Social Process Model Research Articles

Structure-based control of complex networks with nonlinear dynamics

What can we learn about controlling a system solely from its underlying network structure? Here we adapt a recently developed framework for control of networks governed by a broad class of nonlinear dynamics that includes the major dynamic models of biological, technological, and social processes. This feedback-based framework provides realizable node overrides that steer a system toward any of its natural long-term dynamic behaviors, regardless of the specific functional forms and system parameters. We use this framework on several real networks, identify the topological characteristics that underlie the predicted node overrides, and compare its predictions to those of structural controllability in control theory. Finally, we demonstrate this framework's applicability in dynamic models of gene regulatory networks and identify nodes whose override is necessary for control in the general case but not in specific model instances.

Tracing the emerging energy transitions in the Global North and the Global South

During recent centuries, in the Global North, every energy crisis has been overcome, sooner or later, with a transition that has led to an increase in the average per capita energy consumption. Currently, due to the environmental and social impacts of the dominant high-consumption and fossil-fuels based energy model, we are seeing some initiatives that pursue a transition towards a democratic, low-carbon and low-energy consumption level energy system. This work analyses some of the socio-cultural, technological, economic and political factors that are leading to different multi-scale transitions towards low-energy societies around the world. It examines several different cases of transition and proposals from the Global South and Global North. Furthermore, given the limitations of the local or partial nature of these case studies, we also analyse their national energy contexts taking into account the hidden energy flows. These data integrate the total energy needed to provide the goods and services consumed by citizens and indicate the sectors that should be targeted to bring about genuine change, which sometimes differ from the transition paths signposted by national governments. The specific lessons extracted from the case studies in this research may contribute to a social learning process, promoting democratic and sustainable energy models in different regions of the world: peak oil could be an opportunity; energy needs to be equitable, not only renewable; there should be more sincerity and transparency in public energy data communication; energy should be controlled in a public or cooperative way; citizens should take control of their own investments in the energy sector; energy should be a right, not a commodity; community based consumption could reduce energy consumption; and sustainable urban development should be applied in cities and towns, where energy consumers could also become producers.

Wissensasymmetrien, Interaktionsrollen und die Frage der „gemeinsamen“ Sprache in der interdisziplinären Projektkommunikation

goal of the present discourse analysis is to report on the initial results of a DFG project on communication in interdisciplinary projects. Based on a case study, the following questions were investigated: 1) at what times or phases of a project communication problems occur, 2) what kinds of problems occur as a result of knowledge asymmetries, and 3) which interactive and discourse roles do participants take on when facing such problems? Three main conclusions can be drawn from the findings; first, that linguistic-communicative problems occurring in interdisciplinary projects are not simply a result of attempts to find a “common language”, but are grounded in issues of contextual, methodological, organisitory, and socio-pragmatic agreements. Second, these communication problems arise during the initial, preparatory phases of a project, earlier than social scientific process models suggest, i. e. as early as the writing and submission of the project proposal, as opposed to when the project work actually begins. Third, that these problems, induced by the inevitable presence of knowledge asymmetries among participants, must be resolved not only through active and consistent meta-communication, but also through meta-meta-communication. Evidence for these findings was gathered by means of interviews with project participants in which they reflected on the phase of jointly writing their project proposal from the perspective of their respective disciplines.

ДОСВІД МІЖДИСЦИПЛІНАРНОГО ПРОЕКТНО - ОРІЄНТОВАНОГО НАВЧАННЯ ПРИ ПІДГОТОВЦІ МАГІСТРІВ ЗА СПЕЦІАЛІЗАЦІЄЮ «СОЦІАЛЬНА ІНФОРМАТИКА»

