: does social position in civic groups matter?

BackgroundSocial participation is known to predict longevity. However, little is known about the effect of social participation according to an individual’s position in civic groups. We evaluated the influence of social position on mortality, using data from a large cohort of Japanese older adults (the AGES cohort).MethodsOf 14,804 individuals aged 65 years and older enrolled in the AGES, 14,286 individuals were followed up for approximately 5 years from 2003 to 2008. We performed inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) Cox proportional hazards regression with multiple imputation of missing values to compute hazard ratios (HR) for all-cause mortality according to the individual’s position in the community organization(s) to which they belonged. We examined participation in the following civic groups: neighborhood association/senior citizen club/fire-fighting team, religious group, political organization or group, industrial or trade association, volunteer group, citizen or consumer group, hobby group, and sports group or club. The values for IPTW were computed based on demographic variables, socioeconomic status, and self-reported medical condition.ResultsDuring 22,718 person-years of follow-up for regular members of community groups and 14,014 person-years of follow-up for participants in leadership positions, 479 deaths and 214 deaths were observed, respectively. Relative to regular members, crude HR for all-cause mortality for occupying leadership positions (e.g. president, manager, or having administrative roles) was 0.72 (95 % CI:0.62–0.85). The IPTW-HR was 0.88 (95 % CI: 0.79–0.99) for participants occupying leadership positions.ConclusionsHolding leadership positions in community organization(s) may be more beneficial to health than being regular members.

The Dynamics of Professional Identity

The aim of this article is to analyse how journalists' professional identity is related to their attitude towards PR. The focus is how—and to what extent—journalistic ideology, organizational belonging and the individual's social position influence journalists' perception that other journalists working with PR lower the trustworthiness of journalism. The analyses rest on data from the Swedish Journalist Survey 2011, which is a national representative survey of Swedish journalists. The results show that journalists in general embrace a hostile attitude towards journalists who start working as PR practitioners. However, those who have worked as a journalist for fewer years or have journalistic ideals promoting the amusement function of journalism, or have worked as a freelance, or been employed in an organization producing newsletters, as well as female journalists, weaken this posture. The article concludes with a discussion on how the results could be understood in relation to recent changes in journalism's power and prerequisites, and how a professional identity might function as a form of resistance.

Social participation and mental health: moderating effects of gender, social role and rurality

BackgroundPrevious studies have reported that older people’s social participation has positive effects on their health. However, some studies showed that the impacts of social participation on health differ by gender. We sought to examine whether the effects of social participation on mental health differ for men and women in a Japanese population. We also examined the moderating influence of social position within the organization as well as urban/rural locality.MethodsWe used two waves of the Aichi Gerontological Evaluation Study’s longitudinal survey, which targeted residents with aged 65 years or over (n = 2,728) in a central part of Japan. The first wave survey was conducted in 2003, and the second wave in 2006. Depressive symptoms of the study participants were assessed using the short version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). A multilevel logistic regression model was used with individual-level as level 1 and the school district-level as level 2.ResultsWe found that higher social participation and performing key roles in the organization had protective effects on depressive symptoms for women. However, there were no main effects of these variables for the mental health of men. We found an interaction between social participation, organizational position, and rural residence among men only. That is, men who occupied leadership positions in organizations reported better mental health, but only in rural areas.ConclusionsOur findings support the notion that increasing the opportunities for social participation improves older people’s heath, especially for women. However, in the rural Japanese context, offering men meaningful roles within organizations may be important.

The Influence of Social Position on Sensemaking about Organizational Change

Traditionally, scholars have examined the influence of actors’ sensemaking on context; in this paper, we explore the reverse. Employing Bourdieu’s theory of practice we explore how actors’ unique contexts, as encapsulated by their social positions, provide the important “raw materials” for their sensemaking about organizational change. Drawing on a case study of three focal actors, located in different social positions in the National Health Service in England, but tasked with enacting a common organizational change, we explore how actors’ capital endowments and dispositions shape their sensemaking about organizational change. We conclude by developing a theoretical model of the influence of social position on sensemaking about organizational change and discuss the practical implications of paying closer attention to the social positions of actors engaged as change agents

