Influence Of Structure Research Articles

Exploring the Influence of Social Structures on the Health of Individuals

Exploring the Influence of Social Structures on the Health of Individuals

Social and Emotional Wellbeing Among Young People; the Mitigating Role of Ecological Domains

To examine the role of neighbourhood, what Bronfenbrenner describes as an element in the exosystem, as a protective asset for adolescents’ social and emotional wellbeing. The study used a subset of national data reported by adolescents and their parents from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). A linear mixed-effect model was used to estimate the association between neighbourhood indicators and trajectories in a measure of social and emotional wellbeing (the SDQ Total Difficulties score) at ages 12–13, 14–15 and 16–17, controlling for age and sex, peer and family relationships and household material resources. The analysis revealed that parents’ perceptions of belonging and their subjective assessments of the condition of housing in the neighbourhood, as well as externally sourced data on neighbourhood accessibility and socio-economic status, were significantly associated with adolescents’ total difficulties scores over time. The findings revealed the role of neighbourhood level protective assets as a potential influence on adolescents’ social and emotional wellbeing. Greater attention should be given to understanding the complex interactions between the resources mobilised by individuals and their families, and the influence of wider environments and social structures on young people’s social and emotional wellbeing.

Local knowledge and unliveable narratives: How insights from family caregiving narratives can inform locally relevant ageing policy

Background and objectivesAccommodating local knowledge in national ageing policy demonstrates a country's intention to preserve local values, including cultural values of older adults' care. However, including local knowledge must provide space for nuanced and adaptive responses to it so that ageing policies can support families in adapting to changes and challenges around caregiving. Research design and methodsThis study interviewed members of 11 multigenerational households in Bali to understand the ways family carers use and resist local knowledge about multigenerational caregiving for older adults. ResultsUsing qualitative analysis of the interplay between personal and public narratives, we found that narratives of local knowledge provide moral imperatives related to care, which shape expectations and a standard for evaluating the younger generations' behaviour. While most of the participants' accounts fit comfortably with these local narratives, some described challenges in which their life circumstances prevented them from identifying themselves as a virtuous carer. Discussion and implicationsFindings provide insight into the role of local knowledge in constructing caregiving function, carers' identities, family relationships, families' adaptation, and the influence of social structure (e.g., poverty and gender) on caregiving issues in Bali. These local narratives both confirm and dispute findings from other locations.

What is social structural explanation? A causal account

AbstractSocial scientists appeal to various “structures” in their explanations including public policies, economic systems, and social hierarchies. Significant debate surrounds the explanatory relevance of these factors for various outcomes such as health, behavioral, and economic patterns. This paper provides a causal account of social structural explanation that is motivated by Haslanger (2016). This account suggests that social structure can be explanatory in virtue of operating as a causal constraint, which is a causal factor with unique characteristics. A novel causal framework is provided for understanding these explanations–this framework addresses puzzles regarding the mysterious causal influence of social structure, how to understand its relation to individual choice, and what makes it the main explanatory (and causally responsible) factor for various outcomes.

Moderating influence of classroom social goal structure between prosocial behavior and victimization from others

Moderating influence of classroom social goal structure between prosocial behavior and victimization from others

The human development and capability approach: A counter theory to human capital discourse in promoting low SES students’ agency in education

This discursive article discusses some of the inherent and durable problems associated with human capital discourses in education. While human capital is regarded as a core element in ensuring international competitiveness, this discourse greatly jeopardizes the ability of lower SES students to acquire agency through schooling. This is due to its two self-contradictory assumptions: a profit-based ideology and a neglect of the influence of social structure on educational inequality, which greatly contribute to educational inequity. We argue that educational inequity can be improved through two complementary perspectives, which address the influence of structural constraints on educational results, as argued by Bourdieusian academics, and which optimize the advantages of agency, as proposed by the human development and capability approach.

How does power shape district health management team responsiveness to public feedback in low- and middle-income countries: an interpretive synthesis.

