Opportunities For Social Interaction Research Articles

Social anhedonia as a Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia 1-dependent phenotype

Deficits in social interaction or social cognition are key phenotypes in a variety of chronic mental diseases, yet, their modeling and molecular dissection are only in their infancy. The Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) signaling pathway is considered to play a role in different psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, and biopolar disorders. DISC1 is involved in regulating the dopaminergic neurotransmission in, among others, the mesolimbic reward system. A transgenic rat line tgDISC1 has been introduced as a model system to study behavioral phenotypes associated with abnormal DISC1 signaling pathways. Here, we evaluated the impact of impaired DISC1 signaling on social (social interaction) and non-social (sucrose) reward preferences in the tgDISC1 animal model. In a plus-maze setting, rats chose between the opportunity for social interaction with an unfamiliar juvenile conspecific (social reward) or drinking sweet solutions with variable sucrose concentrations (non-social reward). tgDISC1 rats differed from wild-type rats in their social, but not in their non-social reward preferences. Specifically, DISC1 rats showed a lower interest in interaction with the juvenile conspecific, but did not differ from wild-type rats in their preference for higher sucrose concentrations. These results suggest that disruptions of the DISC1 signaling pathway that is associated with altered dopamine transmission in the brain result in selective deficits in social motivation reminiscent of phenotypes seen in neuropsychiatric illness.

Self-Care and Mental Health Among College Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Social and Physical Environment Features of Interactions Which Impact Meaningfulness and Mitigate Loneliness.

The COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted patterns and limited opportunities for social interaction, which increased already high loneliness rates among college students. Meaningful social interactions can mitigate negative mental health outcomes such as loneliness and bolster social support, which is in turn linked to better self-care practices. Social connection can aid in self-care through social support as well as be considered a self-care practice itself to counter the negative effects of loneliness. This study examined the social interaction patterns of 132 college students from a mid-sized United States university during the pandemic to understand which characteristics support meaningful interactions. Students completed an online survey from October through December 2020 to report details of their 2020 and 2019 social interactions, as well as their most recent interactions, including time spent, the mode (in-person versus virtual), their relationship to others in the interaction, the type of activity and privacy of the setting. Results found that students spent significantly less time interacting with non-roommates in-person in 2020, and more time in voice and video calls. No differences were found for texting and in-person roommate interactions. Meaningfulness was significantly higher for interactions with family or friends. Students reported the highest meaning for interactions that were planned and in-person, with lowest meaning for planned virtual interactions. No differences were observed for meaningfulness based on the type of interaction activity or privacy of the setting. Understanding the characteristics of the most meaningful interactions can help college students prioritize social interactions that may best promote self-care, mitigate loneliness, and bolster social support. High meaningfulness scores for planned in-person interactions suggests that these types of interactions may be most valuable for maintaining existing self-care patterns, engaging in self-care activities, and receiving support. Self-care activities for college students, including social interactions, were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have further exacerbated loneliness. College students should be encouraged to consciously engage in person with family and friends to practice self-care and maintain or improve mental health. Strategically selecting interactions that will optimize meaningfulness may therefore be critical to helping students to maintain positive mental health during and beyond the pandemic.

Pandemic in a Foreign Country: Barriers to International Students’ Well-being during COVID-19

This qualitative study explored international students’ unique experiences, challenges, and multidimensional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on three virtual focus groups with 18 international students in the United States, four key themes regarding barriers to their well-being during COVID-19 emerged: limited opportunities for social interactions; barriers in accessing healthcare; limited opportunities to advance their studies and careers; and experiencing racism and racial discrimination. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Assessing and modelling the Role of Urban Green Spaces for Human Well-being in Lahore (Pakistan)

