Social Relations Research Articles

Mental health and sociodemographic influences during COVID-19: Longitudinal findings from Iceland.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced numerous stressors and challenges that have had profound implications for mental health. This study examined the effects of the pandemic on mental health among Icelandic adults (n=1766), using longitudinal survey data spanning three waves of data collection from 2019 to 2022. Symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress increased from the beginning of the pandemic to the second time point, approximately one year into the pandemic, coinciding with reductions in happiness and social support. By the third time point, mental health remained slightly poorer than pre-pandemic levels, even after all COVID-19-related restrictions had been lifted. Unlike some other countries, COVID-19 infections in Iceland did not rise significantly until after the summer of 2021. Overall, participants perceived that the pandemic most adversely affected their social relationships and mental health. Prolonged periods in quarantine were predictive of these perceptions, albeit effect sizes were small. During the pandemic, women and younger participants reported slightly poorer mental health, while social support predicted better mental health outcomes. These results show that large societal stressors can significantly impact the mental health of populations. While social support is a prominent predictor of better mental health, additional variables may be needed to explain these effects fully.

Leveraging Social Ties to Financial Gains: Exploring the Impact of Social Capital in Rural Development

Social capital, defined as networks of individuals linked through bonding or bridging relationships, plays a crucial but poorly conceptualized role in place-based development. The word “capital” implies an underlying value of the social connections throughout a community, and this study explores how these social relationships are used to initiate, plan, access financial capital, and implement economic development projects in rural areas. We avoid county-level aggregation bias and use a divergent pathway case study of projects across eight communities to examine how the social ties are used during rural development in places with both high and low financial capital. Both types of communities had active social networks and were successfully completing projects, but they were sometimes using their ties differently. We find that most projects initiate through bonding social capital. The availability of financial capital within a network significantly influences network ties and their utilization in later steps of rural development projects. Low prosperity communities with limited financial capital are more likely to use bridging ties to leverage new financial resources. High prosperity communities relied on both bonding and bridging ties but had more potential actors, financial resources, and business experience. We find social and financial capital are intertwined, suggesting future efforts to support rural development should consider both types of assets.

Did the COVID-19 pandemic change the importance of health for life satisfaction? Evidence from France.

COVID-19 has brought health protection to the top of the political agenda in many countries, at the cost of reduced freedoms, social relationships, and economic opportunities. This context may have led individuals to pay more attention to their health and to attach greater importance to it in life satisfaction. This paper examines the possibility of an increase in the correlation between life and health satisfaction after the onset of the pandemic using repeated cross-sectional data in France between 2016 and 2021 and an original jittering strategy to smooth the ordinal variables of life and health satisfaction in regression models of subjective well-being. The estimates show an increased correlation between health and life satisfaction for women aged 50 and over, but no change for men. However, the increase in correlation observed for older women disappears by the second half of 2021. These results are robust to several sensitivity analyses and lead to the conclusion that the COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly and permanently change the importance of personal health for life satisfaction.

Beyond Physical and Mental Health: The Broader Impacts of Intimate Partner Violence on Psychosocial Well-Being Among Women and Men Veterans.

Research on the consequences of experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) has predominantly focused on specific physical and mental health outcomes and have emphasized the impacts for women. Fewer studies have comprehensively documented IPV impacts on other aspects of psychosocial well-being and examined effects for both women and men. A sample of 1133 veterans (52.3% women) completed two web-based surveys approximately one year apart. Women did not differ from men with respect to their odds of experiencing past year overall IPV (OR=1.06, 95% CI [0.81, 1.38]) but were more likely to experience overall IPV prior to the past year (OR=1.52, 95% CI [1.19, 1.95]). Gender-stratified multivariate regressions revealed that greater frequency of past year IPV experiences was associated with lower psychosocial well-being with respect to finances (β=-0.22, p<0.001), health (β=-0.19, p<0.001), intimate relationships (β=-0.14, p=0.007), and broader social relationships (β=-0.17, p=0.018), whereas greater frequency of IPV prior to the past year was associated with lower psychosocial well-being with respect to employment (β=-0.17, p=0.002), finances (β=-0.14, p=0.020), and health (β=-0.16, p=0.012) among women. For men, nonsignificant associations were observed for all associations of IPV with psychosocial well-being outcomes. Results point to the importance of attending to broader aspects of psychosocial well-being that may represent modifiable intervention targets among women who have experienced IPV. Further research is needed to better understand the psychosocial well-being impacts of IPV for men.

