Features Of Social Organization Research Articles

Social hierarchy differentially influences the anxiety-like behaviors and dendritic spine density in prefrontal cortex and limbic areas in male rats

Social hierarchy is a fundamental feature of social organization that can influence brain and emotional processing regarding social ranks. Several areas, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the hippocampus, and the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA), are recognized to be involved in the regulation of emotional processing. However, its delicate structural correlates in brain regions are poorly understood. To address this issue, social hierarchy in home-caged sibling Wistar rats (three male rats/cage) was determined by employing a social confrontation tube test (postnatal weeks 9-12). Then, locomotor activity and anxiety-like behaviors were evaluated using an open-field test (OFT) and elevated plus-maze (EPM) at 13 weeks of age. The rapid Golgi impregnation method was conducted to quantify the spine density of the first secondary branch of the primary dendrite in 20µm length. The results indicated that dominant rats had significantly higher anxiety-like behaviors compared to subordinates, as was evident by lower open-arm entries and time spent in the EPM and lower entries and time spent in the center of OFT. The spine density analysis revealed a significantly higher number of spines in subordinates compared to the dominant rats in dmPFC pyramidal neurons and the apical and basal dendrites of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. However, the spine density of pyramidal-like neurons in the BLA was higher in dominant rats. Our findings suggest that dominant social rank is associated with higher anxiety and differential density of the dendritic spine in the prefrontal cortex and limbic regions of the brain in male rats.

A computational model of epidemic process with three variants on a synthesized human interaction network

Virus mutations give rise to new variants that cause multiple waves of pandemics and escalate the infected number of individuals. In this paper, we develop both a simple random network that we define as a synthesized human interaction network and an epidemiological model based on the microscopic process of disease spreading to describe the epidemic process with three variants in a population with some features of social structure. The features of social structure we take into account in the model are the average number of degrees and the frequency of contacts. This paper shows many computational results from several scenarios both in varying network structures and epidemiological parameters that cannot be obtained numerically by using the compartmental model.

IT 플랫폼 기업의 ESG 경영이 소비자의 구매의도에 미치는 영향

As the global pandemic situation continues and abnormal climate conditions continue, ESG has received more attention, and the introduction of ESG management by IT platform companies has become active. Therefore, the ESG characteristics of IT platform companies will affect corporate image and consumer trust, and influence consumers' purchase intentions. This paper focused on the impact of ESG management of IT platform companies on consumer purchase intention. Therefore, based on previous research, this study classifies the characteristics of each ESG area into environmental characteristics, social characteristics, and governance characteristics, and presents two parameters, corporate image and consumer trust, to determine their impact on purchase intention. A corresponding research model was constructed. Samples were collected by means of questionnaires and empirical analysis was conducted using SmartPLS 4.0 and IBM SPSS 23.0 to verify the hypotheses. The following conclusion are drawn. First, ESG management activities, environmental, social, and dominant structural characteristics all have a positive impact on corporate image. H1 was adopted. Second, environmental characteristics do not affect consumer trust. thus, H2-1 was rejected. H2 was partially adopted. Third, corporate image has a positive impact on consumer trust. H4 was accepted.. Corporate image has a positive impact on purchase intention. H4 was accepted. Consumer trust has a positive impact on purchase intention, so H5 was adopted.

Vernacular Architecture of a Rural Magar Settlement of Nepal: The Case of Taka, Putha Uttarganga Rural Municipality, East Rukum

The vernacular settlement of the Magar community in the Taka village of East Rukum are still lively, and represent the society, cultural and history of the place, which reflects the sustainable living pattern of a rural community. This study of Taka village clearly defines the geography, settlement pattern, community groups, settlement cluster, social structure, construction of dwelling and rituals. It further identifies the dwelling types and construction technology on the basis of three features: i. representation of each community, ii. Representation of each locality, and iii. Representation of variation in house form. The settlement pattern and dwelling form in a way represent the characteristics of social structure and life style in the sharing of spaces of the dwelling environment. The dwelling form, building materials and construction technology blends with the terrain profile and climate creating a harmonious settlement pattern with nature and society. There is also community awareness on the conservation of Taka rural settlement heritage which is the positive sign on maintaining the identity of the community and place.