Green structure is one of the major pillars of an urban structure, which accelerates life events by promoting physical activities, mental and psychological relaxation, providing oxygen for breathing and purifying air pollutants. Urban greenness is enriched with the potential to reduce city temperature, offers safe and healthy space for a walk, jogging, and running, and provides a suitable environment for physical and recreational activities along with opportunities for social interaction. Green spaces are well documented for environmental, economic, and social benefits in urban areas that enhance humans’ life quality. The well-being of the urban residents is closely linked with UGSs, but a rapid urban expansion is shrinking urban greenness within and surrounding the cities violating and ignoring environmental guidelines. Therefore, being a rapidly growing and densely populated city, Lahore attracted the study to assess the role of urban green spaces on human well-being. For this purpose, a questionnaire was prepared, and 1050 residents were examined through an online survey. Statistical Regression analyses were performed in SPSS version 25 to investigate the role of UGSs for human well-being. Finally, a structural equation model was developed in which the role of UGSs for human well-being was found to be significant (beta =904, R2 = 817) at P < 0.00. The relationships between UGSs and human well-being were found highly significant in Lahore. So, the study concluded that urban green spaces are a key to well-being in Lahore, which needs to protect by admitting their key role for the residents.

Social Interaction and Physical Activity Among Rural Older Adults: A Scoping Review.

Social interaction and physical activity are critical components in supporting health among older adults, yet rates of activity are low in rural communities. There is significant merit in exploring the relationship between these interrelated concepts. A scoping review was conducted to synthesize existing literature. Search results identified 26 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Findings indicated that social interaction and physical activity were important for many older adults to maintain health; however, not all older adults preferred the social aspect of group-based exercise. Opportunities for physical activity and social interaction were limited based on geographical location and other socioeconomic factors. This was evident in rural communities where populations were lower and education and income levels varied. Differences on the defining role and meaning of physical activity also emerged. Increasing physical activity and social interaction must account for negative associations to address the lower rates of participation among rural older adults.

Qualitative Evaluation of a Text-Based, Culturally-Tailored Nutrition Education Intervention for Hispanic/Latino Adults in Massachusetts, USA

ObjectivesThis study aimed to document the perspectives of past participants of a text- and website-based ethnic-specific healthy eating program delivered in 2019–2021 for 76 ethnically-diverse Latinos in Boston, MA. Following a healthy diet may help prevent excessive burden of disease; however, current programs fail to address distinctions by ethnicity. Formative research with community partners showed that the Latino community warranted deeply tailored dietary programs. Hence, we aimed to identify key facilitators and barriers to the program implementation and uptake, with the goal of improving future iterations, across diverse populations.MethodsIn 2021, a trained bilingual researcher conducted semi-structured phone interviews with 29% of past participants (n = 22). The interview guide and codebook were grounded in the RE-AIM framework. Coders employed a deductive analytic approach.ResultsMost participants were Spanish-speaking women over the age of 35, who graduated college and have lived in the U.S. over 20 years. Participants identified a need for ethnic-specific cultural tailoring and for recognizing similarities and differences across Latino cultures in nutrition programs. Motivations to participate included giving back to the Latino community, contributing to science, learning something new, and losing weight. Continued participation was driven by the value assigned to social interaction and discussion when learning about healthy eating strategies. Participants reported higher engagement with content delivered via text message than website, which presented barriers to access. Participants also appreciated receiving familiar content, which served as a “cue to action” for common health behaviors. Through participation, individuals reported increased autonomy and awareness of their dietary choices and physical changes.ConclusionsThere is a recognized need for ethnic-specific health promotion efforts among Hispanics/Latinos. To facilitate program uptake, interventions should deliver opportunities for social interaction, emphasize ease of access, and highlight opportunities for participant engagement to garner autonomy and awareness.Funding SourcesHarvard University Rose Service Learning Fellowship; NIH/NCI; NIH/NHLBI.

Conversation books for improving social interaction and social acceptance of children with complex communication needs in India

Introduction: This study draws on data from a community-based participatory action research project conducted to develop and evaluate a communication partner training program for supporting parents of children with complex communication needs in South India. Method: The article focuses on one participant with cerebral palsy and his mother. The participant child’s communicative participation and social interaction opportunities were enriched using a conversation book co-constructed by him, his mother, and the trainer-researcher speech-language pathologist during the training program. Data were collected throughout the action research project, including interviews, group meetings, observations, and a trainer-researcher journal. Results and discussion: Applied thematic analysis was employed to analyze the longitudinal data, in order to highlight the changes in the participant child’s social interaction and communicative participation. By describing the process of developing the conversation book as a means of increasing communication and social interaction opportunities for the child, our data illustrate how personalized low-tech augmentative and alternative communication options can be a way to improve social participation for children with disabilities in culturally diverse and low resource contexts, where stigma toward disability provides significant obstacles to social inclusion.