Enhancing federated learning-based social recommendations with graph attention networks

Social recommendations are crucial in information services, particularly for mitigating information overload on the Internet. Graph Attention Networks (GATs) have emerged as an effective solution for the social recommendation problem, harnessing the benefits of representation learning from user-item and user-user graphs. However, traditional GAT-based social recommendation models often necessitate the centralized storage and aggregation of all the users’ social connections and item interactions. This centralization raises significant privacy concerns. To address these issues, we propose a federated learning-based social recommendation system using GATs. Specifically, we first design a structured-enhanced graph clustering algorithm to obtain soft clustering assignments for items. Based on these assignments, the similarity between pairwise items and their corresponding correlations are computed. Second, we employ graph attention networks to infer the local heterogeneity of social relationships, user-item interactions, and item relationships within the federated learning framework for each client. Using the soft clustering assignments, we derive hard clustering indicators and sample pseudo items. Local gradients of embedding and model parameters are then computed and uploaded to the central server for aggregation under the local differential privacy mechanism. Experimental results over real-world data sets indicate that the proposed model is more effective in privacy protection while maintaining acceptable performance compared with the central learning framework. Additionally, the proposed model is more stable in addressing the cold-start issue for items than state-of-the-art federated learning-based social recommendation models.

A Social Network Lens to Community Health Worker Influence and Impact.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are members of healthcare teams that are integrated in, and often share language, beliefs, and lived experiences with their communities. They use their formal and informal social networks to promote healthy behavior, to connect community members to resources, and to build more resilient community networks. We propose a framework to conceptualize CHW interventions aiming to operationalize and optimize CHW social relations and networks. CHW-mediated network interventions can focus on the dissemination and diffusion of health messages, using the channels of trust and formal and informal relations, as well as, engaging communities to enhance the cascade of spreading/diffusion. Network interventions can also focus on network-building and community dialog, relying on the role of CHWs in bringing the community members together in facilitating conversation, promoting social justice and inclusion, and mobilizing the community in collective action. In addition, the network interventions can aim for boundary-spanning and bridging activities, to facilitate the community's access to health services and external resources, as well as bringing the community voice to health systems to influence priorities and policies. Similar to any other complex interventions, CHW network interventions should be fine-tuned and adapted to local and community needs, capacities, and network structures, and actively involve community members in the conceptualization, delivery, and evaluation.

“Get ‘Em Out”: The Constitutive Violence of Trump Rallies

Drawing upon rhetorical fieldwork conducted at Trump rallies, I interpret the violent incidents at Trump rallies as rhetorical texts to argue that the recurring violent confrontations between Trump supporters and protestors operated rhetorically, by solidifying in-groups and out-groups, and bolstering Trump’s authoritarian narratives of a collapsing nation in need of a “strongman” to restore law and order. Aside from improving understanding of Trump’s appeal, this essay elucidates how violence can be used to persuade and shape social relations.

A Qualitative Vignette Study of Perceived Barriers and Facilitators of Bystanders in Racism in the Higher Education Context in Finland.

