Normative Expectations Research Articles

Critical femininities: exploring young women’s digital sexual cultures

ABSTRACT This study adopts a Critical Femininities approach to examine the under-theorised domain of sexual norms on dating apps, with a focus on the self-representations of Spanish heterosexual women on Tinder. Through an analysis of three hundred profiles, this research investigates the gendered dynamics influencing these women’s portrayals of themselves in the digital dating context. Combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the findings reveal patterns in women’s online-mediated intimacies and sexual subjectivities, highlighting the pervasive influence of femmephobia in this space. Empirical data underscore how these dynamics operate, providing insight into the extent to which hegemonic gender beliefs and regulatory norms shape digital femininities. Moreover, a discursive examination of the ways these Spanish women construct their gendered and sexual identities on Tinder offers a critical view of the constraints and possibilities they face within this specific socio-cultural framework. This study’s focus on linguistic and representational strategies in digital self-presentation deepens our understanding of how normative gender expectations continue to shape social and sexual interactions in contemporary online spaces. In so doing, this research contributes to broader discussions in Gender Studies and linguistics, illustrating how femininity is performed, policed, and navigated in digital dating environments.

Stand-Up Rerouting, or Cultural Transformation in Ali Wong’s Bawdy Comic Critique

ABSTRACT This article identifies and elaborates a form of comic persuasion called “stand-up rerouting,” showing how comedian Ali Wong’s stand-up in Netflix’s 2016 Baby Cobra transforms familiar conceptual norms, especially the conflicting binaries she faces as a woman and comedian. Drawing on the philosophical insights of Mikhail Bakhtin, Donna Haraway, and Gilbert Simondon as well as the feminist thought of Hélène Cixous and Trinh T. Minh-ha, the article traces Wong’s bawdy humor as it reroutes audience attention from a conceptual to a sensuous understanding of life. In embracing the tensions caused by normative expectations, and exploiting familiar cultural limits on identity in novel ways, Wong materializes alternative, nonbinary ways to reconcile tensions in her identities, transforming who and how she—and we—can be.

Understanding friendship

AbstractThis article takes issue with two prominent views in the current debate around epistemic partiality in friendship. Strong views of epistemic partiality hold that friendship may require biased beliefs in direct conflict with epistemic norms. Weak views hold that friendship may place normative expectations on belief formation but in a manner that does not violate these norms. It is argued that neither view succeeds in explaining the relationship between epistemic norms and friendship norms. Weak views inadvertently endorse a form of motivated reasoning, failing to resolve the normative clash they seek to avoid. Strong views turn out to be incoherent once we consider the question of whether the requirement to form an epistemically partial belief is independent of whether the belief in question would be true. It is then argued that an epistemology of friendship should recognise the special role that understanding plays in friendship. On this view, friendship normatively requires understanding the truth about our friends. This entails that epistemic partiality, far from being a requirement, is in fact at odds with good friendship.

Voice pitch and gender in autism.

It is has often been observed that autistic individuals have higher-pitched voices than non-autistic ones, but no clear explanation for this difference has been put forth. However, autistic males are still dramatically over-represented in published research, including the acoustic studies that report higher pitch in autistic participants. In this study, we collected speech samples from a group of autistic and neurotypical adults that, unlike in most studies, was perfectly balanced between groups and genders. In this gender-balanced sample, pitch was significantly higher in autistic versus neurotypical men, but lower in autistic versus neurotypical women. Overall, women tend to have higher-pitched voices than men, but the magnitude of this difference is culture dependent and may be significantly influenced by the internalisation of normative expectations towards one's gender. We propose that higher pitch in autistic males and lower pitch in autistic females could be due, at least in part, to a lesser integration of sociolinguistic markers of gender. Our report shows that speech atypicality should not be operationalised in terms of systematic and unidirectional deviation from the neurotypical baseline.

Virtual reality interview with feedback framework for situational practice of gaze among autistic adults

BackgroundAutistic individuals commonly seek employment; however, only a small fraction are in the workforce. In part, this might be due to mismatches between their social patterns of attention and gaze, and society’s normative expectations during interviews. MethodTo help mitigate such disadvantages through a solo situational practice tool, we present a framework that consists of a virtual reality (VR) based job interview simulation and a coaching component. Employing data visualization, video modeling, and VR role-play of the targeted behavior, the coaching support could be done in a self-deliverable practice manner. A participatory design session with two autistic design partners was important in the co-creation of the feedback methods, making them easier to understand, and including positive reinforcement. ResultsFourteen autistic individuals used the VR job interview simulation tool. Eleven received the gaze analysis and support stage and participated in a second VR simulation session. Preliminary results were positive, in that participant scores on average eye contact duration, average time without eye contact, and percentage of eye contact while listening and while speaking generally approached the corresponding medians of the non-autistic reference dataset. Participants were surveyed about the utility of the tool after the second feedback session and two months later. All survey respondents perceived the tool to be useful and the provided feedback to be helpful in daily social interactions. ConclusionsThis study provides insights towards the development of a VR job interview simulation and feedback framework that can enable solo situational practice of gaze and common interview questions.

