Social Interaction Mechanisms Research Articles

Does Neighbourhood Ethnic Concentration in Early Life Affect Subsequent Labour Market Outcomes? A Study across Ethnic Groups in England and Wales

AbstractThe impact of neighbourhood ethnic concentration on ethnic minorities' outcomes is a contested topic, with mixed empirical results. In this paper, we use a large‐scale longitudinal dataset of England and Wales, covering a 40‐year period, to assess the impact of neighbourhood co‐ethnic concentration in childhood on subsequent adult labour market outcomes. We distinguish the five main minority groups in the UK and develop theoretical expectations about how social interaction mechanisms in the neighbourhood might influence their employment and social class outcomes, given different group (cultural values and ethnic capital) and individual (gender) characteristics. By separating in time explanatory and outcome variables and by controlling for factors that mediate or confound co‐ethnic concentration – such as neighbourhood deprivation, household resources in childhood (i.e. parental social class), and individuals' own education – our analytical model tackles potential problems of self‐selection and endogeneity. Among other findings, we show that greater concentration of co‐ethnics in the neighbourhood results in substantially lower labour market participation and lower social class for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women but better social class outcomes for Indian men. We link the outcomes for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women to cultural maintenance of more traditional norms, facilitated by greater social interaction. The results for Indian men, instead, suggest the positive role that high levels of group resources or ‘ethnic capital’ can play. Our study is, we believe, the first to demonstrate a role for co‐ethnic concentration in childhood in explaining Pakistani and Bangladeshi women's low labour market participation and Indian men's labour market success. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of developmental alcohol and valproic acid exposure on play behavior of ferrets

Exposure to alcohol and valproic acid (VPA) during pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and fetal valproate syndrome, respectively. Altered social behavior is a hallmark of both these conditions and there is ample evidence showing that developmental exposure to alcohol and VPA affect social behavior in rodents. However, results from rodent models are somewhat difficult to translate to humans owing to the substantial differences in brain development, morphology, and connectivity. Since the cortex folding pattern is closely related to its specialization and that social behavior is strongly influenced by cortical structures, here we studied the effects of developmental alcohol and VPA exposure on the play behavior of the ferret, a gyrencephalic animal known for its playful nature. Animals were injected with alcohol (3.5g/kg, i.p.), VPA (200mg/kg, i.p.) or saline (i.p) every other day during the brain growth spurt period, between postnatal days 10 and 30. The play behavior of pairs of the same experimental group was evaluated 3 weeks later. Both treatments induced significant behavioral differences compared to controls. Alcohol and VPA exposed ferrets played less than saline treated ones, but while animals from the alcohol group displayed a delay in start playing with each other, VPA treated ones spent most of the time close to one another without playing. These findings not only extend previous results on the effects of developmental exposure to alcohol and VPA on social behavior, but make the ferret a great model to study the underlying mechanisms of social interaction.

Ciberespaço, cotidiano e identidades: novas leituras sobre interações mediadas

Este artigo tem como proposta de discussão a análise dos mecanismos de interação social operacionalizados no ciberespaço. Nosso ponto de vista é direcionado pelo pensamento simmeliano sobre o jogo de interesses entre os indivíduos, e sujeitos da interação, quando colocados dentro de um novo espaço de relações como os ambientes virtuais e que constroem suas relações de cotidiano nesse meio. Esta seria não apenas um viés de análise possível da realidade social, como também, um operacionalizador das identidades e papéis sociais, rearranjadas e constituídas como processo de formação de uma unidade significativa do sujeito, dinamizadas pela constante idéia de um ser que opera no modo ‘on’e ‘off-line’ como forma de reforçar suas experiências. Nosso estudo considerará as contribuições de Erving Goffman, Jean Baudrillard, Anthony Giddens dentre outros.

МЕТОДОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ КОММУНИКАТИВНОЙ СОЛИДАРНОСТИ В СОЦИАЛЬНЫХ МЕДИА

In modern science, the topic of social solidarity is certainly relevant and is evolving. A special factor in the development of the theme is the active formation of social communities in not only the real world but also in the virtual one. The article aims to examine the methodological peculiarities of research of communicative solidarity in social media. The phenomenon of solidarity provides explicit opportunities for interpretation in the context of large-scale social transformations that have been taking place in our country in the past two decades. In a situation of deep and structural crises, peculiarities of social interactions based on solidarity get manifested most clearly. Synthesizing the defi nition of “solidarity” and characteristics of communicative solidarity, we can assert that in the broadest sense communicative solidarity arises in the course of transmission and reception of information based on harmony and mutual trust given that it also serves as the basis for unity of social actors pursuing a certain goal. Studies of communicative solidarity in social media should be based on the methodology of the network analysis (SNA). The main distinct feature of the latter from other approaches is that it focuses the researcher’s attention on the interaction within the network rather than on separate attributes and characteristics of the object under consideration. At the empirical level, application of the methodology of the network analysis in studies of the phenomenon of communicative solidarity makes it possible to defi ne the basic structural components of typical communicative practices in social media, to perform their typology and classifi cation in the context of defi nite situations. Moreover, the network analysis has extensive capabilities for analyzing textual information which is important enough for studies of communicative solidarity in social media. The network analysis of texts fi lls the structure of communicative solidarity with meaningful and essential characteristics. Such analysis helps identify new mechanisms of social interactions that affect the characteristics of communicative solidarity. The methodology of the network analysis can signifi cantly reduce research costs when it comes both to studies of social solidarity in diverse virtual forms as well as those of communication practices typical of network communitie