Bystanders play a potentially important role in intervening in incidents of racism, but they often fail to act. Much research has focused on investigating facilitators and barriers to bystander behavior, but mainly in the context of sexual violence. There is a dearth of research in the context of racism, especially outside the English-speaking world. In this pilot study, we employed a qualitative approach to explore bystander facilitators and barriers in higher education students in Finland. Online participants (N = 649) read two vignettes depicting a racist incident and wrote open-ended answers on factors that would facilitate and prevent intervention. We constructed six main themes using an inductive thematic analysis: (i) Perceived self-efficacy to intervene; (ii) Justification and moral reasoning; (iii) Clarity of the situation; (iv) Responsibility and permission to act; (v) Social relationships, support, and presence of others; and (vi) Consequences and impacts of action. We discuss the results with a reference to theories and literature, as well as the unique context of Finland.

Indolent lymphoma: addressing the needs of survivors.

Over the past two decades, there has been a continuous improvement in outcome for patients with indolent lymphoma (iNHL) resulting in a gradual accumulation of survivors. While life expectancy in the current era approaches that of the lymphoma-free population, patients continue to experience lifelong complications of the disease and its treatment affecting general health, emotional, psychological and social wellbeing, relationships, employment, finances, and fitness. Contemporary care models while suited to the management of lymphoma are often lacking when it comes to identification and management of these additional needs. Given improvements in physical survival achieved over the past decades, it is timely for us to focus on other issues affecting patient wellbeing including immunodeficiency and infection, second cancers, cardiovascular disease, bone health, psychological wellbeing, and sexual health. Many of these aspects are in the domain of the primary care physician; however, there is limited guidance on how these issues should be addressed. It is now time for us to engage our patients, their caregivers, and other healthcare providers in care aspects beyond the lymphoma diagnosis, so they can anticipate a rich and full life, free from both direct and indirect consequences of the lymphoma diagnosis.

The feasibility of using photovoice as a loneliness intervention with older Myanmar migrants.

Loneliness has detrimental physical and mental health outcomes. To date, there are few studies on loneliness interventions in lower-resource settings. Based on participatory action research methods that are theoretically informed by the social relationship expectations framework, we developed a loneliness intervention called amanane using the photovoice method with older Myanmar migrants in northern Thailand. The aim of our study was to test the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of photovoice as an intervention for lonely older adults. Over 6 weeks, we coproduced 5 weekly workshops, individual interviews, and a photo exhibition with an older Myanmar migrant cofacilitator and nine participants (57-82 years old). The workshops focused on older people's care provisions. The qualitative evaluation entailed group discussions, interviews, and videos. Results indicated a perfect completion rate and high acceptability. Participants reported a reduction in loneliness due to opening up to each other through photography, feeling united despite cultural differences, and feeling valued by visitors attending the photo exhibition. Overall, photovoice may be a promising intervention for lonely older adults and has the potential to be tested in larger trials across diverse settings.

Research on the network structure and gender/age differences of psychological safety among urban residents: network analysis based on a large sample

BackgroundPsychological safety as the key to mental health, not only affects individual happiness and quality of life but also relates to social stability and harmony. However, psychological safety is complex and multidimensional, with unclear internal structures and influencing factors and insufficient research on gender and age differences. Urban residents are living in an environment characterized by fast-paced, high-pressure, multicultural integration, and complex social relationships. Therefore, in-depth exploration of its core dimensions and network structure is crucial for formulating effective mental health strategies and enhancing residents’ sense of psychological safety.MethodsA survey was conducted on 9,282 urban residents using the Psychological Safety Scale. Using R version 4.3.2 for network estimation, centrality estimation, accuracy and stability estimation, and network comparison.ResultsThe results found that the strength centrality index of the general sense of safety dimension is always the highest in the total network and networks of different genders and ages. The network comparison results show that there are significant gender and age differences in the dimensions/item networks of psychological safety. There are connections between trust and relaxation, excitement, and calmness in the dimension network of male samples, while there are no such connections in the dimension network of female samples. The general sense of safety and relaxation connection strength on the male dimension network is significantly stronger than that on the female dimension. In the dimension network of the youth sample, the strength of the connection between calmness and relaxation, trust and relaxation were significantly stronger than those of the middle-age sample, while the strength of the connection between relaxation and excitement was significantly weaker than that of the middle-age sample.ConclusionResearchers should fully consider gender and age factors and adopt more personalized and differentiated strategies for promoting individual psychological safety.