The sustainable perspective of digitization, digitalization and digital transformation. a bibliometric approach

The interest in sustainability and digitization has grown significantly in recent years, especially on the link between the two concepts, because through digitization new business models can be created, respectively existing ones can be modified, with the aim of resisting the changes in the business environment, implicitly to increase sustainability. To analyze in more detail the relationship between sustainability, digitization, digitization and digital transformation, a bibliometric analysis was carried out. Its data were obtained through the Web of Science Core Collection database by entering keywords specific to the chosen theme. Therefore, 166 publications written in English from the period 2004-2023 were analyzed. With the help of the bibliometric analysis, the evolution over time, the connections between the keywords, as well as relevant features of social and conceptual structure of research field, could be observed and analyzed.

A developmental perspective on social status: children's understanding of hierarchy in Nanjing and London

AbstractFrom an early age, children become attuned to processes of social power in their environment. Findings from cognitive sciences suggest that the ability to discern hierarchical relationships, as well as coercive and non‐coercive processes that give rise to them, rests on evolved cognitive capacities. Yet reasoning about social relations is always already a cultural process. Anthropological theory routinely deploys terms such as ‘power’ and ‘hierarchy’ to analyse diverse features of social organization, but little is known about the culturally grounded psychological processes that give rise to hierarchies at the interpersonal level. A comparison of children in London and Nanjing brings together ethnographic and experimental approaches to cut across the cognitive, social, and cultural dimensions of child development, and reveals how central moral frameworks mediating hierarchy and conflict – respect in London and yielding in Nanjing – lead to particular expectations about the behaviour of high‐status individuals. This article highlights the benefits of mixed methodology in providing insights into how children develop psychologically and culturally rooted understandings of social status and provides directions for anthropology to contribute to the multidisciplinary study of the social cognition of human hierarchies.

Rural development models in China: The participant’s perspective

This study aims to explore the feasible and sustainable rural development model in China from the perspective of participants. The paper proposed the concept of ‘the community of rural development’: the actors who participate in rural planning, housing and infrastructure construction, industrial development, environmental improvement and social progress, and analysed its evolutionary process from traditional to modern and social network structure characteristics. On this basis, the study proposed six models of rural development in China and selected six typical cases for detailed analysis. These models include village committee-led, peasant organization-led, township enterprise-led, government-led, external enterprise-led and NGO-led. Based on the methodology of social network analysis, the paper designed a simulated routing to analyse the network evolution characteristics of these models and elaborated four output indicators: clustering coefficient, average path length, density and degree centrality of the core actor. The results showed that the internal-actor-led model is superior to the external-actor-led model due to the close inter-relationships among the participants and the strong influence of the core actor. Finally, the paper proposed building partnerships in the community of rural development that are stable and harmonious over the long term and could promote rural development and sustainable renewal in a comprehensive way.

Segregation and Group Threat: Specifying Hispanic-White Punishment Disparity

Abstract Evidence of racial disparity in punishment has been pervasive in the U.S. criminal justice system. Furthermore, a growing body of literature suggests that racial and ethnic disparities in criminal punishment, typically motivated by group threat perspectives, vary in relation to social and contextual conditions of court jurisdictions. One important factor relevant to minority threat and intergroup contact is segregation, yet research on social contexts and criminal sentencing has largely ignored this feature of local social structure. However, segregation might condition the effects of minority population size on dominant group threat responses in social control. Focusing on Hispanic-White segregation, we assess competing hypotheses regarding segregation’s role in conditioning Hispanic-White punishment disadvantage. Pennsylvania, which has recently undergone significant population change related to these processes, presents a unique and valuable context for study. Analyses of statewide sentencing data from 2013–2017 along with Census and American Community Survey data, reveal that Hispanic-White residential segregation seems to foster greater Hispanic punishment disadvantage. Moreover, segregation specifies the association between local Hispanic population size and Hispanic-White incarceration disparity. In counties with both greater than average Hispanic population share and greater segregation, Hispanic defendants faced even greater incarceration disparities.

Analysis on industry cluster for regional development in a haor region of Bangladesh: A location quotient analysis

Regional development is a complex and dynamic process since each region has its unique characteristics of economic and social structure. The aim of the current study is to identify the leading commodity as well as base and non-base economic sub-sectors in the mostly poor haor region of Bangladesh by introducing location quotient (LQ) analytical technique based on the regional and national level employment data. The analytical results clarified that the agriculture, forestry, and fishing are the leading sub-sectors of the local economy for the regional economic growth. Policy implications are provided based on the analytical results.

