Social Distrust Research Articles

THE TRIAL OF THOMAS KWOYELO: OPPORTUNITY OR SPECTRE? REFLECTIONS FROM THE GROUND ON THE FIRST LRA PROSECUTION

ABSTRACTThe trial of Thomas Kwoyelo – the first war crimes prosecution of a former Lord's Resistance Army fighter, and the only domestic war crimes prosecution in Uganda at the time of writing – has been packed with drama, intrigue and politics. The article considers what Kwoyelo's trial means for those most affected by the crimes he allegedly committed, and, more broadly, what it means for the ‘transitional justice’ project in Uganda. The article is concerned primarily with how the trial has been interpreted ‘on the ground’ in Acholiland: by local leadership; by those with a personal relationship to Kwoyelo; by direct victims of his alleged crimes; and by those who were not. Responses to the trial have been shaped by people's specific wartime experiences and if or how his prosecution relates to their current circumstances – as well as by the profound value of social harmony and distrust of higher authorities to dispense justice. We conclude with a discussion of the relevance of our findings for the practice of ‘transitional justice’ across the African continent.

“I Stay by Myself”: Social Support, Distrust, and Selective Solidarity Among the Urban Poor

Significant debate exists about whether the black urban poor rely on each other for support. Currently, two perspectives dominate: the pervasive solidarity perspective, which asserts that support is widespread in poor, black communities, and the distrust‐individualism perspective, which claims that, in these communities, pervasive distrust undermines social cohesion and people use individualistic strategies for solving problems. Based on fieldwork in an African American public housing development, I present the concept of selective solidarity, which suggests that social life in these communities is neither as cohesive nor as individualistic as what past perspectives suggest. With selective solidarity, people rely on one another for support but selectively choose exchange partners, restricting exchange networks. Selective solidarity helps us understand how people manage sentiments of distrust while developing strategies for coping with material deprivation. Findings also have implications for the study of urban poverty. While my informants frequently stated that they “stay by themselves,” which implies individualism, they actually have meaningful exchange relationships. I argue that this contradiction suggests that they have multiple frames for approaching social life. We must consider such frames to avoid drawing misinformed conclusions, such as that the urban poor do not have supportive relationship when in fact they do.

RELATIONS BETWEEN ANOMIA AND VALUES OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE BALTIC STATES

The purpose of this study was to determine the structure of anomia among the inhabitants of the Baltic states and to investigate whether there are relations between different dimensions of anomia and personal values. The secondary data from the European Values Study (EVS, 2008) were used. The sample consisted of the inhabitants of Latvia (n = 1506), Lithuania (n = 1500), and Estonia (n = 1518). For measurement of anomia and values questions from the original questionnaire of the EVS were used. In this study five components of anomia were found, namely, local social distrust, local social isolation, normlessness, global social distrust, and global social isolation. Numerous relations between anomia and values were found. It was found that there are the following common, similar patterns of relations between anomia and values of the inhabitants of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: (1) the importance of politics and religion is negatively associated with all dimensions of anomia (with one exception – there is no found the significant relation between the importance of religion and global social distrust in Latvia); (2) the importance of work and family is negatively associated with normlessness; (3) the importance of friends and acquaintances is negatively associated with global social distrust. Estonia was the only country for which it was found that the value of friends and acquaintances was negatively associated with global social isolation and the value of leisure time was negatively associated with local and global social distrust. The value of leisure time was positively associated with local social isolation in Lithuania and with normlessness in Latvia.

Ethnicity in the Middle East and Neighboring Regions: Developing Appropriate Economic Strategies and Policies

Indigenous people and ethnic minorities face economic and social pressures that potentially disturb the social order, undercut cooperation, and spawn distrust. Such pressures can threaten prosperity, peace, and security for all. Strategies are needed that help distinctive groups gain parity, self-determinism, and sustainability. Supplementing neoclassical economic models with more socially relevant paradigms (such as substantive economic anthropology and the triple bottom line) are means of doing so. Regions ethnic groups are showcased to demonstrate the value of such an approach.

Explaining medical disputes in Chinese public hospitals: the doctor-patient relationship and its implications for health policy reforms.