Information and communication technology use among social ties of varying strength: Who benefits and how?

Information and communication technology (ICT) use has been associated with well-being among older adults. This link is often attributed to the fact that ICT use facilitates connecting with others. The purpose of this study is to assess how contact frequency and social tie strength impact the relationship between ICT use and depressive symptoms among older adults. Using data from the Detroit-based Social Relations Study collected in 2015, we use Bayesian analyses to examine the extent to which contact frequency with social network members moderates and the strength of these social tie (strong, moderate, and weak) mediate the link between ICT use and depressive symptoms among adults age 60+ (n=483). ICT use was found to be associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Furthermore, ICT use was associated with more moderate and weak ties which were, in turn, associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Finally, a moderating effect was also found as ICT use was associated with fewer depressive symptoms only among those with lower contact frequency. Our findings suggest that for older adults who communicate with others less frequently, ICT use can prove beneficial to mental health (i.e. fewer depressive symptoms). Furthermore ICT use may be especially meaningful to connect with weaker social ties. These findings may be due in part to ICTs capabilities which enable older adults to maintain connection to a diverse array of social ties and bridge social and physical distance.

How the Covid-19 pandemic affected relationships, connectedness, and suicidality among asexual spectrum adults.

The impact of COVID-19 on personal and social relationships was considerable. Specifically, social distancing, meant to prevent disease spread, may have adversely impacted personal and social relationships. Suicidal ideation has been found to be more likely due to various health factors, including the isolation that was a result of the pandemic itself. While sex and gender minorities are often studied as a group, it is unknown whether the pandemic adversely affected the relationships and connectedness to others among individuals identifying on the asexual spectrum. Further, how might these effects have increased or decreased their risk of suicidality? Data from the 2022 Ace Community Survey was analyzed. Questions specifically pertaining to COVID-19 and the effects it had on relationship desire, as well as connectedness to others were assessed, along with suicidality, among adults identifying on the asexual spectrum. Those with an increased desire for queerplatonic relationships had a greater risk of both thoughts and attempts of suicide. Asexual individuals who felt less connected to parents, other family, and roommates had a greater risk of suicidal thoughts. However, those who felt more connected with mental health workers and healthcare professionals had an increased risk of thoughts and attempts of suicide. The more educated an asexual spectrum adult, the less likely they were to be suicidal. Relationships and connectivity among asexual spectrum adults were adversely affected by the pandemic, resulting in increased risk of suicidality. Creating ways to foster relationships among this population are important in advance of the next pandemic to ensure greater health and well-being.

Social Network Types in Autistic Adults and Its Associations with Mastery, Quality of Life, and Autism Characteristics.

Research shows heterogeneity in experiences of social contact and social networks in autistic adults. In this study, we aim to identify clusters of social support networks and investigate associations of clusters with mastery, quality of life, and autism characteristics. Autistic adults (N = 381; 45.7% female) aged between 30 and 90years completed questionnaires on social support characteristics, mastery, autism characteristics, and quality of life. A two-step cluster analysis was used to identify clusters based on social support network items. The cluster analysis revealed three clusters: Cluster 1 (n = 238) with two or more close persons, sometimes including a romantic partner; Cluster 2 (n = 102) with solely a romantic partner as close person; and Cluster 3 (n = 41) without any close persons. Level of emotional support was the most important clustering indicator. People in Cluster 3 reported lower quality of life regarding social relationships and mastery, autism characteristics, and other quality of life scales were similar across clusters. Absence or presence of close persons significantly impacts quality of life regarding social relationships in autistic adults, which highlights the importance of addressing (satisfaction with) social support. In order to enhance quality of life, offering social network interventions to increase social support seems especially relevant for autistic people belonging to Cluster 3.