Offline netwerken, online pesten

Offline networks, online bullying: a social network analysis of cyberbullying in a school context Offline networks, online bullying: a social network analysis of cyberbullying in a school context Young adolescents increasingly bully each other in ‘cyberspace’, which has raised a significant amount of academic attention. The present study contributes to this body of research by linking cyberbullying to young people’s offline social relationships. It considers the influence of social position on victimization, and the interactions between online victims and perpetrators. For this purpose an entire grade of 174 pupils, age 12 and 13, was surveyed. The pupil’s social networks were analyzed to predict who is being victimized and by whom adolescents are cyberbullied. Results indicate that victims of cyberbullying have fewer mutual friends at school, regardless of traditional bullying involvement. In contrast, their number of mutual ‘best friends’ does not significantly differ. Furthermore, cyberbullying proves to be a true extension of offline bullying; victims are being bullied by the same perpetrators offline and online, which is particularly problematic. In sum, offline relationships and interactions do influence online bullying.

Socioeconomic Position and Stage of Cervical Cancer in Danish Women Diagnosed 2005 to 2009

To reduce social disparities in cervical cancer survival, it is important to understand the mechanisms by which social position influence cancer prognosis. We investigated the relations between socioeconomic factors, comorbidity, time since last Papanicolau smear, and stage at diagnosis in Danish women with cervical cancer. We identified 1,651 cervical cancer cases diagnosed 2005 to 2009 from the Danish Gynaecological Cancer Database. Date of diagnosis, clinical cancer stage, tumor histology, and treating hospital were retrieved; Pap smear registrations were obtained from the Danish Pathology Register; data on comorbid conditions from the Danish National Patients Register; and data on education, income, and cohabitation from Statistics Denmark. Logistic regression models were used to analyze the relations between socioeconomic factors and cancer stage in a four-step model, with stepwise inclusion of mediators. The risk for advanced (stage II-IV) compared with early-stage cancer (stage I) was increased for women with short and medium education (OR = 2.40; 1.67-3.45 and 1.76; 1.44-2.16), women living without a partner (OR = 1.31; 1.10-1.55), and older women (OR = 1.07; 1.06-1.08 increase per year). The relations between socioeconomic factors and cancer stage were partly mediated by time since last Pap smear test and to a lesser extent by comorbidity. Shorter education, living alone, and older age were related to advanced stage cervical cancer, due partly to Pap smear testing and less to comorbidity. It is relevant to further investigate how to decrease delay in cervical cancer diagnosis among disadvantaged groups.

The ethics of everyday practice in primary medical care: responding to social health inequities

BackgroundSocial and structural inequities shape health and illness; they are an everyday presence within the doctor-patient encounter yet, there is limited ethical guidance on what individual physicians should do. This paper draws on a study that explored how doctors and their professional associations ought to respond to the issue of social health inequities.ResultsSome see doctors as bound by a notion of care that is blind to a patient's social position, while others respond to this issue through invoking notions of justice and human rights where access to care is a prime focus. Both care and justice orientations however conceal important tensions linked to the presence of bioethical principles underpinning these. Other normative ethical theories like deontology, virtue ethics and utilitarianism do not provide adequate guidance on the problem of social health inequities either.ConclusionThis paper explores if Bauman's notion of "forms of togetherness" provides the basis of a relational ethical theory that can help to develop a response to social health inequities of relevance to individual physicians. This theory goes beyond silence on the influence of social position of health and avoids amoral regulatory approaches to monitoring equity of care provision.

Deliberation, East meets West: Exploring the cultural dimension of citizen deliberation

The current conceptualization of deliberation may represent Western Enlightenment ideals in that it values rationality, publicity, equality, argumentation and reasoning. This essay explores the potential of deliberative democracy in non-Western contexts, such as the Confucian East Asian societies where it is often considered that the public sphere is less developed and people are reluctant to engage in public argumentation. Herein, several cultural traits of the collectivist East Asian societies relating to deliberation are identified, including the lower value of public talk, the strong influence of social position in talk and the unique traits of their cognitive reasoning processes. Considering these traits, the promises and perils of deliberation in the East Asian context are discussed.