In recent years China has witnessed a surge in medical disputes, including many widely reported violent riots, attacks, and protests in hospitals. This is the result of a confluence of inappropriate incentives in the health system, the consequent distorted behaviors of physicians, mounting social distrust of the medical profession, and institutional failures of the legal framework. The detrimental effects of the damaged doctor-patient relationship have begun to emerge, calling for rigorous study and serious policy intervention. Using a sequential exploratory design, this article seeks to explain medical disputes in Chinese public hospitals with primary data collected from Shenzhen City. The analysis finds that medical disputes of various forms are disturbingly widespread and reveals that inappropriate internal incentives in hospitals and the heavy workload of physicians undermine the quality of clinical encounters, which easily triggers disputes. Empirically, a heavy workload is associated with a larger number of disputes. A greater number of disputes are associated with higher-level hospitals, which can afford larger financial settlements. The resolution of disputes via the legal channel appears to be unpopular. This article argues that restoring a healthy doctor-patient relationship is no less important than other institutional aspects of health care reform.

The relationship between anomie and participation of Latvian inhabitants in social activities

The purpose of this research was to investigate relations between different dimensions of anomie of Latvian inhabitants and their participation in social activities, as well as to find what social activities of Latvian inhabitants best predict their sense of anomie. In this research the secondary data from the third European Quality of Life Survey (European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), 2012) was used. The Latvian sample consisted of respondents (n = 1009), aged from 18 to 92 years (male – 34.9%, female – 65.1%). To assess anomie three subscales of anomie – Social distrust, Social isolation and Meaninglessness – were used. These subscales [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] were constructed basing on the integrative multidimensional model of anomie, developed by Ļevina, Mārtinsone and Kamerāde [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], and using questions from the third European Quality of Life Survey [7]. To measure social activities, twenty questions of the third European Quality of Life Survey were used. It was found that all three aspects of anomie – social distrust, social isolation and meaninglessness – were negatively associated with such social activities as interaction with others without doing a specific activity with them, doing an activity with others, helping others and contributing to society (civic activities). Contact by phone, the Internet or by post with a brother, sister or other relative best of all predicted social distrust. Contact by phone, the Internet or by post with any of friends or neighbours, as well as with a brother, sister or other relative together with participation in social activities in a club, society, or an association and attending a meeting of a trade union, a political party or political action group best of all predicted social isolation. Meaninglessness best of all could be predicted by contact by phone, the Internet or by post with any of friends or neighbours as well as with brother, sister or other relative and by being a volunteer and doing unpaid voluntary work through education, cultural, sports or professional associations.

Exploring the Combination of Dempster-Shafer Theory and Neural Network for Predicting Trust and Distrust.

In social media, trust and distrust among users are important factors in helping users make decisions, dissect information, and receive recommendations. However, the sparsity and imbalance of social relations bring great difficulties and challenges in predicting trust and distrust. Meanwhile, there are numerous inducing factors to determine trust and distrust relations. The relationship among inducing factors may be dependency, independence, and conflicting. Dempster-Shafer theory and neural network are effective and efficient strategies to deal with these difficulties and challenges. In this paper, we study trust and distrust prediction based on the combination of Dempster-Shafer theory and neural network. We firstly analyze the inducing factors about trust and distrust, namely, homophily, status theory, and emotion tendency. Then, we quantify inducing factors of trust and distrust, take these features as evidences, and construct evidence prototype as input nodes of multilayer neural network. Finally, we propose a framework of predicting trust and distrust which uses multilayer neural network to model the implementing process of Dempster-Shafer theory in different hidden layers, aiming to overcome the disadvantage of Dempster-Shafer theory without optimization method. Experimental results on a real-world dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Trying to trust: Brain activity during interpersonal social attitude change.

Interpersonal trust and distrust are important components of human social interaction. Although several studies have shown that brain function is associated with either trusting or distrusting others, very little is known regarding brain function during the control of social attitudes, including trust and distrust. This study was designed to investigate the neural mechanisms involved when people attempt to control their attitudes of trust or distrust toward another person. We used a novel control-of-attitudes fMRI task, which involved explicit instructions to control attitudes of interpersonal trust and distrust. Control of trust or distrust was operationally defined as changes in trustworthiness evaluations of neutral faces before and after the control-of-attitudes fMRI task. Overall, participants (n = 60) evaluated faces paired with the distrust instruction as being less trustworthy than faces paired with the trust instruction following the control-of-distrust task. Within the brain, both the control-of-trust and control-of-distrust conditions were associated with increased temporoparietal junction, precuneus (PrC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and medial prefrontal cortex activity. Individual differences in the control of trust were associated with PrC activity, and individual differences in the control of distrust were associated with IFG activity. Together, these findings identify a brain network involved in the explicit control of distrust and trust and indicate that the PrC and IFG may serve to consolidate interpersonal social attitudes.