The article considers the experience of using project-oriented training in teaching specialists in the speciality Computer Science and Information Technologies, specializing in Informatics. The essence and content of designing as an innovative method in didactics and methodology of high school are considered. It is determined that the project technology of student training should provide: firstly, the necessary and sufficient amount of theoretical knowledge and practical skills of students with effective feedback, control and regulation at all stages of training; secondly, the conditions for the use of the methodology as a means of training; and thirdly, the consciousness and depth of the formed professional knowledge, skills and abilities. Formulated advantages and disadvantages of project-oriented training, proposed ways for problems solution. Organizational stages of projector-oriented learning and the role of each of the participants - the teacher and students are described. The structure of the project activity in the process of implementation of the interdisciplinary project in the study of masters is revealed. The relationship between the project activity and the research methods is shown. The role of project activity in providing personality-oriented training and formation of professional competencies is formulated, professional competences are formulated for each stage of the project activity; the requirements of the modern labour market to the graduate are analyzed and a list of professional competencies is given. The stages of realization of the four-semester project prolonged in the course of teaching several disciplines are shown: Social Informatics, Modern Methods of Researching Social Information, Modeling of Social Processes, ICT Management of Social Systems. It has been determined that the educational system can not completely switch to a project-oriented approach to learning, but the use of this technology in the organization has great potential in training the person of a new formation, as well as preparing students for the practical implementation of the knowledge gained. Application of project-oriented training requires the improvement of curricula and work programs, rethinking the purpose of individual students’ work. DOI: https://doi.org/10.28925/2414-0325.2017.3.2673

Testing a Social Cognitive Model of Workplace Sexual Identity Management

Lent and Brown proposed a social cognitive career self-management process model that extended prior social cognitive career theory (SCCT) content models to explain the conditions under which people will engage in career management behaviors (e.g., career exploration). We tested the SCCT self-management model in the context of workplace sexual identity management. The model hypothesizes that engagement in sexual identity management strategies in the workplace is facilitated by strong sexual identity management self-efficacy beliefs and positive outcome expectations for engaging in sexual identity management behaviors. The model also posits that additional person and contextual variables will influence engagement in sexual identity management behaviors directly as well as indirectly via self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations. Using a sample of 152 sexual minority participants drawn from community Internet mailing lists, partial and full mediation models of workplace sexual identity disclosure were tested using theoretically relevant person input (i.e., concealment motivation) and contextual (i.e., workplace climate) variables. Results supported a partially mediated model suggesting that concealment motivation and workplace climate influence workplace disclosure directly as well as indirectly through self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations. Policy and social justice implications for the results are discussed and future research directions are considered.

Assessing Intercultural Competence in Higher Education: Existing Research and Future Directions

AbstractThe modern wave of globalization has created a demand for increased intercultural competence (ICC) in college graduates who will soon enter the 21st‐century workforce. Despite the wide attention to the concepts and assessment of ICC, few assessments meet the standards for a next‐generation assessment in areas of construct clarity, innovative item types, response processes, and validity evidence. The objectives of this report are to identify current conceptualizations of ICC, review existing assessments and their validity evidence, propose a new framework for a next‐generation ICC assessment, and discuss key assessment considerations. To summarize, we found the current state of the literature to be murky in terms of the clarity of the ICC construct. Definitions of the construct vary considerably as to whether it is a trait, skill, or performance outcome. In addition, current measurements of ICC overly rely on self‐report methods, which have a number of flaws that result in less than optimal assessment. In this paper, we propose a new framework based on a model of the social thinking process developed by Grossman and colleagues that describes the knowledge, skills, and abilities that promote success in complex social situations. From this social process model, as well as Earley and Peterson's definition of ICC (a person's capability to gather, interpret, and act upon these radically different cues to function effectively across cultural settings or in a multicultural situation), three stages are developed: approach, analyze, and act. Guided by this framework, we discuss assessment considerations such as innovative task types and multiple response formats to help translate the framework to an assessment of ICC.