Inflexibility and independence: Phase transitions in the majority-rule model.

In this work we study opinion formation in a population participating in a public debate with two distinct choices. We consider three distinct mechanisms of social interactions and individuals' behavior: conformity, nonconformity, and inflexibility. The conformity is ruled by the majority-rule dynamics, whereas the nonconformity is introduced in the population as an independent behavior, implying the failure of attempted group influence. Finally, the inflexible agents are introduced in the population with a given density. These individuals present a singular behavior, in a way that their stubbornness makes them reluctant to change their opinions. We consider these effects separately and all together, with the aim to analyze the critical behavior of the system. We perform numerical simulations in some lattice structures and for distinct population sizes. Our results suggest that the different formulations of the model undergo order-disorder phase transitions in the same universality class as the Ising model. Some of our results are complemented by analytical calculations.

Farmers’ beliefs and voluntary vaccination schemes: Bluetongue in Dutch dairy cattle

BackgroundThis research utilizes the Reasoned Action Approach framework to study which beliefs drive the intention of farmers to participate in a voluntary vaccination scheme against Bluetongue. Scope and approachKnowing the driving beliefs can help in selecting an appropriate mix of policy instruments to enhance the participation rate and thereby improve the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of voluntary vaccination strategies. Results are used to evaluate the policy instruments used by the Dutch government in their 2008 vaccination strategy (communicative intervention and vaccine subsidization). Key findings and conclusionsThe paper posits that social interaction mechanisms, such as peer group pressure, might advance the design of voluntary vaccination strategies.

Does Social Interaction Improve Learning Outcomes? Evidence from Field Experiments on Massive Open Online Courses

This paper studies how service providers can design social interaction among participants and quantify the causal impact of that interaction on service quality. We focus on education and analyze whether encouraging social interaction among students improves learning outcomes in massive open online courses (MOOCs), which are a new service delivery channel with universal access at reduced, if not zero, cost. We analyze three randomized experiments in a MOOC with more than 30,317 students from 183 countries. Two experiments study large-group interaction by encouraging a random subset of students to visit the course discussion board. The majority of students treated in these experiments had higher social engagement, higher quiz completion rates, and higher course grades. Using these treatments as instrumental variables, we estimate that one additional board visit causally increases the probability that a student finishes the quiz in the subsequent week by up to 4.3%. The third experiment studies small-group interaction by encouraging a random subset of students to conduct one-on-one synchronous discussions. Students who followed through and actually conducted pairwise discussions increased their quiz completion rates and quiz scores by 10% in the subsequent week. Combining results from these three experiments, we provide recommendations for designing social interaction mechanisms to improve service quality.

Social Regulation of Gene Expression in Threespine Sticklebacks.

Identifying genes that are differentially expressed in response to social interactions is informative for understanding the molecular basis of social behavior. To address this question, we described changes in gene expression as a result of differences in the extent of social interactions. We housed threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) females in either group conditions or individually for one week, then measured levels of gene expression in three brain regions using RNA-sequencing. We found that numerous genes in the hindbrain/cerebellum had altered expression in response to group or individual housing. However, relatively few genes were differentially expressed in either the diencephalon or telencephalon. The list of genes upregulated in fish from social groups included many genes related to neural development and cell adhesion as well as genes with functions in sensory signaling, stress, and social and reproductive behavior. The list of genes expressed at higher levels in individually-housed fish included several genes previously identified as regulated by social interactions in other animals. The identified genes are interesting targets for future research on the molecular mechanisms of normal social interactions.

Addiction as an adaptation process in the brain, a view from neurobiology

Korpi, E. (2015). Addiction as an adaptation process in the brain, a view from neurobiology. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 91-94. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.194Research on the brain mechanisms of dependence on alcohol and drugs of abuse has rapidly advanced during the last two decades. We know the main processes, especially how the drugs are acting on their targets on brain cells, but this basic knowledge has not been well translated to better therapies. Not surprisingly, neurobiological addiction research is tackling the same fundamental questions as all neuropsychiatric research. For example, what are the roles of individual neuronal populations in different phases of addiction (development, maintenance, craving and compulsion, abstinence and relapse)? For preclinical research, novel neurogenetic methods now show great promise to answer at least some of the questions, but more innovative work is required to build models and find mechanisms for social and environmental interactions in addiction and to translate the inventions to clinical therapies. Addiction as a disease concept still gives a proper framework for this line of important research.