Responsiveness is a core element of World Health Organization's health system framework, considered important for ensuring inclusive and accountable health systems. System-wide responsiveness requires system-wide action, and district health management teams (DHMTs) play critical governance roles in many health systems. However, there is little evidence on how DHMTs enhance health system responsiveness. We conducted this interpretive literature review to understand how DHMTs receive and respond to public feedback and how power influences these processes. A better understanding of power dynamics could strengthen responsiveness and improve health system performance. Our interpretive synthesis drew on English language articles published between 2000 and 2021. Our search in PubMed, Google Scholar and Scopus combined terms related to responsiveness (feedback and accountability) and DHMTs (district health manager) yielding 703 articles. We retained 21 articles after screening. We applied Gaventa's power cube and Long's actor interface frameworks to synthesize insights about power. Our analysis identified complex power practices across a range of interfaces involving the public, health system and political actors. Power dynamics were rooted in social and organizational power relationships, personal characteristics (interests, attitudes and previous experiences) and world-views (values and beliefs). DHMTs' exercise of 'visible power' sometimes supported responsiveness; however, they were undermined by the 'invisible power' of public sector bureaucracy that shaped generation of responses. Invisible power, manifesting in the subconscious influence of historical marginalization, patriarchal norms and poverty, hindered vulnerable groups from providing feedback. We also identified 'hidden power' as influencing what feedback DHMTs received and from whom. Our work highlights the influence of social norms, structures and discrimination on power distribution among actors interacting with, and within, the DHMT. Responsiveness can be strengthened by recognising and building on actors' life-worlds (lived experiences) while paying attention to the broader context in which these life-worlds are embedded.

Global change may make hostile – Higher ambient temperature and nitrogen availability increase ant aggression

Behaviour is a response of organisms to internal and external stimuli and comprises various activities such as searching for food. Aggression is important in such activities, for example, improving the chances of winning competition for food, but animals differ in their level of aggression. This behavioural plasticity allows individuals to respond to environmental changes and is important for the survival of animals. It may be an important asset in facing global changes, which affect all organisms, for example, via rising temperature and eutrophication. The latter have steadily increased since 1900, especially in high elevations. Their effects may first become visible in stationary organisms such as ants because their nests are strictly associated with the conditions on site. Here, we analysed eight populations of the high-elevation ant Tetramorium alpestre along several elevations spanning the European Alps. We conducted a correlative approach and analysed several genetic and environmental proxies, namely within- and across-colony genetic relatedness, cuticular hydrocarbons, body size, across-colony geographic distance, air temperature, and worker nitrogen values additionally to within-population aggressive behaviour. We hypothesised that a) these proxies and aggressive behaviour differ among populations and that b) one or more of these proxies influence aggression. We found that a) some environmental proxies and aggression differed among populations but not the genetic proxies and that b) air temperature and worker nitrogen-isotope values correlated positively with worker aggression. The results indicate an environmental but not social-structural influence on this ant's aggressive behaviour, even though social structure varied among populations (single- and multiple-queened colonies). We infer that global change affects aggression in our study system and propose five mutually non-exclusive scenarios to explain the behavioural change mechanistically. Using the space-for-time principle, we speculate that aggression may increase due to future increases in temperature and nitrogen availability in this ant and other species living in high elevations.

CHILDREN’S CONCEPTUALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD IN RELATION TO PLAY ACTIVITIES

Children’s play articulates the social ideologies and discourses of childhood and play. This study combined espousals from childhood studies, and play theories to analyze children’s conceptualization of childhood play, and trace social influences of their conceptions. The research consisting of 112 fifth-grade students who live in an urban environment indicated that their conceptualization of childhood referred to many types of play. In contrast to the discourse of the competent child, they almost exclusively appropriated the romantic discourse of the innocent child who plays outdoors with other children or alone, unsupervised by adults, far from institutionalized learning, intellectual games, urban activities, and new technology toys. Their conceptualizations reflected gender stereotypes of play and the influence of a competitive social structure.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0476/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Impact of farmers’ social relationships on productivity: a multiplex network analysis

Abstract An individual’s productivity is strongly related to work- and non-work-related interactions. Thus, the literature on farmers’ productivity often explores single-layer networks that illustrate the single categories of social relationships. In this study, we investigated farmers’ productivity using a multiplex structure underlying social interaction networks. Relational data were obtained from farmers in four different categories of social relationships. The multiplex network was analysed by applying multiplex degree centrality and layer-by-layer comparison. Also, power and role were analysed through the use of external data by determining their intra-layer correlation. The findings show that diverse types of relationships exist together and they positively affect farmers’ productivity in multiple ways and enhance their innovation capacity. Only 6 out of the 73 farmers had high-degree centrality (> 10), with 18–63$\%$ relevance for the six farmers in the two layers—farming advice (FA) and loans (LO) layers—that the farmers considered important to their productivity. These farmers were more likely to be productive and help improve the productivity of others linked to them. Further, 62$\%$ of the edges in the social gathering and personal advice layers were similar, whereas only 3$\%$ of those in the FA and LO layers were similar, confirming the significance of the latter layers. The influence of social structures on farmers’ productivity implies that social connections enhance farmers’ confidence. The external data further confirm that the formation of some links depends on trust and power, whereas others do not.