Zusammenhänge zwischen der Soziallage, Empowermentprozessen und der Entwicklung psychischer Gesundheit

The aim of this paper is to deepen our knowledge about empirical evidence of empowerment on the basis of follow-up data from mother-child rehabilitation centres. The study focusses on three questions: i) to what extent can psychological health in different socioeconomic groups be improved by the intervention?, ii) Is there an impact of social position on the success of empowerment and iii) Is there any relevance of empowerment for sustainable improvement of psychological health? The study is based on data from 6 095 patients of 39 mother-child rehabilitation centres in Germany, collected up to one year after intervention. Empowerment was assessed by two self-defined scales, measuring positive changes i) in living circumstances, such as partnership or household ('Verhältnis-Empowerment') and ii) in health-related behaviours and competencies, such as better coping with problems and higher health awareness ('Verhaltens-Empowerment'). Health status was assessed by psychological symptoms and measured by SCL-K-9, a short form of the SCL-90-R. The socioeconomic position was determined by cluster analysis, the influence of social position and empowerment for psychological health was computed by analysis of regression. Before intervention mothers from the lower class showed higher degrees of psychological symptoms. After intervention they reached higher short-term effects, but six months later psychological symptoms increased again. In particular improvement of health-related behaviours and competencies was associated with better psychological health. The highest impact on health was found among mothers from the middle and lower class. These mothers, however, showed less success in optimising health-related behaviours and competencies. Twelve months after treatment the health-related impact of empowerment decreased. The theoretical evidence of empowerment could be empirically confirmed. However, decreasing health effects of empowerment after twelve months show that supporting help after clinical intervention is necessary to maintain the positive impact of empowerment. Only small differences in empowerment between lower and middle class lead to the conclusion that terms of social class are less appropriate for the clinical sample of mothers investigated in this study.

Childhood social position and associations between environmental exposures and health outcomes

Growing evidence indicates that environmental exposures are more prevalent among socially disadvantaged groups. We investigated the distribution of environmental exposures and health outcomes in preschool children, and examined the role of social position on their associations. We analysed data from a cross-sectional study on 968 preschool children from three districts in the Ruhr Area and one rural community in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2000. Parents filled in a questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, environmental exposures, respiratory infections and allergic diseases. Residential annual total suspended particulate matter (TSP) mass concentrations were derived from a small-scale interpolation model. Lung function, allergic sensitisation and immunologic function were assessed. We analysed the associations between environmental exposures and health outcomes in social subgroups with logistic regression. High TSP concentrations at the home address and unfavourable living conditions were more prevalent in the socially disadvantaged groups, while allergic and respiratory infectious diseases were reported more frequently in the privileged groups. The odds ratio for the association between TSP and history of allergic diseases was 1.17 (95% CI 0.95-1.45) in children without immigration background and 0.71 (95% CI 0.53-0.95) with immigration background. Heterogeneity for exposure-outcome associations was also seen between TSP and lung function as well as unfavourable living conditions and allergic diseases. We found evidence for an influence of social position on environment-health associations. Possible explanations for heterogeneity include social group-specific over- and underreporting and effect measure modification, which need to be taken into account when designing and analysing environmental health studies.

Socio-economic status covaries with central nervous system serotonergic responsivity as a function of allelic variation in the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region

It was reported recently that exposure to an adverse rearing environment lowers central nervous system (CNS) serotonergic activity in a nonhuman primate (rhesus monkeys), but only among animals having the shorter variant of a functional, biallelic repeat polymorphism in the regulatory region of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene. Because repeat variants of the same core sequence affect transcriptional efficiency of the 5-HTT gene in humans, we examined whether biallelic variation in the 5-HTT gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) acts analogously to modulate a previously described association between socio-economic status (SES) and CNS serotonergic function. The 5-HTTLPR was genotyped in 139 adult men and women (n=75 and 64) who were administered a standard neuroendocrine challenge to assess central serotonergic responsivity (plasma prolactin (PRL) response to the serotonin releasing agent, fenfluramine). Socio-economic status was estimated from reported income and years of education. Hierarchical linear regression showed serotonergic responsivity to be predicted by the interaction of 5-HTTLPR genotype and SES (p=0.018). Individuals of lower income and less education had lower peak PRL concentrations following administration of fenfluramine than did subjects ranking higher on these dimensions, but only among persons possessing at least one 5-HTTLPR short allele. Within genotype, SES covaried moderately with the PRL response to fenfluramine among subjects who were homozygous for the short allele (r18=0.50, p<0.03). A similar association was present at lesser magnitude in heterozygotes (r70=0.24, p<0.05) and absent among subjects homozygous for the long allele (r45=−0.04, n.s.). Findings were comparable for men and women and persisted on re-analysis restricted to persons without current Axis I psychopathology. We conclude that allelic variation at 5-HTTLPR moderates the influence of social position on CNS serotonergic responsivity.