Does Social Interaction Improve Service Quality? Field Evidence from Massive Open Online Education

This paper studies how service providers can design social interaction among participants and quantify the causal impact of that interaction on service quality. We focus on education and analyze whether encouraging social interaction among students improves learning outcomes in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which are a new service delivery channel with universal access at reduced, if not zero, cost.We analyze three randomized experiments in a MOOC with more than 30, 317 students from 183 countries. Two experiments study large-group interaction by encouraging a random subset of students to visit the course discussion board. The majority of students treated in these experiments had higher social engagement, higher quiz completion rates, and higher course grades. Using these treatments as instrumental variables, we estimate that one additional board visit causally increases the probability that a student finishes the quiz in the subsequent week by up to 4.3%. The third experiment studies small-group interaction by encouraging a random subset of students to conduct one-on-one synchronous discussions. Students who followed through and actually conducted pairwise discussions increased their quiz completion rates and quiz scores by 10% in the subsequent week. Combining results from these three experiments, we provide recommendations for designing social interaction mechanisms to improve service quality

La construcción de cultura en la organización: una mirada desde las representaciones colectivas en Lionel Vallée

This article discusses the culture in organizations from the construction of social and immaterial goods. Based on the ideas of Lionel Vallee (1995), the purpose is to show that the configuration of immaterial and social goods in some organizations is an important aspect of their culture construction. Also, we show that the mechanisms of culture management and social interaction contribute with immaterial and social goods. From an ethnographic analysis in 16 organizations in Bogota it is indicated that these goods are affected by deliberate actions (associated with cultural management) or emerging (arising in social interaction). Finally, we propose as a future research to study the impact that may have inherent characteristics of organizations (eg industry, mission, hiring) in the generation and strengthening social and immaterial goods.

A motives framework of social media website use: A survey of young Americans

Social media is increasingly important in daily life and is an especially important social interaction mechanism for young people. Although research has been conducted evaluating user types based on motives for using social media, no such framework has been extended to social media websites. We extend previous research by evaluating the underlying structure of social media website usage motivations using a 13 item survey and evaluations from 19 different social media websites administered to 1686 young Americans. Using a multidimensional scaling approach, we uncover 2 major motive dimensions underlying social media website use: fun-related and content-specific. Based on the derived dimensions, we generate a graphical “quadrant” system for classifying social media websites and depict all 19 social media sites based on their quadrant. We propose that our quadrant system can be used by other researchers to further refine understanding of social media website usage motives.

Overview of Social Neuroscience

Complex social environments are the primary selective pressure for the human brain. Mankind must evolve specialized brain networks to rapidly process social information (e.g., identification of social signals). However, the exact cognition mechanisms remain unclear. Social neuroscience is the burgeoning field that studies social behavior and underlying neural structures by applying an interdisciplinary, multilevel analysis. It has been fruitful and contributed to fields ranging from psychiatry to economics since its first appearance as a term in 1992. In this article, we systematically review four major aspects of social neuroscience: social perception, cognition, regulation and interaction. Based on that empirical evidence, we try to answer each core question of sub-domains: Is there any specialization for social perception? Is social cognition unique to humans? Is social regulation ability universal or sensitive to individual difference? We conclude that social perception is at least functionally specialized; the mentalizing system is unique to humans and social regulation ability is sensitive to individual difference. Besides, the brain-to-brain coupling may be the core mechanism of social interaction. Finally, based on the present studies and emerging techniques, we point out two broad directions for future research.

How getting noticed helps getting on: successful attention capture doubles children's cooperative play.

Cooperative social interaction is a complex skill that involves maintaining shared attention and continually negotiating a common frame of reference. Privileged in human evolution, cooperation provides support for the development of social-cognitive skills. We hypothesize that providing audio support for capturing playmates' attention will increase cooperative play in groups of young children. Attention capture was manipulated via an audio-augmented toy to boost children's attention bids. Study 1 (48 6- to 11-year-olds) showed that the augmented toy yielded significantly more cooperative play in triads compared to the same toy without augmentation. In Study 2 (33 7- to 9-year-olds) the augmented toy supported greater success of attention bids, which were associated with longer cooperative play, associated in turn with better group narratives. The results show how cooperation requires moment-by-moment coordination of attention and how we can manipulate environments to reveal and support mechanisms of social interaction. Our findings have implications for understanding the role of joint attention in the development of cooperative action and shared understanding.

Endogenous peer effects: local aggregate or local average?