Social interactions in job satisfaction

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to test empirically whether there exist spillover externalities in job satisfaction, i.e., to test whether individual-level job satisfaction is affected by the aggregate job satisfaction level in a certain labor market environment.Design/methodology/approach– The authors use a linear-in-means model of social interactions in the empirical analysis. The authors develop an original strategy, motivated by the hierarchical models of social processes, to identify the parameters of interest. BHPS and WERS datasets are used to perform the estimations both at the establishment and local labor market levels.Findings– The authors find that one standard deviation increase in aggregate job satisfaction leads to a 0.42 standard deviation increase in individual-level job satisfaction at the workplace level and a 0.15 standard deviation increase in individual-level job satisfaction at the local labor market level. In other words, the authors report that statistically significant job satisfaction spillovers exist both at the establishment level and local labor market level; and, the former being approximately three times larger than the latter.Originality/value– First, this is the first paper in the literature estimating spillover effects in job satisfaction. Second, the authors show that the degree of these spillover externalities may change at different aggregation levels. Finally, motivated by the hierarchical models of social processes, the author develop an original econometric identification strategy.

Returning the “Social” to Evolutionary Sociology: Reconsidering Spencer, Durkheim, and Marx’s Models of “Natural” Selection

Sociology can no longer avoid engagement with biological ideas, but it can incorporate them where they are useful. Most biologically inspired explanations of sociological processes from outside the discipline are simple and, moreover, too reliant on biological rather than sociological models of social processes. Yet, it is possible to engage these efforts by developing sociological concepts and theories that meet those using evolutionary theory from biology. This paper argues that the heavy reliance on Darwinian natural selection limits sociological explanations, although this approach can help sociologists understand the evolved behavioral propensities of humans as evolved apes. These behavioral propensities cannot, however, explain the evolution and dynamics of the layers of sociocultural phenomena studied by sociologists, and efforts to do so with Darwinian notions of natural selection on individual organisms will always be inadequate. As an alternative, we propose that there are other types of natural selection inherent in the organization of what Herbert Spencer termed superorganisms. We label these Durkheimian, Spencerian, and Marxian selection, and they explain what Darwinian selection cannot: the dynamics and evolution of sociocultural phenomena.

Newcomer integration in knowledge communities: development of the strat-I-Com questionnaire for MMORPG-based communities

Players of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) build online knowledge communities that can serve as learning environments for informal adult learning. Hence, newcomer integration in MMORPG player communities can be regarded as a first step in an informal learning process. Newcomer integration strategies have been identified in face-to-face communities, but not yet in MMORPG-based communities. Extending the previous findings and providing quantitative models of specific processes may enhance the development of smart technologies. With this aim, the present research proposes and validates questionnaire survey scales that quantitatively explore the process of newcomer integration in German MMORPG player communities. Two correlational studies within samples with a total of N = 276 participants were conducted, allowing the identification of five reliable scales (recruitment, knowledge assessment, negative welcome, modeling and consistent training strategies) in the first study and four reliable scales (centrality, recruitment evaluation, monitoring and evaluation of newcomer integration) in the second. The perceptions of newcomer integration strategies were correlated with participants’ gender, age and community exposure time. These perceptions were further correlated with participants’ centrality and sense of community. The findings add to knowledge communities research and make headway in smart community technology development by suggesting quantitative models for social processes in MMORPG communities. Follow-up research will further explore newcomer integration employing automated analysis procedures with cross-sectional as well as longitudinal research designs.

Identity Processes to Trigger Turnaround in Response to Organizational Decline

This article proposes a model of identity-related social processes that, when applied during organizational decline, is hypothesized to support turnaround and avoid organizational death. The social processes are retiring, reclaiming, reaffirming, regenerating, and reimagining identity attributes. Although this model is rooted in past studies and literature on organizational decline and organizational identity, empirical research is needed to validate or adjust the model. Future work could involve examination of identity negotiations within past cases of organizational decline and turnaround as well as devising and testing specific retiring, reclaiming, reaffirming, regenerating, and reimagining interventions.