Psychological stressors of imprisonment and coping of older incarcerated persons: a qualitative interview study

BackgroundImprisonment has a major impact on a person’s psychological well-being. The proportion of older imprisoned persons is dramatically increasing worldwide, and they are likely to have greater physical and mental health needs compared to younger persons in prisons. However, there is currently a lack of research on the psychological stressors and the coping strategies of older imprisoned persons. This study therefore aims to explore the key psychological stressors experienced by older imprisoned persons and their coping strategies.MethodsIndividual semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted between April 2017 and December 2018 with a purposive sample of 79 participants from 2 different groups in Switzerland: older imprisoned persons (n = 50) and mental health professionals (n = 29) with experience working in prisons. Transcripts were analysed using conventional content analysis.ResultsThis study has identified various ways in which the prison environment not only undermines older incarcerated persons´ psychological well-being, but also their ability to manage the stress they are experiencing. Two overarching psychological stressors identified were a lack of physical and emotional closeness in social relationships (with prison staff, with other incarcerated persons, and outside of prison), and the loss of autonomy in prison. Participants reported five main ways that older incarcerated persons coped with the psychological stressors in prison: 1) recognising a lack of control over situation, 2) withdrawing and isolating, 3) self-improvement, 4) staying connected to the outside world, and 5) self-expression.ConclusionsTo improve the psychological well-being of older incarcerated persons, there is a need for: specialised training of prison staff regarding hardships that elderly persons can face in prison relationships, encouragement and enablement of social contacts with the outside world, and increasing possibilities for autonomy, new challenges, and thus stimuli within a limited setting.

Changing food waste regimes in Africa’s transition to export-oriented production: the case of Tanzanian avocado

Abstract African nations are increasingly focusing on exporting high-value crops. However, a major challenge exists: high rates of food waste within supply chains. The problem is often seen as a technological issue—a lack of proper infrastructure and coordination creates inefficiencies. This research takes a different perspective, focusing on social relations within the supply chain. It uses the concept of “food waste regimes” to understand the underlying structures, relationships, and systems that cause food waste, with a focus on Tanzania’s avocado trade. The goals of the research are to: (1) Identify the factors contributing to food waste within Tanzania’s avocado supply chains, particularly in the context of export-oriented production; (2) Explore how these factors change as production shifts towards exports; (3) Analyse the fairness (equity) of how waste burdens are distributed among those involved. We adopted a “follow the thing” approach, combining interviews and observations across both domestic and export avocado supply chains in Tanzania. The research reveals that interactions between various aspects of the supply chain—practices, physical properties of the product (avocado perishability), and established institutions—influence where food waste occurs and who shoulders the burden of that waste. The research exposes how unequal power dynamics between participants lead to some actors bearing a disproportionate amount of the risk and cost of food waste. By taking a social relations approach, this research highlights that tackling food waste and social inequality are intertwined issues. The paper suggests potential areas for future research and intervention to address these interconnected challenges.

Modeling Marine Tourism from the Perspective of Sustainable Tourism in Serangan Tourism Village

The study of marine tourism in Serangan Tourism Village from the perspective of sustainable tourism is very important. Still, it faces pressure from tourism development that can threaten environmental sustainability and the welfare of local communities with increasing tourist visits. As for the theoretical basis in this study using sustainable tourism, the method in this study uses qualitative research methods, the research location of the research was carried out in the tourist village of Serangan Bali, the method of collecting data in this study by conducting observations, interviews, and documentation, and data analysis in this study using qualitative descriptive with the help of Nvivo 12 software. The results of this study show that in the economic aspect, the business of making environmentally friendly souvenirs is one example of a business such as woven bags from palm leaves, jewelry from shells, and handicrafts from bamboo. Socio-cultural aspects unique traditions and cultures can be introduced to tourists, thus broadening the community's horizons and benefiting from new ideas and practices that can improve the quality of life and strengthen social relationships between communities and tourists visiting Serangan Tourism Village. The environmental aspect of increased education and environmental awareness is very important. Constant efforts are to educate tourists and the local community about saving energy and reducing waste. Therefore, the village is not only a beautiful tourist destination but also an example of sustainable tourism development that considers environmental sustainability a top priority in reducing the various potential negative impacts of tourism on the environment.