Dismantling Caste and Gender Hierarchy: Female-Dalit Alliance in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Meena Kandasamy’s The Gypsy Goddess

The unique feature of the Indian patriarchal social structure is the existence of caste hierarchy in it, which is an alien concept for Western feminist theorists. Arundhati Roy and Meena Kandasamy in their novels ‘The God of Small Things and The Gypsy Goddess’ portray the caste and gender pyramid vividly, and their protagonists pose threat to this structure and show the way out. Caste classification utterly refutes the subjectivity of a person. His rank and his professions are decided by his birth, not by his skills. The article traces the origin of caste hierarchy established in the society and its functioning. It presents the idea that gender and caste hierarchies are interlinked, and in both these structures, the concept of purity is a pertinent theme. Myths, religious scriptures, laws of the society, and value systems function together to assert caste and sexual dominion. The research article raises the issue that a girl’s education and her aspiration to pursue an academic career have no significance to the male chauvinistic society. Education is also controlled by the larger institution of patriarchy. Like other institutions, it frames the psyche of women in favour of patriarchy. In our society, the way marriage has been glorified, with the same stature divorce has been scandalized. The work presents gender discrimination in the workspace and inheritance policy. In the end, the article proposes the way out of the patriarchy and casteism, which is ‘denial’. If women and lower caste men refuse to be part of this power structure, the whole system would collapse like a castle of cards.

Класичний античний поліс: форми привласнення та соціальні кластери

This article continues the series of publications on the universal evolution of the ancient civilization and its sub-civilizations and deals with the characteristics of socio-economic and social structures in a classical ancient polis, and their interrelationships and contradictions on the example of Athens. The author considers various changes in power-property relations and the role of traditional social clusters in the governing groups under the expansion of democratic institutional order and with the growing stratum of non-citizens. The defeat of dynastic proto-institutions, the competition between clanism and corporatism, the development of private property of citizens and democratic procedures promoted to the strengthening of personal and collective sub-actors in the ruling group, as well as to their consolidation in the context of strengthening of the economic positions of non-citizens. At the same time, the collision between the ruling group as a representative of the civil community in the polis and an organization relatively separated from it acquires new qualitative features, including the struggle for redistribution of the centralized surplus and necessary product between the sub-actors of the ruling group and the conversion of its parts from personal-private and corporate-clan-collective power-proprietary appropriation into various forms of private appropriation by the members of the power group. The main social clusters of the classical polis (peasants, artisans and merchants, aristocrats, non-tribal rich, hired workers, slaves, civil community) and their appropriate forms of appropriation (personal-clan, clan-private, clan- and corporate-private, private and collective-individual). Attention is focused on inter- and intra-cluster contradictions regarding the appropriation of surplus and necessary product. The author concludes about the network nature of the classic policy appropriation system and about the expediency of its further study.

Psychosocial determinants of pre-exposure prophylaxis use among pregnant adolescent girls and young women in Cape Town, South Africa: A qualitative study.

In South Africa, at least 7.5million people (age ≥15years) are living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). In 2020, 220,000 new infections occurred, approximately one-third of which were among cisgender adolescent girls and women (age ≥15years). The perspectives of pregnant adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) as key, targeted end-users of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in this setting are not well known. We purposively recruited participants enrolled in an ongoing cohort study at an urban antenatal clinic in Cape Town, South Africa for in-depth interviews between July-September 2020. We restricted our analysis to pregnant AGYW (age: 16-25years) who initiated daily oral PrEP (Tenofovir/Emtricitabine) antenatally and self-reported either high PrEP persistence (≥25days in the past 30days and no missed PrEP collection), or low PrEP persistence and/or discontinuation (missing >5days in the last 30days or missed PrEP collection). The findings were organized thematically, per the adapted Health Behavior Model (2000), using Nvivo-v.1.5. We interviewed 18 AGYW (mean age = 22years), at a mean of 14weeks postpartum. Higher self-esteem and high-quality study provider-client relationships, including empathic psychosocial support, facilitated PrEP continuation. Reported barriers included unstable social structure characteristics (i.e., financial hardship) and individual factors (i.e., unintended pregnancy, parental rejection, and inadequate peer- and [non-cohabiting] partner support). Participants self-perceived a need for PrEP, feeling susceptible to non-consensual, forced sex, or considering partners' (presumed) sexual risk-taking. Limited community awareness regarding PrEP availability and/or perceived complexity in navigating health system access to PrEP, impede continuation. PrEP-focused healthcare access pathways for pregnant and postpartum AGYW need to be simplified. Further research is needed on health system determinants (i.e., structural barriers, provider-client interactions, and related outcomes) of oral PrEP utilization. In 2022, South Africa announced regulatory approval of long-acting PrEP options (i.e., the dapivirine ring for non-pregnant women and injectable cabotegravir, respectively); these may mitigate implementation barriers reported in this study. However, the safety and efficacy of long-acting PrEP (e.g., injectables, implants) among pregnant or breastfeeding women, specifically, remains to be confirmed in this setting.