Comparative Analysis of Teaching Strategies Used in Lessons on Culture and Lessons on Heritage of a Selected Chinese-Filipino School

This paper seeks to identify the teaching strategies used in Grade 4 Culture and Heritage lessons in a Chinese-Filipino School. Further, it is important to effectively address these with constructivist-based teaching strategies to help maximize the learning experience.&amp;nbsp;This study used qualitative method where Ethnographic research design and Descriptive method were used to conduct classroom observations. The instruments used to obtain the results were patterned and modified from Craig Kissock&amp;rsquo;s (1981) Curriculum Planning for Social Studies Teaching: A Cross-cultural Approach, a self-made Teachers&amp;rsquo; Self-evaluation form and Peer Observation form participated by nine teachers of a Chinese-Filipino School in Quezon City, Philippines. The analysis of the results identified five teaching strategies with Discussion and Lecture strategy as the most applied alongside Game strategy, Question and Answer strategy, and Project method. Other activities that strengthened the Culture and Heritage awareness were integrated through a collaborative effort with other subject areas. As a result, the study supported that Social Development theory affects the teaching-learning process where opportunities for social interaction helps in the development of a child. Using various teaching strategies encouraged students to interact with one another, to freely express their thoughts, and to participate in fun and healthy competition. It also encouraged students to think and to unleash their creativity and imagination. At the same time, the use of tools and other resources helped increase student engagement.

The Dynamic Relationship Between Social Capital and Suicide Rates.

Background: Suicide is an important public health concern worldwide. Among various factors, social capital has been suggested to be an effective factor to prevent and reduce suicide. Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between social capital and suicide rates in Seoul, South Korea, using panel data from 2005 to 2018 at the administrative-district level. Methods: Data for the current study were obtained from Seoul Statistics. The within estimator and the system generalized methods of moments estimator were used. Results: The results showed that there was an inverse association between community facility and suicide rates. This result remained the same even after considering the dynamic relationship between social capital and suicide rates (B = -0.57, 95% CI: -1.10, -0.04) while adjusting for dynamic panel bias. A 10% increase in community facility per 1,000 population was associated with 5.2% reduction in age-standardized suicide rates per 100,000 population. Limitations: In this study, only a structural dimension of social capital was utilized due to the lack of available data. Conclusion: The results indicate that facilitating opportunities for social interactions and community lives has a potential to prevent and reduce suicide.

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE AND SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDENTS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

Raymond H. Hartjen explained that expanded opportunities for social interaction enhance the Social Intelligence among individuals. Traditional classrooms in schools and colleges do not permit the interaction of complex social behavior. Students in traditional settings are treated as learners who must be infused with more and more complex forms of information.The social intelligence of a student plays a major role in their success in life. Students with special needs also warrants a better social integrity to be socialized in a society. The social integrity increase their achievement in terms of academic and social. This study aimed is to nd out the social intelligence and scholastic achievement of students with visual impairment. The investigator selected survey method for the present study.Based on the simple random sampling technique,secondary 100 visually impaired students in various groups including both male and female were selected for the present study. The main and foremost objective of the study is to nd outthe social intelligence and scholastic achievement of students with visual impairment.The ndings of the study implied the need for promotion of social intelligence for students with Visual Impairment. The study can also be stimulated on the students with other abilities and disabilities. It demands the need of social intelligence among students with Visual Impairment for equipping themselves to lead a healthy and prosperous life. This study also paves a way for students with Visual Impairment to know and understand about the role and responsibilities in the society.