“To Make Chicago Wake Up to Its Duty”: Fortnightly Clubwomen, Patronage, and Operatic Boosterism in 1920s Chicago

ABSTRACT This article highlights the ways in which the operatic boosterism of Chicago’s Fortnightly clubwomen constituted a web of social and organizational relationships that extended beyond official club activities. Using the club’s archived records as well as extant papers of select members, it makes a case for recognizing the local and national efforts undertaken by these clubwomen as examples of individual agency and organizational leadership. The Fortnightly clubwomen involved in this article, as well as their colleagues from adjacent women’s organizations, cultivated an environment in which they staked claims to their cultural interests, magnifying the social influence of women’s operatic advocacy.

Social Justice Integration in Clinical Social Work: Teaching with Current Events from the Media

ABSTRACT Scant research focused on building a practice platform to integrate social justice issues in clinical social work education. In a clinical course from 2016 to 2019 at a public university in a Southern state in the United States, this research team content-analyzed 41 real-life vignettes prepared by 82 Master of Social Work students to connect social justice focuses with current-events clinical learning. We analyzed these vignettes against the 13 Grand Challenges for Social Work (GCSW) in the United States: youth development, healthcare, interpersonal violence, productive aging, social isolation, homelessness, changing environments, technology for social good, antiracism, decarceration, financial capability, economic equality, and opportunity justice. Most vignettes (85.4%) had microlevel challenges, over half (56.1%) had macrolevel challenges, and almost half (41.5%) had mezzolevel challenges; 60% addressed more than one of these GCSW levels. These clinical social justice cases shared five common elements: (a) improving clients’ self-efficacy, (b) combating institutionalized oppression, (c) accessing effective mental health services, (d) building healthy social relationships, and (e) eliminating safety threats. In future studies, direct input from social workers will help develop a learning platform for justice-based skill development.

The Concept of Communication in the Quran; Analysis of Theory and Practice

From the analysis conducted on the basic concept of Islamic communication, it can be concluded that Islamic communication is formulated as a process of exchanging messages based on Islamic teachings with the aim of achieving truth, harmony, and the pleasure of Allah. Its principles include honesty (as-sidq), trustworthiness, justice (al-'adalah), wisdom, and moderation (wasatiyyah). These principles guide every aspect of communication to be oriented towards moral and transcendental values, distinguishing it from secular communication which often focuses on pragmatic or materialistic goals. Dakwah communication aims to convey Islamic teachings wisely, wisely, and compassionately, as exemplified by the prophets. Prophetic communication, which emphasizes prophetic qualities such as shiddiq (honest), amanah (trustworthy), tabligh (delivering), and fathanah (intelligent), has high relevance in the modern world. In this context, da'wah and prophetic communication can be applied through social media, education, and interactive dialogue that prioritizes Islamic ethics, so that it is effective in countering disinformation, resolving conflicts, and strengthening harmonious social relations. The main sources of Islamic communication are the Qur'an, Hadith, and other sources such as ijma (consensus of scholars) and qiyas (legal analogy) are the main foundations of Islamic communication. The Qur'an provides moral guidelines and principles of fair and honest communication. Hadith exemplifies the communication practices of the Prophet Muhammad SAW which are full of wisdom and compassion. The relevance of these sources in modern life lies in their ability to be a guide to communication ethics, both in interpersonal relationships and in the use of communication technology.