Different Responses to Social Capital Among Black People and White People: What Racial Differential Item Functioning Reveals for Racial Health Equity.

Social capital has been conceptualized as features of social organization, such as networks, and norms that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Because of long-standing anti-Black structural oppression in the United States, social capital may be associated with health differently for Black people than for other racial/ethnic groups. Our aim was to examine the psychometric properties of social capital indicators, comparing responses from Black and White people to identify whether there is differential item functioning (DIF) in social capital according to race. DIF examines how items are related to a latent construct and whether this relationship differs across groups such as different racial groups. We used data from respondents to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey in 2004, who lived in Philadelphia (n= 2,048), a city with a large Black population. We used item response theory analysis to test for racial DIF. We found DIF across the items, indicating measurement error, which could be related to the way these items were developed (i.e., based on cultural assumptions tested in mainstream White America). Hence, our findings underscore the need to interrogate the assumptions that underly existing social capital items through an equity-based lens, and to take corrective action when developing new items to ensure that they are racially and culturally congruent.

Characteristics of Class-Scale Social Network Structures of College Students over Time, Driving Factors and Their Implications for Chinese Higher Education

Classes are the basic unit of learning and social activity for college students in higher education. A good social environment at a class scale has a positive effect on fostering the development of teamwork among university students. To assess characteristics of class-scale social network structures of college students over time, this study randomly selected a total of 30 classes of different majors and grades in universities in northern Jiangsu Province, China, and conducted questionnaires on students’ social networks. Social network analysis method was used to model and analyze the social networks of class Interpersonal interaction for students. The results of the study show that there is significant temporal variability in the class-scale social network structure of college students. During freshman and sophomore years, students interacted closely with each other in class, with a high average network clustering coefficient of 0.81, while in junior and senior years, students tended to interact more distantly with each other in class, with the network clustering coefficient dropping to 0.55. This suggests that early collaborative education does motivate junior students to make friends, but this discontinuous collaborative education has a negative impact on senior students’ motivation to make friends, since teamwork education is mostly concentrated in the early years of freshmen in many general universities in China. In addition, roommate relationships, participation in social activities and hometown gatherings influence class-scale socialization. Class-scale socialization prioritizes dormitory or club activities to become friends with the same class, followed by hometown parties. The results of this study confirm that long-term maintenance of cooperative education and multiple guidance for college students to actively make friends and engage in group cooperation in class are conducive to a positive interpersonal interaction at the class scale.

CHANGES IN INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE IMPACT ON WELL-BEING

Abstract A burgeoning body of research has revealed the COVID-19 pandemic’s dramatic impact on the lives of family members in the U.S., including increasing caregiving burden and reducing in-person contact. However, the preponderance of this work has focused on how COVID-19 has reshaped a single role, rather than the set of role relationships individuals hold. In the present paper, we used mixed-methods data collected from 543 adults in later midlife (mean age=60) collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study-III to explore the impact of the pandemic on intergenerational and intragenerational family relationships. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, we classified which relationships were affected (e.g., parents, adult children, grandchildren, siblings, etc.), identified social structural characteristics that predicted pandemic related relational changes (e.g., gender, race, age, SES), provided a detailed picture of how family members experienced these changes, and studied the impact of these changes on respondents’ depressive symptoms. Findings suggested that respondents were most likely to report changes in their relationships with their parents and adult children, with reduced in-person contact and direct care to parents, and increased coresidence with adult children. White women were most likely to report changes in in-person contact and care to parents, and they were also more likely to develop higher depressive symptoms due to these changes. Black respondents reported fewer changes in contact with parents or children due to greater coresidence compared to White respondents, and no association was found between changes and depressive symptoms in this group.