What do adults want in parks? A qualitative study using walk-along interviews

BackgroundParks provide opportunities for physical activity and social interaction and are critical for enhancing public health. It is therefore important to better understand the needs and preferences of park features among adults to help park designers to create parks that optimise use. This qualitative study provided an in-depth examination of factors and characteristics that influence visitation, park-based physical activity, and social interaction among adults (19–64 years). We also explored perceptions of parks and park use and impacts of COVID on park usage and needs.MethodsParticipants (n = 27, 40.4 years [+ 11.9], 70% female) were interviewed from 2017 to 2020 while walking through one of eight diverse parks located in varying socioeconomic areas of metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Participants were prompted to discuss their experiences, opinions and preferences regarding park features. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using NVivo 12 software.ResultsPark features and characteristics highly valued for visitation related to aesthetics and atmosphere, including trees, gardens, spaciousness, and water features. Features most valued for physical activity included walking and bike tracks, basketball rings, nice aesthetics, and sports walls. Features most valued for social interaction included seating and tables, and picnic/barbecue areas.ConclusionsThis study highlights features and characteristics that may be important to prioritise, to encourage active and social park visits among adults. This evidence will help policy and decision makers, urban planners, landscape architects, and local, state, and national government organisations to create parks that support adults to lead healthy and active lives. Future research should examine the relative importance of the features identified in this study to inform future park design/redesign.

COVID pandemic and elderly aged people

The unexpected arrival of the corona greatly disrupted the lifestyle of the people. Most groups of the population are affected with the lockdown measures put forth in some or other way. But the elderly aged population are facing its worst effects. Lockdown measures affected the younger group in meeting with their responsibilities and the children in their education. Government and local bodies are taking various measures for managing their problems. Conveniently it is assumed that the elder population are least affected by lockdown as their requirements are thought to be less compared to other group of population. Hence the problems of the elder population are least studied and they are neglected by the community and the government. At present there are 48 lakhs of people in Kerala who are aged 60yrs or more. The percentage of elderly aged people is increasing in Kerala and many of them are staying alone. But the opportunities for social interaction in the environment in which they lived were very high. In the present situation of lockdown associated with Corona pandemic, most of them have completely left alone in their houses or apartments. This has led to many physical and mental health consequences in them.

A hundred days in confinement: Doing, being, becoming, and belonging among older people in Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT Background: When and how people were able to engage in everyday occupations changed suddenly with the coronavirus pandemic. Defined as a risk group due to their age, people 70 years and older in Sweden experienced confinement, as did older adults globally. Aim: To explore how doing, being, becoming, and belonging as dimensions of occupation were manifested in the lives of Swedish people 70 years or older, 100 days into the coronavirus pandemic. Method: Data were elicited through semi-structured interviews with 17 participants (11 women, 6 six men, mean age 76 years), living in ordinary housing in Sweden. Interviews were conducted in June 2020 as part of a larger longitudinal research project. A directed content analysis approach was used to analyse the data based on the occupational dimensions of doing, being, becoming, and belonging. Results: After 100 days of confinement, daily occupations had been changed, and habits and routines disrupted. However, the need to engage in occupations was strong. Participants expressed how they adapted their occupations to the restrictions, but also how their doing affected their well-being, further development, and opportunities for social interactions. Conclusion: The participants, who were older people without any specific diagnosis, reflected upon their daily occupations during an unrehearsed natural experiment when, more than anything else, the social environmental circumstances changed. The analysis elucidates how doing, being, becoming, and belonging is embedded in people’s lives. The study can serve as a foundation to further research on understanding people’s individual needs as occupational beings.

Understanding the Design Space of AI-Mediated Social Interaction in Online Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

Our online interactions are constantly mediated through Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially our social interactions. AI-mediated social interaction is the AI-facilitated process of building and maintaining social connections between individuals through information inferred from people's online posts. With its impending application across a number of contexts, the challenges and opportunities of AI-mediated social interaction remain underexplored. This paper seeks to understand the design space of AI-mediated social interaction in the context of online learning, where students frequently face social isolation. We deployed an AI agent named SAMI in three class discussion forums to help online learners build social connections. Using SAMI as a probe, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 students to understand their difficulties in remote social interactions and their experiences with SAMI. Through the lenses of social translucence and social-technical gap, we illustrate online learners' difficulties in remote social interactions and how SAMI resolved some of the difficulties. We also identify potential ethical and social challenges of SAMI such as user agency and privacy. Based on our findings, we outline the design space of AI-mediated social interaction. We discuss the design tension between AI performance and ethical design and pinpoint two design opportunities for AI-mediated social interaction in designing towards human-AI collaborative social matching and artificial serendipity.

