Frequency Of Social Interactions Research Articles

Weaving participation, interaction, and technology across recreational experiences: perspectives from volunteers, caregivers, and people with complex communication needs

Recreational and leisure activities offer many meaningful and motivating opportunities for communication and improving quality-of-life. Volunteers in recreation activities have important roles as participation and communication facilitators, while also creating opportunities for learning and social interaction. The aim of this study was to implement a novel photo and video intervention called the CAPTURE & Share Program, and to evaluate its impact on communication opportunities and participation. For the study, five volunteers were assigned to five individuals with complex communication needs. Each dyad took photos and videos during a series of three kayaking lessons. After each lesson, volunteers participated in feedback sessions, while caregivers, support staff, and participants with complex communication needs shared their perspectives during pre- and post-lesson interviews. A thematic analysis, based on the data from the volunteer feedback sessions, revealed five primary themes: Program Components, Modifications, Barriers, Supports, and Benefits. Findings revealed that volunteers supported the individuals with complex communication needs who participated in the study to collect photos and videos as they learned how to use cameras and communicate their preferences for capture. Furthermore, the photos and videos that were collected were shared with family and friends, which encouraged more frequent social interactions and opportunities for communication. Findings suggest that recreational activities were perceived to provide an appropriate infrastructure for photo and video capture and to support opportunities for communication.

An examination of objective social disconnectedness and perceived social isolation among persons with spinal cord injury/dysfunction: a descriptive cross-sectional study

Purpose To describe objective social disconnectedness and perceived social isolation post-spinal cord injury/dysfunction (SCI/D), and to examine associations among social disconnectedness and social isolation by sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Materials and Methods A telephone-based questionnaire was administered to 170 community dwelling individuals with a SCI/D. Social disconnectedness was measured by social network size, composition, and frequency of contact. Social isolation was measured using the revised three item UCLA Loneliness Scale. Results Of the 170 participants, the majority were men (n = 136, 80%), had a traumatic injury (n = 149, 87.6%), and had incomplete tetraplegia (n = 58, 34%). The mean network size was 3.86 (SD = 2.0) of a maximum seven. The mean loneliness score for the sample was 4.93 (SD = 1.87). Factors associated with lower feelings of loneliness included being married, living with a higher proportion of network members, and being employed. Size of networks was not significantly associated with feelings of loneliness. Conclusions This study highlights the vulnerability for perceived social isolation among persons with SCI/D. The size of network does not seem to matter as much as the frequency and quality of social interactions. Findings reinforce the complexity of social disconnectedness and the importance in understanding the various indicators of social disconnectedness as they relate to social isolation. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION Social relationships have been shown to be a vital component of optimal health and well-being. Individuals with a spinal cord injury/dysfunction are faced with a number of challenges in developing and maintaining social relationships and community participation. Rehabilitation professionals should encourage opportunities for social inclusion, employment and community participation to optimize health and well-being for this population.

Exposure to Immigration and Admission Preferences: Evidence from France

To what extent does exposure to immigration condition the types of immigrants citizens are willing to admit? Extending the conjoint approach adopted by Hainmueller and Hopkins (Am J Pol Sci 59(3):529–548, 2015), this study investigates whether the admission preferences of French natives vary based on personal exposure to immigration, as proxied by local demographics and self-reported social contact. Methodologically, we propose and apply new methods to compare attribute salience across different subgroups of respondents. We find that although an inflow of immigrants into respondents’ municipalities has a limited influence on how French natives evaluate prospective immigrants, social contact with immigrants matters. Specifically, French natives who do not frequently interact with immigrants are significantly less favorable toward immigrants from non-western countries, and more favorable toward immigrants from western countries. In contrast, natives who report frequent social interactions with immigrants place less weight on nationality as a criterion for immigrant admission. Although scholars have noted an increasing consensus in immigration attitudes across developed democracies, our findings suggest that individual experiences with immigration condition preferences for immigration policy at the national level.

Development of attention from birth to 5 months in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder.

