Thought about actions in social domains: Morality,social conventions,and social interactions

Judgments about actual and hypothetical events were examined. The study, conducted in elementary (first, third, and fifth grades) and junior high (seventh grades) schools, included behavioral observations and assessments of judgments. Observations were conducted of 108 events classified as moral, as conventional, and as mixed type. Participants’ reactions and communications differed by domain of the event. Judgments and justifications of 312 participants in the events showed that they discriminated between the domains on several dimensions. Judgments and justifications corresponded with ones made about comparable hypothetical situations. The study supported the proposition that judgments in the domains of morality and social convention about actual events correspond with judgments about hypothetical situations. It was also found that the domains are associated with the ways children interact socially.     

Online professionalism: social media, social contracts, trust, and medicine

The AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) has initiated an important discussion on medical professionalism and the use of social media by issuing thoughtful and practical guidance for physicians and medical students. The implications of online activities for trust in the profession, as well as for trust between patient and doctor, however, will need further exploration as digital life expands and evolves.     

Depression,self-focus,and social interaction

The accuracy of depressed and nondepressed subjects' perceptions of their own and a social interactional partner's performance was investigated. Twenty depressed and twenty nondepressed college students participated in dyadic interactions and then rated their own and their partner's social behavior. The interactions were also rated by objective coders. Depressed subjects were differentiated from nondepressed subjects on several measures by both the coders and the subjects. Depressed subjects' self-ratings were correlated with the coders' ratings more often than were the nondepressives' ratings, suggesting depressives provided more accurate self-observations. Contrary to prediction, depressives were also more accurate in judging their partner's behavior. Depressives experienced heightened levels of self-focused attention, but this attentional focus did not mediate the relationship between depression level and self-accuracy. Finally, an analysis of the verbal statements suggests that performance differences between depressives and nondepressives may be a function of the quantity, rather than the quality, of the verbal production.     

Bioethics, theology, and social change

Recent years have witnessed a concern among theological bioethicists that secular debate has grown increasingly "thin," and that "thick" religious traditions and their spokespersons have been correspondingly excluded. This essay disputes that analysis. First, religious and theological voices compete for public attention and effectiveness with the equally "thick" cultural traditions of modern science and market capitalism. The distinctive contribution of religion should be to emphasize social justice in access to the benefits of health care, challenging the for-profit global marketing of research and biotechnology to wealthy consumers. Second, religion and theology have been and are still socially effective in sponsoring activism for practical change, both locally and globally. This claim will be supported with specific examples; with familiar concepts like subsidiarity and "middle axioms"; and with recent analyses of "participatory democracy" and of emerging, decentralized forms of global governance.     

Friends,friendlessness, and social cognition

I applaud the methods and findings of the target article by Fink and colleagues (Brit. J. Dev. Psychol, 2015; 33, 1–17) who demonstrate an important link between theory of mind and children's social lives. In particular, enhanced theory of mind in preschool buffers children from friendlessness in the transition to school. Going further, I suggest needed steps for the field to experimentally demonstrate causal links between children's theory of mind and their social actions and interactions.     

Culture, trust, and social networks

Although the role of trust in group processes has been well established, less is known about the role of trust in social network processes. Trust, conceptualized to have generalized and particularistic aspects, was measured by generalized trust (people can be trusted in general) and relationism (people can be trusted if one has relationships), and their relations with social network characteristics of network homogeneity (extent to which one has a number of friends with similar attitudes) and network closure (extent to which one's social network is closed) were examined in three Western (Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and two East Asian countries (Japan and Korea). Although generalized trust was shown to be positively related to network closure across the five countries, generalized trust and relationism had different relations with network homogeneity in different cultures. The results were interpreted in terms of social institutional and cultural differences.     

Religious,psychiatric, and social resources

Pastoral Psychology -     

Aging, inhibition, and social inappropriateness

This study explores the hypothesis that age-related declines in inhibitory ability are associated with increases in socially inappropriate behavior. Consistent with this hypothesis, older participants were less likely than younger participants to differentiate between public and private settings when inquiring about potentially embarrassing issues, according to their peers. Additionally, this indiscriminate public inquiry was associated with decreased closeness with participants' peers, particularly for older adults. Finally, this age-related increase in social inappropriateness was mediated by inhibitory deficits associated with aging. These results suggest that age-related deficits in inhibitory ability may cause people to become socially inappropriate against their will.     