A Longitudinal Study of Relational Aggression and Victimisation in Early Adolescence: Gender Differences in the Moderating Effects of Social Status

Relational aggression is defined as behaviours intended to harm others by damaging their relationships. Drawing from two theoretical perspectives, the social process model and the peer socialisation model, we tested how relational aggression and victimisation could influence each other over time, and examined peer status and gender as moderators of these bidirectional associations. We hypothesised that aggression would lead to increasing victimisation and victimisation to increasing aggression, and that the association from aggression to later victimisation would be weaker for more popular and preferred youth, especially girls. Participants were 328 Australian early adolescents (172 boys, 156 girls) in Grades 5, 6 or 7, who nominated classmates who were aggressive, victimised, popular, and preferred. Results showed support for the role of status and gender in the bidirectional associations between aggression and victimisation. Relational aggression was associated with more T2 relational victimisation only among adolescents who were low in popularity and among girls with low social preference. Victimisation was associated with T2 aggressive behaviour among more popular girls. Relational victimisation was also associated with less T2 aggression among popular boys. Findings highlight the complexities introduced by gender and social status for the unfolding of early adolescent relational aggression and victimisation.

A Categorical-Generative Theory of Social Processes

This paper proposes a mathematical model and a social research methodology to describe the dynamics of flows of action events that evolve conditioned by a specific set of structures and contextual conditions such as complex, dynamic and contingent social phenomena. Thus, a discrete rule-based model for patterns of sequences of action events deduced from Generative Grammar Theory and Category Theory depicts prior theoretical propositions and identifies causal relationships in empirical evidence. Regarding the ontological and the epistemological assumptions of Critical Realism, three classes of data analysis procedures build up this social process model. First, a deductive method of Classification Analysis creates the classifiers for each type of event, including the surprising fact and its hypothesized contextual conditions. Second, an inductive method of Configuration Analysis identifies the combinatorial patterns of contextual conditions related to each alternative event outcome in the system states. Lastly, an abductive method of Sequence Analysis reconciles unanticipated divergences between the structured empirical evidence and the rule-like theoretical propositions, with the objective of suggesting modifications to the starting grammar model by means of the best explanation for the surprising fact.

ON THE PEDAGOGICAL MODELLING OF THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL CULTURE OF FUTURE SPECIALISTS OF "HELPING" PROFESSIONS

The article considers flexible approaches to disclosing of essence of pedagogical modeling; emphasizes the necessity of possessing a specific pedagogical model training process, properties such as openness and adaptability to changes in external and internal environments of the University; structure and consistency; reproducibility. Presents the author's pedagogical model of the development process at the University of professional culture of future specialists of helping professions (social workers, psychologists, lawyers, social pedagogues, etc.). The authors concluded that the pedagogical model of formation of professional culture of specialists help professions, like any other model of social and educational process, should be based on a specific methodological framework based on specific scientific and theoretical concepts). The article presents personal characteristics-activity, cultural, competence-based, professionally-context, systemic approaches to professional education personnel social services and organizations. The attention is focused on the following items: design of model of formation of professional culture of specialists help professions should be based on structural, functional, and logical-converging approaches, which require from the researcher a clear definition of the end result, which will be obtained after implementation (testing) of the model, as well as a clear definition of the functional purpose of each of the modules (blocks, components) of the model, determining their relationship. The article considers the principles (the principle of contextual integrity, the principle of variety, the principle of multifunctional nature, etc.) and stages (explicative, quasiprofessional, vocational and productive) implementation of this model. Special attention is paid to characteristics of individual modules (task-targeted, organizational-procedural, resource-providing, functionally meaningful, productive and monitoring) of the developed model.

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas of Human Resource Management In The Academe: A Decision-Making Process Model

The study explored on the ethical dilemmas of human resource managers and uncovered the process by which the managers resolve the dilemmas. This study used a grounded theory approach to formulate a basic social process model (theoretical model) of resolving those moral conflicts. All informants are human resource managers from private higher education institutions. The study followed the Glasserian grounded theory analysis to formulate a resolution process theory using the data gathered from the beginning. With the use of grounded theory analysis, it was found out that the six main processes used by the informants were (1) Consistency with policies; (2) Character check; (3) Considering consequences; (4) Communication; (5) Cultural sensitivity; and (6) Counteractive mechanism.