A novel consensus reaching method for MCGDM in social network with intuitionistic grey linguistic numbers

PurposeThe existing consensus reaching mechanisms ignore the influence of social triangle structure on the decision-makers’ (DMs') weights, and the consensus reaching process (CRP) fails to fully reflect the DMs' subjectivity and can be time consuming and costly. To solve these issues, a novel CRP for multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problems with intuitionistic grey linguistic numbers (IGLNs) is proposed in this paper.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a weight calculation method is proposed by analysing the triangle structure of DMs' social network and scale of adjacent nodes. Then, a consensus degree index based on three-level polygon area is defined and applied to identify the inconsistent DMs. Finally, the feedback mechanism based on particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm under grey linguistic environment is developed, where subjective trust relationships in social network is utilised to determine the adjustment coefficient.FindingsThe advantages of the proposed method are highlighted by two practical applications of the evaluation of tunnel construction method and the selection of a hotel for the centralised isolation. Comparision analysis and numerical simulation are performed to reveal the effectiveness and applicability of the method.Practical implicationsThe proposed model can not only reflect the effect of triangle structure in social network on DMs' weights, but also reduce the time and cost of decision-making.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper is to propose a new MCGDM model based on intuitionistic grey linguistic numbers, which can handle the problem of inconsistency of information more effectively.

Health Institutions and the Political Determinants of Health

Health institutions, such as hospitals and hospital systems, are investing in programs to address upstream drivers of health. These drivers include the macrolevel forces that comprise social-structural influences on health institutions; government policies; and the social, physical, economic, and environmental factors that affect health. Historically, health institutions have mostly invested in mitigating the harmful aspects of social determinants of health—the most publicized upstream driver of health—for their patients.

Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship finds linkages between religiosity and vaccination practices but neglects the role of religious, social structural influences. The relationship between religious beliefs and immunization in the context of closed religious communities remains understudied. We use a survey of Amish and Old Order Mennonite parents to explore relationships between religious belief, group closure, perceived vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine uptake. The results indicate higher group and individual closure levels are positively related to having unvaccinated children and vaccine hesitancy. Perceptions of vaccine effectiveness partially explain these associations. Healthcare providers should consider constructing culturally competent programs to reach closed communities.

Designing for Plurality in Democracy by Building Reflexivity

Designing for Plurality in Democracy by Building Reflexivity

Market-based versus bank-based financial structure in China: From the perspective of financial risk

The evolution of financial structure is not only a persistent issue but also a key factor affecting the financial risk. Concerns over the financial structure evolution and risk prevention have been voiced, but studies documented the interaction between financial risk and financial structure are still in their infancy. Therefore, this study investigates it by using detrended cross-correlation analysis, its multifractal asymmetric version, and detrended cross-correlation based on time-delay. Empirical research finds that the market-based financial structure increases financial risk in China. The characteristics of financial risk and financial structure are asymmetry, multifractal, bidirectional transmission, and nonlinear causality. The financial structure's influence on financial risk is strengthened within 15 months, while financial risk's influence on the financial structure strengths within 7 months. These findings support financial supervisory authorities to seek effective strategies to facilitate the evolution of the financial structure and establish a more stable financial system.

Effect of Topology and Geometric Structure on Collective Motion in the Vicsek Model

In this work, we explore how the emergence of collective motion in a system of particles is influenced by the structure of their domain. Using the Vicsek model to generate flocking, we simulate two-dimensional systems that are confined based on varying obstacle arrangements. The presence of obstacles alters the topological structure of the domain where collective motion occurs, which, in turn, alters the scaling behavior. We evaluate these trends by considering the scaling exponent and critical noise threshold for the Vicsek model, as well as the associated diffusion properties of the system. We show that obstacles tend to inhibit collective motion by forcing particles to traverse the system based on curved trajectories that reflect the domain topology. Our results highlight key challenges related to the development of a more comprehensive understanding of geometric structure's influence on collective behavior.