Poverty amid plenty: structural violence and local governance in western Congo

ABSTRACTThe protracted conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has drawn sharp criticism regarding the model of liberal peacebuilding employed in the country. Critics emphasise the importance of local ownership of peacebuilding mechanisms at sub-national as well as national levels. This raises questions in relation to the popular legitimacy and efficacy of local mechanisms. Drawing on field research conducted in the relatively affluent province of Bas-Congo in Western Congo, this article highlights a lack of popular legitimacy for provincial-level political authority within the province stemming from an acute marginalisation of the population from local structures of power and wealth. The article also demonstrates the inefficacy of more local, village and neighbourhood-based political structures which, aimed at conflict mitigation rather than transformation, ignore the structural roots of local conflicts and do little to counteract the growing social distrust, conflict and disintegration within local communities.

Citizen satisfaction with public goods and government services in the global urban south: A case study of Cali, Colombia

In this paper we present data from a recent survey of residents' satisfaction levels with a range of urban public goods and government performance in Cali, Colombia. The more affluent report higher levels of satisfaction, especially with regard to security, public space, utilities and government performance, compared to the poor. The low scoring on satisfaction with civic norms and government performance, especially amongst the poor, undermines the notion of an aspirations paradox, suggests a lack of social capital and distrust of government, and indicates a social capital deficit. Our survey results indicate that strengthening the bonds of social capital, improving urban public space and working to improve public safety should be important areas of concern for urban and national governments.

Sex and Age Differences in Levels of Anomia of Latvian Inhabitants

<p><em>Anomia is one of the important factors, which can influence the psychological well-being of individuals. It is especially valuable to determine those socio-demographic groups which can demonstrate the highest levels of anomia. The purpose of the research was to determine whether there are sex and age differences in levels of anomia of Latvian inhabitants. The secondary data from the third European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) were used. The sample consisted of Latvian inhabitants (n = 1009), aged from 18 to 92 years (male – 34.9%, female – 65.1%). 3 indices and 3 subscales of anomia (Social Distrust, Social Isolation and Meaninglessness) were constructed (</em><em>Ļevina, Mārtinsone & </em><em>Kamerāde, 2015a, 2015b). </em><em>A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted. It was found that there was a significant difference in multidimensional anomia between Latvian inhabitants of different age groups.</em></p><p> </p>

Civic engagement in extreme times: The remaking of justice among Guatemala’s ‘postwar’ generation

In recent years, there has been a dramatic growth in the field of youth civic engagement, although little of this work has been conducted in fragile democracies contending with legacies of war and authoritarianism. This study explores how Guatemalan postwar generation youth develop as civic actors under extreme conditions of violence, social and political distrust, and a dwindling space for public expression. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted in rural and urban Guatemala, this study demonstrates how young people’s sense of civic efficacy interacts with their interpretations of historical injustice and the civic messages mediated by teachers, families, peers, and communities. Young people struggle to define and enact appropriate civic action, at times working outside unjust systems as a means of fostering change.

Does social distrust always lead to a stronger support for government intervention?

The paper considers ‘trust’ as an empirical determinant of individual support for government intervention. The central notion is that the influence of generalized trust on policy attitudes is conditional on confidence in both state actors and major companies. The starting point is the idea that individuals who generally distrust other persons have a stronger taste for the regulation of economic activities, while people with high interpersonal trust are in favor of less stringent regulatory control. Yet, people who do not trust unknown others also tend to mistrust government and private companies. If mistrust in state actors dominates, we should not necessarily expect stronger interventionist preferences. Estimating the determinants of interventionist attitudes using data from the World Values Survey/European Values Study for approximately 130,000 individuals in forty OECD- and EU-countries, we find evidence that the impact of social trust on government intervention attitudes is conditional on institutional trust. Confidence in major companies appears to have a stronger effect on preference formation than trust in state actors.