Positive behavior support in school – a quasi-experimental mixed methods study and a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundWhile positive school climate is important for students’ well-being and mental health, school personnel may experience challenges in creating a nurturing school climate. School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SW-PBIS) has shown positive effects on school climate and children’s prosocial behaviors, but fewer studies have been conducted in a European context.AimThis project aims to investigate the effectiveness of SW-PBIS program for students’ social-emotional skills and academic achievement as well as teachers’ and students’ perceptions of classroom learning environment. Furthermore, the study intends to evaluate how school-level factors mediate or moderate the effects of the intervention. In addition, the study includes a qualitative evaluation of the dynamic interaction processes that occur during program implementation in local school contexts.MethodsData on school- and individual-level measures are collected in intervention and control schools. With regard to challenges in retaining control groups over extended time periods, two waves of recruitment are used. In the first wave, an active control group is used and data are collected during three time points. In the second wave, a wait-list control group will be used and data will be collected during two time points during one school year. Hierarchical regression analyses will be conducted to explore the effects of SW-PBIS on the outcomes of the study. An ethno-methodological approach will be applied to provide a detailed examination of the social interactional and meaning-making practices of different school implementation teams, and the negotiation of normative expectations and rules of conduct in peer-teacher-student interactions in different classrooms.DiscussionThe study is expected to contribute to knowledge on the effects of the SW-PBIS program and how these effects may be mediated or moderated by school-level factors. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the significance of school contexts in the implementation of the SW-PBIS program constitutes the strength of the study. The challenge in the study is the extended period of implementation of SW-PBIS, which entails difficulties in retaining a control group over the required time period. Therefore, two waves of recruitment are used, encompassing different procedures of allocation to intervention or control group.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT06270914 on the 22nd of February, 2024 (retrospectively registered).

Dismissed or Acclaimed for Breaking Norms: The Discursive Positioning of Young Active Citizens in Czech Online Media

Despite new affordances available since the mainstreaming of digital media in countries with high levels of internet connectivity, young actors in teenage years are a group whose involvement in social and political affairs remains constrained by prevailing stereotypes regarding the social role of youth and acceptable forms of civic engagement. This paper explores the discourse on youths’ active citizenship found in Czech online media outlets, conceptualised as adult-governed spaces. Considering age as a significant exclusionary category in approaches to citizenship, the discursive construction of young active Czech citizens is studied on six concrete local actors and analysed via two types of relational positioning: (1) intra-generational (youth-to-youth) and (2) inter-generational (youth-to-adult). Media representations reveal normative expectations of youth as political actors that range from a refusal to recognise their participation to acclaiming them for it. Depending on the intersection of the actors’ agendas, their personal profiles, and the political orientation of the media outlets, the media depict the actors either negatively as deviant or positively as exceptional, reflecting contemporary ideo-political conflicts in Czechia. The paper concludes that the young age of the actors serves as an amplification factor for discreditation of a counter-attitudinal political agenda.

Review of Heidi M. Altman’s <i>Agency and Bodily Autonomy in Systems</i> of Care (Lexington Books, 2024)

Agency and Bodily Autonomy in Systems of Care, edited by Heidi M. Altman (2024), weaves an impressive international tapestry to raise awareness of intercultural factors that restrict or eliminate agency over one’s body in systems of care. It is not often that a book seamlessly strings together stories of people from such seemingly diverse walks of life, including fishermen in the coastal states of Georgia and South Carolina in the U.S., patients in an Italian psychiatric hospital, and people who are deemed overweight in Japan. The merit of the book is that it delivers more than an opportunity for the reader to vicariously visit with different people and places. It ultimately points out the common denominator of the different groups of people it studies, which is their “minoritized social location” (p. 103) as people whose bodies do not meet their societies’ normative expectations and are, therefore, subjected to control. This control may be applied in different ways, but it always demonstrates the fundamental premise of the book, which is Michele Foucault’s view of “the human body as an element under the control of outside structures, whether they be carceral, military, or medical” (p. 15). [...]