Social-communication skills emerge within the context of rich social interactions, facilitated by an infant's capacity to attend to people and objects in the environment. Disruption in this early neurobehavioral process may decrease the frequency and quality of social interactions and learning opportunities, potentially leading to downstream deleterious effects on social development. This study examined early attention in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are at risk for social and communication delays. Visual and auditory attention was mapped from age 1 week to 5 months in infants at familial risk for ASD (high risk; N = 41) and low-risk typically developing infants (low risk; N = 39). At 12 months, a subset of participants (N = 40) was administered assessments of social communication and nonverbal cognitive skills. Results revealed that high-risk infants performed lower on attention tasks at 2 and 3 months of age compared to low-risk infants. A significant association between overall attention at 3 months and developmental outcome at 12 months was observed for both groups. These results provide evidence for early vulnerabilities in visual attention for infants at risk for ASD during a period of important neurodevelopmental transition (between 2 and 3 months) when attention has significant implications for social communication and cognitive development.

Social Network Characteristics and Their Associations With Stress in Older Adults: Closure and Balance in a Population-Based Sample.

Integration into social networks reduces stress during adverse life events and improves coping with disability in late life. The aim was to investigate whether social network closure (frequent contact among ties) and balance (positive contact among ties) are associated with perceived stress. We expect lowest stress for older adults with highly closed and balanced networks. Panel data on self-reported egocentric networks stem from the population-based Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study. Five waves were collected between 2002 and 2006, with 708 observations from 160 participants aged 50-68 years at baseline. Data include information on the participants' social relationships, that is, interaction frequency and relationship quality, for ego-alter ties and alter-alter ties, and participants' perceived stress. The analytical strategy used fixed- and random-effects models. Participants reporting the highest number of balanced relationships (positive ties among alters) experience least stress. This effect holds independently of sociodemographic confounders, loneliness, and network size. The absence of a stress-reducing effect from network closure suggests that balance matters more. Future research would benefit from considering balance when examining the characteristics of social networks that impinge on mental health outcomes in older adults.

Social interactions and physical symptoms in daily life: quality matters for older adults, quantity matters for younger adults

Objective: The present study examined how the different attributes of daily social interactions (quality and quantity) were associated with physical health, and how these associations vary with age.Method: Using an ecological momentary assessment approach, participants from an adulthood lifespan sample (n = 172; aged 20–79 years) reported their social interactions five times daily, and physical symptoms and symptom severity at the end of each day, for one week.Main outcome measures: Number of physical symptoms and physical symptom severity.Results: There was a within-person main effect of the quality (positivity), but not the quantity (frequency), of social interactions on the number of reported physical symptoms and their severity. Moderation analyses further revealed that the quality of daily social interactions predicted fewer physical symptoms for older adults, but not for younger adults; in contrast, the frequency of social interactions predicted less severe physical symptoms for younger adults, but not for older adults. Finally, the reported severity of physical symptoms predicted less frequent but more positive social interactions the next day.Conclusions: Our findings point to the bidirectional associations between social interactions and health and highlight the importance of considering individuals' developmental context in future research and interventions.

Positive Interpersonal Processes

Good relationships are characterized by frequent positive social interactions, such as having fun together, sharing laughs, doing kind things for one another, and expressing gratitude. Here, building on rapidly emerging findings, I articulate core features of positive interpersonal processes for the first time. This approach leads to useful specificity in predictions about relationship consequences and simultaneously contributes to both affective and relationship science, two domains that span disciplines within the psychological literature. In turn, basic research on everyday positive interpersonal processes points toward new avenues for understanding the well-established links between good relationships and health.

Achromatic plumage brightness predicts stress resilience and social interactions in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

AbstractTheory suggests that signal honesty may be maintained by differential costs for high and low quality individuals. For signals that mediate social interactions, costs can arise from the way that a signal changes the subsequent social environment via receiver responses. These receiver-dependent costs may be linked with individual quality through variation in resilience to environmental and social stress. Here, we imposed stressful conditions on female tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) by attaching groups of feathers during incubation to decrease flight efficiency and maneuverability. We simultaneously monitored social interactions using an RFID network that allowed us to track the identity of every individual that visited each nest for the entire season. Before treatments, plumage coloration was correlated with baseline and stress-induced corticosterone. Relative to controls, experimentally challenged females were more likely to abandon their nest during incubation. Overall, females with brighter white breasts were less likely to abandon, but this pattern was only significant under stressful conditions. In addition to being more resilient, brighter females received more unique visitors at their nest-box and tended to make more visits to other active nests. In contrast, dorsal coloration did not reliably predict abandonment or social interactions. Taken together, our results suggest that females differ in their resilience to stress and that these differences are signaled by plumage brightness, which is in turn correlated with the frequency of social interactions. While we do not document direct costs of social interaction, our results are consistent with models of signal honesty based on receiver-dependent costs.