We develop a unified model embedding different behavioral mechanisms of social interactions and design a statistical model selection test to differentiate between them in empirical applications. This framework is applied to study peer effects in education (effort in studying) and sport activities for adolescents in the United States. We find that, for education, students tend to conform to the social norm of their friends while, for sport activities, both the social multiplier and the social norm effect matter.

Culture‐Inclusive Theories of Self and Social Interaction: The Approach of Multiple Philosophical Paradigms

AbstractIn view of the fact that culture‐inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky (1927). Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” (Shweder et al., 1998), the Mandala Model of Self (Hwang, 2011a,b) and Face and Favor Model (Hwang, 1987, 2012) were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can be applied to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars (Hwang, 2012), this article illustrates how to construct culture‐inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture‐inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods.

From Personal Attitudes to Public Opinion

A model of a social network–based attitude diffusion system in the context of activity and travel choice behavior is presented. The principal mechanisms contributing to attitude formation were identified, and mathematical models to capture these processes were developed. The primary contributions of this research are (a) the modeling of attitude diffusion according to social and learning mechanisms and (b) the evolution of these attitudes over time in a lattice neighborhood social network. The agent-based framework presented is sufficiently general and flexible to allow the building of a more complete representation of information diffusion and attitude formation within activity and travel behavior choice dimensions, for example, mode choice or departure time choice. The framework allows the extension of the presented approach with additional social network structures, information sources, and social interaction mechanisms in the physical and virtual realms or the extension and modification of the presented approach to simulate the impact of information-based management strategies.

Mechanisms of disturbed emotion processing and social interaction in borderline personality disorder: state of knowledge and research agenda of the German Clinical Research Unit

The last two decades have seen a strong rise in empirical research in the mechanisms of emotion dysregulation in borderline personality disorder. Major findings comprise structural as well as functional alterations of brain regions involved in emotion processing, such as amygdala, insula, and prefrontal regions. In addition, more specific mechanisms of disturbed emotion regulation, e.g. related to pain and dissociation, have been identified. Most recently, social interaction problems and their underlying neurobiological mechanisms, e.g. disturbed trust or hypersensitivity to social rejection, have become a major focus of BPD research. This article covers the current state of knowledge and related relevant research goals. The first part presents a review of the literature. The second part delineates important open questions to be addressed in future studies. The third part describes the research agenda for a large German center grant focusing on mechanisms of emotion dysregulation in BPD.

A Simple Emulation-Based Computational Model

Emulation is one of the simplest and most common mechanisms of social interaction. In this paper we introduce a descriptive computational model that attempts to capture the underlying dynamics of social processes led by emulation. The model allows, with few assumptions, to explain how and why highly skewed distributions emerge in human societies, where few trends are representative and co-exist with several minority trends. In particular, the model shows that if a society is too tolerant and permeable, all the agents converge to only one trend that leads to uniformity. If society's tolerance is moderate, many trends arise but with a high dispersity of size, only a few of them being truly representative. Finally, in highly intolerant societies a considerable degree of segregation is reached, where lots of trends of similar size arise. Furthermore, the proposed model can reproduce several real phenomena in social processes in which emulation is present: cyclic evolution in trend areas, changes in leadership, extinction and resurgence of trend areas, the struggle between neighboring areas and the higher probability of having dominant trends in central areas, corresponding to moderate positions.

Toward a vestibular contribution to social cognition

Social cognition encompasses perception of self and others as well as self-other interactions. Self-other interactions rely on a wide range of cognitive processes such as memory, language, reasoning, and emotion processing (Beer and Ochsner, 2006). Within the last few years, one productive line of research in social neuroscience has investigated the multisensory and motor foundations of self-other interactions, including emotion perception, emotional contagion, empathy, self-other distinction, or self-other knowledge (e.g., Singer et al., 2004; Iacoboni et al., 2005; Ambrosini et al., 2013; Manera et al., 2013). While a strong emphasis has been traditionally put on visual processes, recent research has noted that self-other distinction and mirroring also require processing of auditory (e.g., self-other voice recognition), proprioceptive, and interoceptive signals (Damasio, 2000; Schutz-Bosbach et al., 2006; Tsakiris et al., 2011; Seth, 2013; Xu et al., 2013). In spite of this multisensory development, a vestibular contribution to the embodied mechanisms of social interactions has until now been largely overlooked. This is surprising as the vestibular system has been involved in a growing number of cognitive functions (Smith et al., 2005; Miller and Ngo, 2007; Gurvich et al., 2013), in addition to its crucial role in distinguishing self- and non-self motion. The claim of the present opinion article is that vestibular information should not be ignored when investigating the sensorimotor foundations of social cognition. We present several lines of evidence indicating that vestibular signals may be involved in the sensory bases of self-other distinction and mirroring, emotion perception and perspective taking.