Social Communication Disorders and Social Cognitive Strategies and Attitudes in Victims of Child Abuse

This research analyzes social communication disorders, as well as social cognitive strategies and attitudes, in 12–17-year-olds in residential care. The research is carried out in the Residential Childcare Centers of the Region of Extremadura (Spain). The research shows that social communication disorders in victims of child abuse hinder social competence, making opportunities for interaction more difficult. The subjects show deficiencies in the use of communication for social purposes. As for prosocial attitudes, it can be seen that these young people are characterized by a lack of the following: social sensitivity, self-confidence and firmness in their interactions, and leadership. With respect to social cognitive strategies, what stands out is the following: an impulsive cognitive style, independence, a rigidity of ideas, and a tendency towards social distrust and suspicion. Furthermore, it is in the strategies for solving social problems that the greatest difficulties can be appreciated. The research stresses the need for the design of individual and group intervention plans focusing on the main difficulties observed.

Social Distrust and Immigrant Access to Welfare Programs in the American States

Social trust ameliorates collective action problems by allowing multicultural societies to adopt more inclusive and equitable public policies directed toward newly arriving immigrants. However, existing research warns that increasing ethnic diversity from immigrant populations can undermine levels of social trust, hindering mass support for redistributive policies that empower low‐income minority populations. This article examines the relationship between U.S. state‐level social trust and immigrant access to social welfare programs using multilevel regression with post‐stratification to estimate state‐level attitudes of distrust. Distrust is found to be associated with reduced immigrant access to redistributive social programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid. Interestingly, patterns of distrust and strict immigrant welfare exclusion are more pronounced among low immigrant Southern states, while high immigrant states exhibit relatively inclusive and accommodative policies.Related Articles Turner, Robert C., and William Sharry. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 983–1018. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2012.00392.x/abstract Byrne, Jennifer, and Gregory C. Dixon. 2013. “.” Politics & Policy 41 (): 83–116. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12002/abstract Wagle, Udaya R. 2013. “.” Politics & Policy 41 (): 947–984. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12053/abstract Related Media . 2015. “” January 15. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/have‐the‐danes‐really‐found‐the‐secret‐formula‐to‐contentment‐9978699.html Gelman, Andrew. 2014. “.” Statistical Modeling, Causal Interference, and Social Science. November 11. http://andrewgelman.com/2014/11/11/history‐mrp‐highlights‐differences‐political‐science‐epidemiology/ . 2014. “.” November 18. http://www.nationaljournal.com/next‐america/population‐2043/how‐california‐is‐making‐life‐easier‐for‐undocumented‐immigrants‐20141118

Social determinants and psychological distress among Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander adults in the Australian state of Victoria: A cross-sectional population based study

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults in the Australian state of Victoria have a higher prevalence of psychological distress than their non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counterparts. We sought to explain this inequality, focussing on the social determinants of health. We used population-based survey data from the 2008 Victorian Population Health Survey; a cross-sectional landline computer-assisted telephone survey of 34,168 randomly selected adults. We defined psychological distress as a score of 22 or more on the Kessler 10 Psychological Distress scale. We used logistic regression to identify socio-demographic characteristics and social capital indicators that were associated with psychological distress. We then created multivariable models to explore the association between psychological distress and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status that incorporated all significant socioeconomic status (SES) and social capital variables, adjusting for all non-SES socio-demographic characteristics. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians (24.5%) were more than twice as likely than their non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counterparts (11.3%) to have psychological distress (odds ratio (OR) = 2.56, 95% confidence interval; 1.67–3.93). Controlling for SES, negative perceptions of the residential neighbourhood, lack of social support from family, social and civic distrust, and all non-SES socio-demographic variables (age, sex, marital status, household composition, and rurality), rendered the previously statistically significant inequality in the prevalence of psychological distress, between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians and their non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander counterparts, insignificant at the p = 0.05 level (OR = 1.50; 0.97–2.32). Psychological distress is an important health risk factor for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults that has yet to be widely acknowledged and addressed. Addressing the underlying inequalities in SES and social capital may be the key to addressing the inequality in psychological distress.