Naïve learning in social networks with random communication

We study social learning in a social network setting where agents receive independent noisy signals about the truth. Agents naïvely update beliefs by repeatedly taking weighted averages of neighbors’ opinions. The weights are fixed in the sense of representing average frequency and intensity of social interaction. However, the way people communicate is random such that agents do not update their belief in exactly the same way at every point in time. Our findings, based on Theorem 1, Corollary 1 and simulated examples, suggest the following. Even if the social network does not privilege any agent in terms of influence, a large society almost always fails to converge to the truth. We conclude that wisdom of crowds seems an illusive concept and bares the danger of mistaking consensus for truth.

Perceived Social Support and Big Five Personality Traits in Middle Adulthood: a 4-Year Cross-Lagged Path Analysis

Previous studies have shown that the Big Five personality traits are significantly associated with perceived social support and these associations are positively associated with agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability. However, it is not yet clear whether these associations hold longitudinally or how these variables may predict each other over time. To investigate the co-development of personality traits and perceived social support, a cross-lagged path model design was used on a sample of adults (N = 1309) measured on two occasions 4 years apart. The results indicated that while emotional stability predicted perceived social support 4 years later, perceived social support also predicted emotional stability, extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness 4 years later. Our findings suggest that perceived social support may be a resource that has an impact on the development of personality traits known to be associated with social skills as well as the quality and frequency of social interactions in middle adulthood.

Significance of Group Composition for the Welfare of Pastured Horses.

Simple SummaryBecause of their social nature, horses need to have plenty of opportunities to interact with others to establish bonds and learn from their elders. Comparison of social behaviour of 426 horses in 20 groups of Icelandic horses in pastures, showed that aggression was lowest where the group composition was like the natural system, i.e., with a stallion, mares and their young foals. In groups without a stallion, the presence of foals is also associated with low aggression. Stability of the group with respect to group composition is of great importance; the horses are less aggressive in the more stable groups. The highest aggression was found in groups of unfamiliar yearlings. The horses allogroomed more in groups with relatively more young horses, which suggests they are forming bonds. Later, they groom less but prefer certain individuals. Horse owners should all be aware of the importance of planning the composition of horse groups and to keep the membership as stable as possible in order to ensure good welfare.We explore how herd composition and management factors correlate with frequencies of social interactions in horse groups. Since the welfare of horses correlates with low aggression levels and social contact opportunities, information of this kind is important. The data are a collection of records of social interactions of 426 Icelandic horses in 20 groups of at least eight horses. The complexities and limitations of the data prohibit useful statistical modelling so the results are presented descriptively. Interesting and informative patterns emerge which can be of use both in management and in future studies. Of special interest are the low levels of agonistic behaviours in breeding groups where one stallion was present. The horses were less agonistic when in groups with young foals and where group membership was stable. Unfamiliar yearlings in peer groups were especially aggressive. Allogrooming was most frequent in groups with relatively more young horses and in unstable and small groups. Interestingly, the horses allogroomed more if they had few preferred allogrooming partners. The findings show that composition (age/sex) and stability of groups are of great importance with respect to aggression levels and opportunities for establishing bonds.

DEMATEL Technique to Assess Social Capital Dimensions on Consumer Engagement Effect on Co-Creation

The concept of social capital has become an interesting issue in management literature. Several authors have called for more study to be carried out on the dimensions of social capital. As part of the response to this call, we examined the influence of the dimensions of social capital on customer engagement to co-create. The Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique was applied to analyze and capture the causal relationship visibly among the criteria and also measure the interaction level and the direction of influence of the criteria. The criteria identified to be crucial in influencing other criteria to co-create and the driving factors for problem-solving were: commitment (b8), Shared code and language (c9), shared narratives (c10), consumer engagement (d11), density (a3) and structural holes (a5). Criteria such as frequency of interaction (b7), trust (b6), social interaction (a4) and network ties were recognized as the core subjects that need maximum attention because they are effect-type attributes and cannot be directly improved unless through other criteria.