Performance information, expectations and satisfaction with public service delivery in the context of co-production initiatives

ABSTRACT Many studies on public service satisfaction have treated citizen expectations to be exogenous, focusing mainly on how these expectations influence satisfaction. This study examines how performance information shapes predictive and normative expectations in the context of co-production initiatives in Dutch primary education, and in turn examines how updated performance information and expectations jointly determine satisfaction with public services. A survey experiment among 1,307 parents with school-attending children shows that performance expectations are endogenous to prior school performance, but not to co-production initiatives. Our analysis provides evidence that citizens’ expectations strengthen the negative effects of performance decline on satisfaction.

Academic Readiness among Young Children Treated for Brain Tumors: A Multisite, Prospective, Longitudinal Trial.

Young children treated for central nervous system (CNS) malignancies are at high risk for difficulties with academic functioning due to increased vulnerability of the developing brain and missed early developmental opportunities. Extant literature examining academics in this population is limited. We investigated academic readiness, its clinical and demographic predictors, and its relationship with distal academic outcomes among patients treated for CNS tumors during early childhood. Seventy patients with newly diagnosed CNS tumors were treated on a prospective, longitudinal, multisite study with chemotherapy, with or without photon or proton irradiation. Patients underwent assessments of academic skills at baseline, six months, one year, and then annually for five years. Assessments measured academic readiness and academic achievement in reading and math. Mixed linear models revealed slowed development of academic readiness skills over time. Socioeconomic status (SES) was predictive of academic readiness at all time points. Other demographic (eg, age at treatment) and clinical (eg, shunt status, treatment exposure) variables were not predictive of academic readiness. Distal reading difficulties were proportionally greater than normative expectations while math difficulties did not differ. Academic readiness was predictive of distal academic outcomes in reading and math. Treatment for CNS malignancies in early childhood appears to slow development of academic readiness skills, with SES predictive of risk. Academic readiness skills were predictive of subsequent academic achievement. A disproportionate number of long-term survivors performed below age-based expectations in reading. These findings suggest the need for monitoring and interventions targeting early academic skills in this population.

Second-Career Academics and the Influence of ‘Professionalism’ in Higher Education: A Phenomenographic Study in STEM

This article examines the phenomenon whereby ‘professionalism’ is used as a concept in higher education (HE), specifically regarding HE’s relationships with professions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). We examine the implications for human development arising from the influence of professionalism in HE, presenting the qualitative interpretations of second-career academics, a term we use to describe university teaching staff recruited for their prior industrial experience in STEM professions. Using a phenomenographic approach, we examine the conception of second-career academics and how professionalism influences educational policy and practice in HE. We present four successively inclusive conceptions of experiences, with professionalism expressed as making normative judgements of students’ interactions and behaviours, negotiating those interactions and behaviours with students, critiquing the professional applicability of curricula and activities, and changing those curricula and activities to suit the needs of STEM professions. These conceptions expose challenges related to policy and practice and the roles undertaken by second-career academics, including their enculturation of students into the normative expectations of STEM professions, their influence on the apparent correspondence between HE and work in STEM, and their marketing of STEM professions inside HE.

“It’ll be All Right, Everybody Has Children”: Regretting Motherhood in Iceland

ABSTRACT Social expectations of women as mothers significantly impact the reproductive decision-making process for those who have the potential for childbirth. This article focuses on women in Iceland who regret motherhood. It aims to understand how regretting motherhood is experienced and the consequences of living with a socially unacceptable emotion. Based on the results of in-depth interviews taken with sixteen heterosexual ciswomen who regret becoming mothers, we employ reflexive thematic analysis to explore the social and personal factors that promote motherhood and how they manage their regret. The results suggest that despite the intention of the participants not to become mothers, pro-natalist ideals, social assumptions, and expectations of women as mothers wield a powerful hold over the ability to reject the role. Many participants grapple with the expectation that all women want to become mothers, familial expectations, and the assumption that mothering is an inherently emotionally fulfilling undertaking. The findings also suggest that the discourse of maternal regret can be understood as a resistance to normative cultural motherhood expectations and intensive motherhood narratives.

Multiscale heterogeneity of white matter morphometry in psychiatric disorders.