Deviance,norms, and social reaction

The author suggests a scheme that attempts to resolve some of the conceptual problems and dilemmas that Meier argues persist in the sociology of deviant behavior. He proposes that a distinction be made not only between the normative and the reactive perspectives toward deviance, but also between “hard” and “soft” varieties of the reactive perspective. The normative perspective has limitations and drawbacks—as does a liberal (or “hard") reading of reactive theory. The “soft” variety of the reactive perspective attempts to surmount these limitations and drawbacks.     

Knowledge,context, and social standards

This paper defends the view that standards, which are typically social in nature, play a role in determining whether a subject has knowledge. While the argument focuses on standards that pertain to reasoning, I also consider whether there are similar standards for memory and perception.Ultimately, I argue that the standards are context sensitive and, as such, we must view attributions of knowledge as indexical. I exploit similarities between this view and a version of the relevant alternatives reply to skepticism in order to defend this reply against the objection that it is ad hoc.A shorter version of this paper, entitled Knowledge and Context, was presented as a symposium at the 1986 Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association and appeared in the Journal of Philosophy 83 (October 1986) 574-83. Because of space limitations, much of the material in sections 1 and 2 of this longer version was compressed into footnotes. Section 3 and many of the footnotes were deleted entirely and the argument of section 5 was presented in a condensed form. I am grateful to Frederick Schmitt and the editors of Synthese for the opportunity to present the paper in its original form.     

Development, microevolution, and social behavior

The central questions of social development--from the roots of mother-infant attachment to the plasticity of aggressive behavior--pivot on the relations between genetic and ontogenetic sources of variance. It is proposed that (a) developmental, experiential, and microevolutionary processes typically collaborate, rather than compete, in achieving social adaptation; (b) social behavior patterns are mostly closed to modification in the course of development and across generations, but avenues of vulnerability exist in ontogeny and microevolution for dynamic, rapid, and reversible changes in key features; (c) a general avenue for change is delay or acceleration in the developmental onset of one or more features of the behavior pattern, which in turn modifies the functions and properties of the adaptive configuration; and (d) the features of social behavior that are open to rapid change in ontogeny should be open as well to rapid changes in microevolution, although different underlying processes may be involved. Empirical findings from the investigation of aggressive interactions are used to illustrate this proposal on the dual genesis and coincident adaptation of social behaviors.     

Crime,social status,and alienation

Explored the ecological consequences of crime and violence. Selected to reflect alienation between individuals and their settings, the criterion measures were fear of crime, avoidance behavior, anomia, and external locus of control. Exposure to crime was assessed at both individual and community levels. Using data from a large statewide sample of adult Kentuckians, hierarchical regression analyses were performed in which the criterion variables were regressed on measures of social status (e.g., education, sex), crime, and interactions between the two. The pattern of results highlighted the pervasive consequences of experiencing personal violence; effects of property crime and community-level exposure were more limited in scope. Social status also exerted strong effects on the criterion measures and modified many of the observed effects of crime. Implications of the study for interventions are discussed.     

Ethnicity,culture, and social resources

Assessed social integration (existence or quantity of relationships) and social (specifically, emotional) support in Mexican Americans (MAs) and non-Hispanic whites (NHWs). Ethnic differences were seen as arising from (a) demographic differences between ethnic groups that account for ethnic differences; (b) demographic attributes that have different associations with social resources for each ethnic group; (c) ethnic differences independent of these explanations. Study participants were 538 U.S.-born MA, 706 Mexico-born MA, and 1,149 NHW randomly selected community residents. Immigrants were more often married, and MAs and immigrants reported fewer friends and less emotional support, regardless of demographic attributes. Ethnic differences in demographic attributes accounted for MAs' and immigrants' smaller kin networks. Ethnic differences in demographic correlates of working accounted for MAs' lower employment rates.