Alterations in the Experience of Time, Space, and Intersubjectivity and the Interaction with Pre-Existent Psychopathology during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to protect the physically vulnerable may disproportionately affect people with mental health vulnerabilities, who receive psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment, as many of these measures impact the (inter)subjective space crucial to psychotherapy. Objective: We investigate how people with pre-existing mental health conditions and healthcare professionals experienced changes linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: During the first COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown in spring 2020, we conducted semi-structured interviews with patients and healthcare professionals at a clinic for psychosomatic medicine in Germany and analyzed them following the principles of descriptive phenomenology focusing on social interactions, intersubjectivity, and the therapeutic space. Results: We conducted a total of >30 h of interviews with 19 patients and 17 healthcare professionals. Analyses revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic and the related measures have led to a sudden loss of a sense of normality. Participants experienced changes in the perception of time, space, self, and embodied interaction with others, resulting in a profound feeling of alienation and “unhomeliness” which seemed to magnify pre-existing psychopathology. The inpatient psychotherapeutic environment provided safety by offering spatial and temporal structures and opportunities for social interaction, supporting people to find new ways to be in a changed world. Conclusions: Our study shows that despite the threat of infection, it is vital to continue to provide people with psychological vulnerabilities with a safe therapeutic space in which to regain a sense of safety in a changed world. This is particularly important, as those people seem to suffer intensely from the collateral measures of a pandemic.

Understanding affordances and limitations in a language MOOC from an activity theory perspective

In the last decade, Language MOOCs have attracted a lot of interest for their potential to enhance language learning. However, how learners engage with MOOC environments and realise their benefits, remains unclear. The current study adopts activity theory (Engeström in J Educ Work 14:133–156, 2001) as a lens to comprehend the affordances and limitations in an LMOOC dealing with English presentation skills called Presentation@work. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 22 participants. The data were then analysed using thematic content analysis and triangulated with the participants’ profiles using learning analytical procedures. The results showed that peer learning, personalisation, and social interaction opportunities were perceived as affordances by the participants, while lack of proficiency, lack of affinity, course content, and lack of teacher presence were seen as limitations. Relationships between the perceived affordances and limitations and different types of participants were also found. The findings demonstrate that the LMOOC activity system is dynamic and complex and that the learners play a central role in interacting with different aspects of the system. We conclude with a number of suggestions and implications for future LMOOC design, implementation and research.

146 Virtual role-play: A useful tool for undergraduate obstetrics and gynaecology teaching during a pandemic

Background and Aims: The Obstetrics and Gynaecology undergraduate programme at our hospital transitioned to a blended learning programme in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students attended for clinical assignments at the hospital two days per week and availed of online learning from home three days per week. The challenge we faced was to create opportunities for students to practice history taking and consultation skills and to create opportunities for social interaction. Methods: In order to address these concerns, weekly virtual role-play tutorials based on two clinical cases were facilitated by the clinical tutor for ten students learning from home. The cases involved role-playing a patient (played by the tutor) doctor (played by a student) interaction to obtain a history, followed by feedback, discussing investigations, interpretation of results, further management, and another role-play to counsel a patient for the indicated gynaecological procedure. After one of these tutorials, given to two groups of ten students, student feedback was obtained using a ‘one-minute paper’. Students completed the questionnaire anonymously via a Google Form. Students were asked three questions; 1) What was the most useful thing you learned? 2) What remains unclear to you? 3) Other comments/ideas for improvements? Results: The response rate was 95% (19 of 20 students). Students described the tutorials as “well-structured” and “really interactive”. The opportunity to role-play counselling a patient for a procedure was of particular value to students, with 73% of students specifying this as the most useful thing they learned. Student comments also suggest they appreciated the opportunity to receive feedback. Conclusions: Student feedback was valuable. Our findings suggest virtual role-play is a useful learning tool to support teaching in Obstetrics and Gynaecology during the COVID-19 pandemic and perhaps beyond.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, PHYSICAL EDUCATION, AND HEALTH BENEFITS IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