Inter-individual variability in neurobiological and clinical characteristics in mental illness is often overlooked by classical group-mean case-control studies. Studies using normative modelling to infer person-specific deviations of grey matter volume have indicated that group means are not representative of most individuals. The extent to which this variability is present in white matter morphometry, which is integral to brain function, remains unclear. We applied Warped Bayesian Linear Regression normative models to T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data and mapped inter-individual variability in person-specific white matter volume deviations in 1,294 cases (58% male) diagnosed with one of six disorders (attention-deficit/hyperactivity, autism, bipolar, major depressive, obsessive-compulsive and schizophrenia) and 1,465 matched controls (54% male) recruited across 25 scan sites. We developed a framework to characterize deviation heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales, from individual voxels, through inter-regional connections, specific brain regions, and spatially extended brain networks. The specific locations of white matter volume deviations were highly heterogeneous across participants, affecting the same voxel in fewer than 8% of individuals with the same diagnosis. For autism and schizophrenia, negative deviations (i.e., areas where volume is lower than normative expectations) aggregated into common tracts, regions and large-scale networks in up to 35% of individuals. The prevalence of white matter volume deviations was lower than previously observed in grey matter, and the specific location of these deviations was highly heterogeneous when considering voxel-wise spatial resolution. Evidence of aggregation within common pathways and networks was apparent in schizophrenia and autism but not other disorders.

Prediction of Functional Academic Outcomes by Fine Motor Skills in Individuals With Sickle Cell Disease.

Individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at heightened risk of poor neurocognitive and academic outcomes. The relationship between fine motor skills and academic outcomes is not well understood. To compare the fine motor skills of individuals with SCD with normative expectations, test whether demographic and medical factors are associated with fine motor performance, and determine the impact of fine motor performance on academic performance. Cross-sectional. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Individuals with SCD (N = 376; ages 8-24 yr). Fine motor outcomes included visual-motor integration, manual dexterity, and graphomotor speed. Academic outcomes included math fluency and word reading. Demographic and medical variables were obtained via medical records and interviews. Compared with normative expectations, the performance of individuals with SCD on all fine motor measures was lower than expected. Male sex, lower socioeconomic status, and lower oxygen saturation was associated with slower graphomotor speed. Lower socioeconomic status and older age were associated with lower visual-motor integration scores. Performance on all fine motor measures was positively associated with math fluency and word reading. Individuals with SCD exhibited poorer than expected fine motor skills across multiple motor domains, and these deficits were associated with poorer academic outcomes. Early referral to intervention services for fine motor skills may facilitate improved academic outcomes for individuals with SCD. Plain-Language Summary: This study had three objectives: (1) Compare the fine motor skills of people with sickle cell disease (SCD) with normative expectations, (2) test whether demographic and medical factors are associated with fine motor performance, and (3) determine the impact of fine motor performance on academic performance. We found that SCD is a risk factor for lower than expected fine motor performance across multiple fine motor domains and that these deficits also affect functional academic skills.

Phonemic processing is below expectations and linked to word-finding difficulty in multiple sclerosis

Background: Word-finding difficulty is prevalent but poorly understood in persons with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Objective: The objective was to investigate our hypothesis that phonological processing ability is below expectations and related to word-finding difficulty in patients with RRMS. Method: Data were analyzed from patients with RRMS (n = 50) on patient-reported word-finding difficulty (PR-WFD) and objective performance on Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, Fourth Edition (WIAT-4) Phonemic Proficiency (PP; analysis of phonemes within words), Word Reading (WR; proxy of premorbid literacy and verbal ability), and Sentence Repetition (SR; auditory processing of word-level information). Results: Performance (mean (95% confidence interval)) was reliably lower than normative expectations for PP (−0.41 (−0.69, −0.13)) but not for WR (0.02 (−0.21, 0.25)) or SR (0.08 (−0.15, 0.31). Within-subjects performance was worse on PP than on both WR (t(49) = 4.00, p < 0.001, d = 0.47) and SR (t(49) =3.76, p < 0.001, d = 0.54). Worse PR-WFD was specifically related to lower PP (F2,47 = 6.24, p = 0.004, η2 = 0.21); worse PP performance at PR-WFD Often (n = 13; −1.16 (−1.49, −0.83)) than Sometimes (n = 17; −0.14 (−0.68, 0.41)) or Rarely (n = 20; −0.16 (−0.58, 0.27). PR-WFD was unrelated to WR or SR (ps > 0.25). Conclusion: Phonological processing was below expectations and specifically linked to word-finding difficulty in RRMS. Findings are consistent with early disease-related cortical changes within the posterior superior temporal/supramarginal region. Results inform our developing model of multiple sclerosis-related word-finding difficulty.