A Novel Approach for Designing a Cognitive Sugarscape Cellular Society Using An Extended Moren Network

Abstract‘Artificial life’ is a term used to describe man-made systems that have been designed to behave in ways that simulate the behavior of natural living systems. Agent-based modeling of social processes is called ‘artificial society.’ The Sugarscape model is used to model, interpret, and organize social, political, and economic processes in an artificial society. In science, cognition refers to a whole series of mental processes, including attention, memory, language comprehension and production, and learning. The aim of this study was to develop a cognitive Sugarscape model. A Sugarscape model was designed, and the agents were placed in the environment randomly; the parameters of the model, such as sugar level and metabolism, were assigned to the agent randomly. In the present study, learning was applied in the Sugarscape model by the Moren algorithm and compared with the learner Sugarscape model that used the Boltzmann learning algorithm in previous studies. The results of the comparison showed that...

Computational Models of Social Influence and Collective Behavior

This chapter provides an overview of computational modeling of conformity, group deliberation, and social diffusion processes, with an emphasis on social psychological perspectives rather than the kinds of structural and institutional issues modeled in political science and sociology. The chapter attempts to illustrate the benefits of building maps of "parameter space" as a way to generalize across single studies and to develop out-of-sample new predictions.

SOCIAL DIFFUSION PROCESS MODELING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEM

The article represents the ways of social diffusion process modeling in local government system. Goal: to define possible parameters of the model using comparative analysis of some social diffusion models. Scientific novelty: Using regional research materials, for the first time ever we defined numeral values of communication frequency depending on the existing social structure among municipal unit residents and information reliability level. The received values of communication motivation frequency are necessary for practical use of the created model. Methodology: comparative analysis, correlation analysis. Results: We justified our chose of information as one of the possible objects of social diffusion, as it is the most significant part of effective municipal unit system performance. On the base of the author’s social research materials concerning municipal units in Zabaikalsky Krai (2011-2014), we defined variable values to create the model: communication motivation levels (communication frequency) depending on social structure of a community and information re-liability level concerning message content.

Manage Socially: The Social Process Model

Manage Socially: The Social Process Model

Modeling and identification of the Tunisian social system in 2011-2014: bifurcation, revolution, and controlled stabilization

During the last three decades a mathematical theory of dynamical systems, chaos, and bifurcations has been actively developing and it is used in a range of fundamental problems and applications. The attempts of applying this theory to the study of economic, social, and historical processes were made by the well-known specialists in dynamics of natural sciences and specialists in various social sciences. Such concepts as controlled chaos, dynamical history, and synergetics emerged and were widely spread. The main dificulty of the mathematical modeling of social historical processes is to construct a suitable mathematical model. Therefore, in recent years a new trend arose: to drop the idea of constructing complete mathematical models and use, instead, basic concepts and common approaches of mathematical theory of dynamical systems to the socio-economic, historical or political process. In this paper an approach to modeling and identification of the Tunisian social system in 2011-2014 is considered and the revolution, bifurcation, and controlled stabilization are discussed.

PROSPECTIVE VERSUS RETROSPECTIVE APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF INTERGENERATIONAL SOCIAL MOBILITY.

Most intergenerational social mobility studies are based upon retrospective data, in which samples of individuals report socioeconomic information about their parents, an approach that provides representative data for offspring but not the parental generation. When available, prospective data on intergenerational mobility, which are based on a sample of respondents who report on their progeny, have conceptual and practical advantages. Prospective data are especially useful for studying social mobility across more than two generations and for developing joint models of social mobility and demographic processes. Because prospective data remain relatively scarce, we propose a method that corrects retrospective mobility data for the unrepresentativeness of the parental generation, and thus permits them to be used for models of social mobility and demographic processes. We illustrate this method using both simulated data and data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. In our examples, this method removes more than 95% of the bias in the retrospective data.