Hungarian Beyond the Border1 On the Contexts of Education, Bilingualism, and Labour Market in the Early 21st Century. The Transylvanian Perspective

Abstract Borders are particular (in-between) spaces: they have this side and the other side, which involve several real and imaginary spaces at the same time. For minorities, “beyond the borders” is also a specific space of language use. This paper discusses the correlations between minority bilingualism and social structure characteristics based on sociological surveys, taking as approach the sociology of space and John Ogbu’s ecological cultural model of schooling. It aims to offer an overview of my research carried out on this topic and tries to provide some references for rethinking the sociological implications of minority education considering the experiences of three decades since the fall of communism in Romania. The main results of this research – in concordance with other findings of similar inquiries – show that a mother-tongue education for ethnic Hungarian children in Romania is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reducing the structural gap that Hungarians in Transylvania have inherited from the 20th century. This study is centred on the aspects of interrelation between the language of education and labour market, more specifically on those linked to the attitudes and patterns of behaviour towards the official language, with particular focus on the role that languages play in the society and, in a narrower sense, in self-positioning on the labour market.

The characteristics of social contact intensity, contact frequency and contact structure in Hungary in 2006 and 2015

The study aims at comparing the Hungarian results of the questions on the frequency of personal and distance contact with relatives and friends in the 2006 and 2015 ad hoc modules of EU-SILC. According to our results, in line with the findings of previous Hungarian research, compared to 2006, there were fewer contacts in Hungary in 2015. Relations with friends, especially those held in person, were less exposed to weakening compared to relations with relatives. Among the different social groups, the already disadvantaged were typically negatively affected by either the change in intensity or the structure of relationships. However, the situation of the elderly and the inhabitants of deprived households deteriorated in all three dimensions examined: their re­lations weakened more strongly, and those related to relatives and personal ones further narro­wed by 2015. This result indicates that the social disintegration of these groups has accelerated particularly between the two years, which poses a serious social policy challenge.

Creating the Conditions for Intergenerational Justice: Social Capital and Compliance

Creating the Conditions for Intergenerational Justice: Social Capital and Compliance

범죄 현상에 대한 사회구조요인의 영향 연구

As crime began to be viewed as a social structural problem, away from the perspective of limited in individual propensity, criminology of perspective began to develop to prevent crime at the social level. In the case of these social structural characteristics, they change according to time and environment, and the influencing factors disappear or are newly revealed, so research needs to be continuously conducted according to the temporal and spatial flow. Despite the characteristics of social phenomena that require simultaneous consideration of spatio-temporal characteristics, domestic crime research tends to focus on spatial characteristics. Of course, in recent years, a method of explaining a crime phenomenon by simultaneously considering spatio-temporal characteristics has been attempted, but it is still insufficient. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of social disintegration factors on crime occurrence by securing data related to the social structure of the KOSIS and data on crime statistics of the National Police Agency from 2015 to 2020. Furthermore, juvenile crimes often show different influencing factors from adult crimes due to their timing characteristics, so we tried to examine their characteristics compared to all crimes.
 As a result of the study, it was confirmed that housing instability, ethnic heterogeneity, and female householder ratio in Korea affect crime, and in the case of juvenile crime, there was no effect of social dissolution factors, and the ratio of row/multi-family houses had a significant effect.

Structural measures of personal networks predict migrants' cultural backgrounds: an explanation from Grid/Group theory.

Culture and social structure are not separated analytical domains but intertwined phenomena observable in personal networks. Drawing on a personal networks dataset of migrants in the United States and Spain, we show that the country of origin, a proxy for diverse languages and cultural institutions, and religion may be predicted by specific combinations of personal network structural measures (closeness, clustering, betweenness, average degree, etc). We obtain similar results applying three different methods (a multinomial logistic regression, a Random Forest algorithm, and an artificial neural network). This finding is explained within the framework of the Grid/Group theory that has long posed the interdependence of social structural and cultural features of human groups.