An UML to OWL based approach for extracting Moodle’s Ontology for Social Network Analysis

The main analyses in Social Network Analysis field are focusing on measuring the frequency of social interactions that are modeled only with numbers; 0 or 1 on the graph adjacency matrix. Therefore, ontologies have drawn attention to empower and enhance the Social Network Analysis with semantics. By exploring theses semantics, besides we better view and analyze the interactions between students and teachers inside the Learning Management System, the network graph structure and analyses change. In this paper, we propose a methodology to build Moodle’s OWL (Web Ontology Language) ontology for Social Network Analysis ends. The proposed ontology gives explicit meaning to the relationships inside Moodle instead of modeling them as nodes and edges with implicit semantics like the case in classical Social Network Analysis. The semantics of relationships influences the graph structure and statistics by making some nodes more central and influential and other nodes less central and influential. The built ontology is basically made by exploring the UML (Unified Modeling Language) class diagram that we created from Moodle Mount Orange School and is our main metadata source.

The effect of social interaction on users'social commerce intention

Social commerce enables users to conduct frequent social interactions, which may strengthen their social relationships and affect their behavioural decision. The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of social interaction on users' social commerce intention. Social interaction consists of human-human interaction and human-computer interaction. Human-human interaction includes informational interaction and emotional interaction, whereas human-computer interaction includes perceived control, perceived responsiveness and perceived personalisation. Structural equation modelling was adopted to conduct data analysis. The results indicated that social interaction affects trust in other members and trust in community, both of which further determine social commerce intention. The results indicated that service providers need to facilitate social interaction in order to promote users' social commerce intention.

Place Attachment and Collective Action Tendency

Three studies were carried out to examine how place attachment and collective action tendency are related and what role self-expansion and social interactions play in this relationship. In the first study (N = 156) we found that a more active form of attachment – place discovered – is a significant predictor of tendency to engage in collective action in favor of one’s neighborhood. In the second study (N = 197), we focused on frequency of social interactions in one’s neighborhood as the antecedent of place attachment and collective action tendencies. We found that inhabitants who declared more frequent social interactions in one’s neighborhood, expressed stronger place discovered, and this attachment is related to collective action tendencies. In the third study (N = 153), we tested if self-expansion mediates this relationship. We found that stronger place discovered was related to the feeling of self-expansion that resulted from contact with neighbors. Moreover, self-expansion was related to the tendency to engage in collective action.

Effect of Physical Environment and Programs on the Social Interaction of Youth Space Users in Seoul in the Case of Pilot Projects

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of the structure of a community space for local youth, called the Zero Gravity Zone, on the social interaction and satisfaction of its users. The factors of social interaction were influenced by the level of relationship, fellowship and participation. The research sites were the Youth Space G-valley (YS_G) and the Youth Space Daebang-dong (YS_D) in Seoul. As its research method, this study utilized partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling to analyze the influence structure. Results showed that YS_G, which is mainly used by office workers, has a significant effect on the overall satisfaction and social interaction of its users by providing physical space. On the other hand, YS_D, which is mainly used by college students and job-seekers, has a significant effect on the overall satisfaction and social interaction of its users by providing programs. Based on the above results, rather than standardizing operational spaces, it is necessary to plan and operate spaces such as these around the characteristics of the youth in each region to ensure frequent social interaction, which is the policy goal of the youth community.