Social Epistemology and the Pragmatics of Assessment

Background/Context The assessment of students, along with teachers and school systems, has largely taken place within a context of positivist science. An enormous range of scholarship now challenges the positivist paradigm, offering a social espistemological alternative. This alternative invites a reexamination of assessment processes and their policy implications. Purpose/Objective After sketching out the social constructionist alternative to positivist epistemology, the research centered on the pragmatics of existing assessment practices, including an analysis of who is helped or harmed but such practices. Setting The research included extended across a wide range of contemporary educational settings. Research Design The research was primarily analytic, drawing from wide-ranging sources in education and allied disciplines. Conclusions/Recommendations Among the general outcomes of current assessment practices are the fostering of social division and distrust, the creation of hierarchies of worth, and the diminution of pluralism. Within educational systems we find a sacrifice of curriculum and pedagogy for the production of higher test scores, and the diminution of teacher motivation and engagement. Within communities, there is a disregard for local needs and values, a loss in student motivation, and an increase in family tensions. Possible alternatives to current testing practices, along with recommendations for future policies, are considered.

Social trust and luxury seafood banquets in contemporary Beijing

China is marked by rising levels of consumption, but also high levels of social distrust. This paper offers an empirical study of luxury seafood consumption in banquets in Beijing as a way of understanding perceptions of and responses to a lack of trust in abstract social institutions in Chinese society. We focus on the chronic distrust Chinese people have in the food system and the economic system. Governance of the food system is marked by failures related to food safety and authenticity, while the formal institutions of the economic system are insufficient to provide security in professional contexts. Because people do not have social trust in the rationality and effectiveness of such abstract institutions, they are compelled to generate personal trust. Luxury seafood consumption in banquets is an important component of this process of generating personal trust.

Distrust and the positive test heuristic: Dispositional and situated social distrust improves performance on the Wason Rule Discovery Task.

Feelings of distrust alert people not to take information at face value, which may influence their reasoning strategy. Using the Wason (1960) rule identification task, we tested whether chronic and temporary distrust increase the use of negative hypothesis testing strategies suited to falsify one's own initial hunch. In Study 1, participants who were low in dispositional trust were more likely to engage in negative hypothesis testing than participants high in dispositional trust. In Study 2, trust and distrust were induced through an alleged person-memory task. Paralleling the effects of chronic distrust, participants exposed to a single distrust-eliciting face were 3 times as likely to engage in negative hypothesis testing as participants exposed to a trust-eliciting face. In both studies, distrust increased negative hypothesis testing, which was associated with better performance on the Wason task. In contrast, participants' initial rule generation was not consistently affected by distrust. These findings provide first evidence that distrust can influence which reasoning strategy people adopt.

EPA-0767 – Plasma oxytocin and testosterone levels in patients with psychotic disorder, their unaffected siblings and healthy controls: results from the EU-GEI project

The incidence of psychotic disorders is increased among men and culminates in adolescence. After menopause, there is a second peak in the incidence among women. It has therefore been suggested that sex steroids, such as oxytocin and testosterone, may confer decreased or increased risks for psychotic disorders. To investigate differences in peripheral oxytocin and testosterone plasma levels in patients with a first psychotic episode, their unaffected siblings and healthy controls. Plasma hormone assays of oxytocin and testosterone were obtained from 85 patients with a psychotic disorder, 27 of their unaffected siblings and 59 healthy controls. Sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG) was collected to calculate the free androgen index (FAI; testosterone/SHBG), a broad indicator of androgen status. We analyzed group differences in hormone levels, as well as associations with demographic and illness parameters. There were no significant differences in plasma oxytocin levels or FAI across groups. Adjusted for age, smoking, time of blood draw and BMI, we found a significant group difference in plasma testosterone levels in males (F(6,72)= 2.8; p<0.05), not in females. This effect was primarily caused by significantly higher mean plasma testosterone levels in antipsychotic-naive men (n=15) compared to their unaffected brothers (p<0.01) and healthy controls (p<0.05). This study contradicts previous findings of decreased testosterone and oxytocin levels in patients with a psychotic disorder. Increased plasma testosterone in antipsychotic-naive male patients may reflect social distrust and paranoid thinking. It further underlines a potential mechanism of antipsychotic medication of normalizing androgen activity.