&lt;p&gt;Physical activity (PA) has a wide range of benefits during childhood and adolescence including maintenance of energy balance and consequently a healthy weight healthy growth, development of the cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal system, avoidance of cardiovascular disease risk factors (e.g. hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes), and the opportunity for social interaction and academic achievement. Also, there is strong evidence that PA is important for children’s psychological well-being. These benefits remain unchanged in children of all body mass index categories (e.g. normal, overweight, and obese), and are also independent of gender, age, and health status. Children and adolescents with lower PA levels have a higher prevalence of psychological and emotional distress. In contrast, PA provides an important medium for children and adolescents to be successful and this helps to improve self-esteem, social wellbeing, and self-perceptions of body image and competence. Moreover, children with higher PA levels are also more likely to have better cognitive functioning. The health benefits provided by PA have been observed in several health domains and can be generally placed into three categories: (a) mental, social, and PA benefits during childhood/adolescence; (b) health benefits of childhood PA that carry over to adulthood and; (c) PA ‘track’ from childhood to adulthood. Because of limitations in the scientific evidence data, it is not achievable to draw definitive conclusions relating to the optimal doses of PA needed to create health benefits in separate health outcomes. Nonetheless, worldwide recommendations proposed that significant health benefits can be expected to build up to most children and adolescents who participate in 60 or more minutes of moderate to vigorous PA, per day. Moreover, must be included specific types of PA in an overall PA pattern to add comprehensive health benefits.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Article visualizations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0917/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Speaking in Worlds of Adventure: Tabletop Roleplaying Games within the EFL Classroom

Fostering spoken communication in a foreign language classroom is not an easy task. With that in mind, this paper explores a proposal to motivate students’ L2 oral communication through the practice of narrative games called tabletop roleplaying games adapted as task-based activities. It implied an action research process in which the teacher-researcher with his students reflected and intervened on the identified problematic situation: Lack of oral communication in L2. In that sense, it started with a diagnostic test that showed the current state of verbal communication in L2 in a Colombian rural public school. Next, the teacher-researcher chose to appeal to the gamification of the classroom along with the adoption of a task-based framework to activity design aiming to improve students’ motivation to take the risk of communicating in L2. The teacher-researcher applied sets of activities that progressed from traditional role-play to a tabletop roleplaying game. In accordance, video recordings, narratives, artifacts collections, and semi-structured interviews were essential to collect data. Afterward, the teacher-researcher analyzed the data with an emic approach to identify patterns in the information that uncovered the categories and subcategories of information. Consequently, the teacher-researcher concluded that the students feel better motivated using L2 if the learning environment offers opportunities for social interaction, collaborative work, and scaffolding in task-based exercises embedded in a fictional world game.

A preliminary comparison between proximity and interaction-based methods to construct equine (Equus caballus) social networks

Evidence suggests that keeping horses in groups may be beneficial, as increased opportunities for social interaction have been linked to improved welfare and trainability. Considering social structure within these groups is also recommended, so attempts may be made to minimize inter-horse aggression and subsequent injury risk, thus encouraging more owners to adopt this management practice. Manual observation of dyadic interactions is often considered the most reliable way to determine group structure. However, alternative methods, such as the use of inter-individual proximity, may be more practical but first requires validation in the species of interest to ensure reliability. Four interaction-based methods, which considered (1) ‘All observed’, (2) ‘Affiliative’, (3) ‘Allogrooming’ and (4) ‘Agonistic’ equine interactions, were used to construct social networks for 3 small domestic horse groups following 20-hour of observation. Horses also wore Global Positioning System units, so distance between group members could be calculated every 10-minute, with this information used to create proximity networks for each group. Mantel tests were run in Socprog 2.9 to determine if networks based on observed interactions are structurally similar to those based on inter-individual proximity. Accelerometers were also used to monitor horse activity, to investigate the effect that filtering proximity data by activity level has on its agreement with interaction-based methods. Mantel tests identified that proximity networks were similar to networks based on affiliative interactions between horses, with positive but non-significant agreement seen in all 3 groups (‘Group A’: Z = 0.85438, n = 4, P = 0.05; ‘Group B’: Z = 0.61582, n = 3, P = 0.475; ‘Group C’: Z = 0.88925, n = 4, P = 0.05) Proximity was not seen to be significantly associated with any other methods. These findings suggest that Global Positioning System-derived proximity may be a viable alternative to manually collected data when affiliative interactions are of interest. Although, more work is warranted to establish how generalizable these results are in larger groups, and how variables, such as field size, group composition and resource provision, influence method agreement. Ultimately, this study has assessed agreement between existing social network techniques, whille also considering the costs associated with each, the results of which are of use to inform both equine management and future studies.