Buy Now, Pay Later Loans, Social Norms, and Consumer Indebtedness

The terms associated with new financial products, such as buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans, are often cloudy. Policymakers are concerned because these products are marketed to naïve consumers who may be in financial peril. While financial illiteracy has received attention, it is also important to recognize that consumers are impacted by perceptions of the choices of those in their social network. We elicit empirical and normative expectations in an incentivized experiment to measure what young people think others will do and their beliefs of the beliefs of others. Our experimental participants are more likely to purchase an item with a BNPL loan, as compared to a credit card loan, and the majority believes others see this as a good choice. We conclude that consumers are likely to increase indebtedness when offered a payment scheme that is supported by a social norm.

Hazing for lunch: a study of unethical socialisation practices

Purpose This paper aims to explore the impact of social segregation and exclusionary workplace hazing during lunch breaks on newcomers’ relational quality during the early socialisation phase. Design/methodology/approach This study draws on data from a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with recently employed nurses (n = 19) and nursing students (n = 42) about their workplace hazing experiences. The data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings The analysis revealed two main themes: “feeling isolated” and “justifying self-exclusion.” Newcomers reported feeling humiliated when subjected to exclusionary hazing by experienced colleagues, leading to feelings of alienation and impacting their relationships with their new colleagues. Newcomers tended to distance themselves in various ways and justified this behaviour as a means of self-care. Originality/value This paper adds to the limited knowledge about the effects of newcomers’ exposure to workplace hazing during their early socialisation. It provides a relational perspective on the consequences of workplace hazing and explains how the social context influences the normative expectations of newcomers.

Hawala in criminal court: the role of law and commercial culture in informal financial exchange

A historically informed understanding of ḥawāla and other varieties of informal value transfer systems (IVTS) requires consideration of the normative and cultural elements which structure and facilitate transactions in globalized financial markets. This paper argues that the Sharia-based normative and cultural framework of ḥawāla is created in the social relations of Muslim networks and that, in a criminal law context, this normativity can be used as a tool to discern between legitimate and illegitimate transactions. The new institutional economists’ (NIE) explanation of ḥawāla, which predominates in scholarly work, neglects this common frame of reference built on community, shared belief, and normative rules and expectations. The NIE views economic institutions through the lens of profitmaking and self-interest centred institutional development. Moreover, in a criminal law context, the profit-oriented perspective of law overlooks the normative characteristics that sometimes appear in the transactional characteristics of these transactions. When evidence of these characteristics is presented to the court, they offer a useful tool to differentiate legitimate from illegitimate transfers of value. Legitimate transfers will frequently be facilitated through dense networks in which the normativity and culture of ḥawāla frame the rules and expectations of parties to the transaction. Criminal transactions, on the other hand, typically involve fewer participants, sometimes from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, are profit-orientated, and involve means of enforcement such as the use of violence which traditional networks do not employ. The NIE perspective does not fully account for non-western legal orders or for commercial practices in which exchange remains culturally, historically, and socially embedded.

Crafting gender into meaningful work: experiences of women engaging in social entrepreneurship in China

Purpose Social entrepreneurship, leveraging economic activities to achieve social benefits, offers women the opportunity to freely and actively shape the contours of their work in meaningful ways. This study aims to examine how Chinese women use job crafting in social entrepreneurship to align their gender identity, forge meaningful work and new relationships and navigate mixed gender expectations. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on 19 in-depth interviews with young women engaging in social entrepreneurship in China. Using a grounded theory approach, the study explores how women craft their gender identity into the unconventional career path of creating their social venture, focusing on the creative combination of task, relational and cognitive crafting in shaping social entrepreneurship. Findings The findings suggest that women make social entrepreneurship meaningful by actively aligning their gender experiences to delineate a relational and cognitive causal path between their social enterprise, their identity as women and their moral values. By working for a larger social cause, women may cognitively reframe their gender identity to compromise financial performance for social impact. Originality/value Current studies on social entrepreneurship in China have yet to examine its development through a gender lens. This study uses job crafting to highlight the distinctive gender meaning-making process for Chinese women to enhance their work identity and to challenge normative gender expectations. The study shows that job crafting enables women to view their social ventures as a means of gender empowerment, helping them to reconcile the paradoxical pressures of normative gender expectations and scaling up their businesses.

Science journalism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: news sources engagement and [lack of] science accountability

In this article we explore normative professional expectations around science journalists in Saudi Arabia (KSA) and how news reporters do access, engage with, and use news sources. Against broader and more universal normative expectations, we found that journalists in that country used a low diversity of sources in science news reporting and depended on official and public relations sources. These findings point to a current lack of criticality in science media reporting in KSA and limited ability for media to hold science to account. In so doing, we offer explanations for the divergence and gaps.