Ambiguity-incorporated opinion formation model for multi-risk large-group emergency decision-making in social networks

PurposeVarious decision opinions comprise the foundation of emergency decision-making. However, decision-makers have difficulty establishing trust relationships within a short time because of decision-making groups being temporary. The paper aims to develop an ambiguity-incorporated opinion formation model that considers ambiguous opinions on relevant risks from a psychological perspective during the consensus reaching process.Design/methodology/approachAddressing the problem of forming a consensus decision-making opinion in an ambiguous environment and relevant risk opinions, different social network structures were first proposed. Subsequently, psychological factors affecting the decision-makers' perception of ambiguous opinions and tolerance for ambiguity under the multi-risk factors were considered. Accordingly, an ambiguity-incorporated opinion formation model was proposed by considering the ambiguity and relevant opinions on multi-risk factors.FindingsA comparison between the ambiguity-incorporated opinion formation model and the F–J model illustrates the superiority of the proposed model. By applying the two types of network structures in the simulation process, the results indicate that the convergence of opinions will be affected by different decision-making network structures.Originality/valueThe research provides a novel opinion formation model incorporating psychological factors and relevant opinions in the emergency decision-making process and provides decision support for practitioners to quantify the influence of ambiguous opinions. The research allows the practitioners to be aware of the influence of different social network structures on opinion formation and avoid inaccurate opinion formation due to unreasonable grouping in emergency decision-making.

Investigation of the influence of social structure on ideology in the works of Pierre Bourdieu

The article discusses the main results of Pierre Bourdieu's research work on the reflection of social structure in ideology. The author described in detail such aspects of the topic as the mechanism of reproduction of the social structure through the social interaction of the main one on the habitus and the capital available to the subjects, which they seek to monopolize. It was noted that, according to Burde, the ideological field reproduces the social structure in an unrecognizable form. Attention is also paid to the issues of attitude to history, reflection in the worldview of the real and ideal, the social foundations of leadership, the indispensable conditions of which is compliance with the behavior of the leader to the habitus of the group. The main conclusions of the study are the following. According to Bourdieu, the ideological field reproduces the social structure in an unrecognizable form. The mechanism of assimilation is twofold: firstly, by occupying a certain position in the social hierarchy of classes, the agent will reproduce it in the ideological field; secondly, the struggle in the ideological field reproduces in euphemized forms the economic and political struggle between classes. Among other things, the ideology reflects not only the attitudes of the ruling elite, but also professional creators who seek to take advantage of the delegation of authority to define the social world. Bourdieu's work devoted to the representation of the past (history) is also analyzed as a reflection of the present and an instrument of ideological struggle.

Multiagent Diffusion and Opinion Dynamics Model Interaction Effects on Controversial Products

When controversial products are introduced, effective promotion efforts and eventual public acceptance require consideration of multiple factors such as existing social network structures, numbers of pioneers and their locations, and appropriate methods for product information diffusion. These factors have been the focus of marketing, investment and other studies for many years, most recently in computer information science. Researchers are especially motivated to understand diffusion processes for new technologies and controversial products within and across social networks. While many product diffusion simulation models have been proposed, most suffer from assumptions of unchanging internal agent attitudes toward products, no opinion exchanges between agents, and non-significant relationships between agent internal opinion attitudes and diffusion thresholds. In this paper we propose an opinion dynamics model that assumes both agent interaction and changes in agent attitudes over time. Social psychology theory is used to explain interactions between opinion and diffusion dynamics, with changing agent attitudes and behaviors affected by interpersonal relationship factors. Simulations were used to study dynamic diffusion processes involving controversial products (e.g., vaccines and genetically modified foods) in different social networks. Results indicate that the proposed model accurately reflects several kinds of social phenomena, including pioneer influences, rural marketing strategies, and the influence of social network structure. This effort to identify instances of product diffusion under various social conditions is offered in support of research in communication dynamics and social media-centered marketing strategies.

The Father's Role in Parenting: a Comparison of Different Cultures and Psychological Perspectives

Background: Despite the increasing attention to the role of the father and its importance in child development, little research has been done in this area compared to the mother's role. Methods: In this article, the father's role in child development was systematically reviewed from the perspective of different theoretical approaches as well as different cultures. Results: The findings showed that the role of men as fathers is changing and evolving from a mere breadwinner to a supporter. Most new generation fathers seek to participate in their children's lives and are more caregiving and emotionally responsive than the previous generation. Fathers have a unique role in raising children, which is different from the mothers’ role. The role of the father varies under the influence of culture and social structure. In Asia economic problems have changed the clear definition of the role of father. In the Middle East, Islamic beliefs determine the role of the father as the head of the family. In Europe, the role of the father as a participant and responsible person is improving. The modernization of society in Africa has complicated gaining a coherent and clear image of the father’s role for children. In North American countries, parents play an almost equal role in raising children. Expectations from fathers are vague in South America, but these expectations seem to be changing more rapidly. Conclusion: Studies confirm the important role of fathers in parenting from different psychological approaches and the change in men's definition of fatherhood. However, the father's roles are different in different cultural and social contexts.