Gender Differences in Social Mastery Motivation and Its Relationships to Vocabulary Knowledge, Behavioral Self-Regulation, and Socioemotional Skills

ABSTRACTThe present study investigated gender differences in social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and socioemotional skills and examined the relationships among this knowledge and these skills by gender. Participants were 134 Chinese children (68 boys, M age = 3.80; 66 girls, M age = 3.89) and their parents recruited through local kindergartens’ parent groups. The children were administered measures of social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and nonverbal intelligence. Parents reported their education level and children’s socioemotional skills. Research Findings: Results revealed that boys exhibited more social mastery interactions than girls, and girls showed better behavioral self-regulation and socioemotional skills than boys. Girls with higher social mastery interaction frequency demonstrated better vocabulary knowledge and socioemotional skills, whereas boys with higher social mastery interaction frequency showed lower behavioral self-regulation. Boys, who showed more positive affect during social mastery interactions, tended to have better expressive vocabulary, which facilitated their behavioral self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Findings highlight social mastery motivation as a potential factor that facilitates children’s early development, but it may contribute to boys and girls in different ways.

Street fighters: Bite force, injury rates, and density of urban Australian water dragons (Intellagama lesueurii)

AbstractIn an increasingly urbanized world it is imperative that we understand how wildlife responds to this novel anthropogenic landscape, both at the individual‐ and population‐level. Urbanization generally reduces biodiversity, but can also favour particular species and increase their abundance relative to wild populations. When population density increases, so too does the frequency and cost of social interactions. We studied Australian water dragons (Intellagama lesueurii), a species common in urban, semi‐natural and natural areas, to firstly test the prediction that urban populations occur at higher densities, and then determine the consequences of urbanization for combat rates (quantified using wounding) and bite force. We established that urban populations are denser than ones from semi‐natural and natural habitats. We also recorded significantly more wounds in females from urban populations than females from both natural and semi‐natural populations. Urban males also had significantly higher incidence of wounding than males from natural populations. We did not find a difference in male or female bite force among any populations across the urban‐natural gradient. Overall, we found evidence that urbanization results in a higher population density of water dragons and more frequent conspecific combat, but this was not associated with an increase in bite force. These finding suggests that there may be a physiological cost to living in urban habitats related to increased contest rates and wounding.

AGE-FRIENDLY INITIATIVES AND IMMIGRANT SENIORS: ADDRESSING SOCIAL ISOLATION USING TECHNOLOGY

Of the eight dimensions of the World Health Organization’s “age-friendly” cities initiative, the communication domain highlights the importance of information about community events and services being available in formats that are ‘appropriate’ for older adults. Although older immigrants may face pervasive language barriers in the English-speaking communities they often reside in, various forms of technology show promise for bridging communication deficits and reducing social isolation. To better understand the role of technology for facilitating communication, a mixed-methods study consisting of surveys (n=100) and two focus groups led by native language speakers were conducted with Cantonese (n=6) and Mandarin speaking (n=19) seniors (65+) living in Chinatown, Toronto, Canada. The surveys used standardized scales for social participation to measure aspects of the seniors’ lived experiences including sense of belonging, availability and access to community/ healthcare services, frequency and quality of family and social interactions, and perceived personal well-being. Both quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that technology was favoured as a primary method of communication for immigrant seniors, and that this mode of communication can facilitate significant improvement in multiple domains of age-friendly initiatives including: social participation and inclusion, community support and health services, and transportation. To maximize the use of tangible and tech-based resources available to seniors (i.e., wearables, smartphones), communities should incorporate technology such as messaging apps or electronic translation services to instantly mobilize information and knowledge into accessible language and cultural formats. Circumventing language barriers with other seniors and service providers in the community, technology may promote greater social participation.

Trust-based altruism facing new contexts: The Vyegwa-Gika pygmies from Burundi

The community of Pygmies settled in Vyegwa-Gika provides an exceptional case study to test the role of trust in the evolution of altruism. The Vyegwa-Gika Pygmies were forced to migrate from rainforests to the savanna, changing quickly their environment, culture, and socio-economic situation. Despite the high level of poverty they suffer in this new settlement, we found evidence of strong altruistic attitudes toward trustees when playing an economic game. In addition, Vyegwa-Gika Pygmies keep small personal trust networks despite the fact they share frequent social interactions within the community. These results indicate the great effectiveness of personal trust in fostering altruism, even if the circumstances make it difficult to establish such kind of affective bonds. A theory of the evolution of altruism should therefore also account for the evolution of psychology of trust, as a key element in the process.