Remembering the Future: Natural Disaster,Place, and Symbolic Survival

The Pacific Northwest coast of the United States is currently facing the threat of an earthquake and tsunami some experts predict will be the worst natural disaster in North American history. This region also must contend with predicted effects of climate change. Applying the sociological traditions of memory, silence, and place to the natural hazard context, I qualitatively explore how local residents collectively envision future disasters and their associated risks. Responsive narratives are developed from an array of local meanings and identities drawn from place. They tend to partially displace narratives that visualize disasters as disruptive agents of danger, mnemonically replacing them with symbols of survival, continuity, and community agency. Overall, I find that this collective displacement manifests in event‐ and place‐specific ways and partially silences disturbing aspects of potential disaster. These findings demonstrate the promise of analyzing the idiosyncratic ways that future environmental disaster is perceived and experienced. Because risk perception has been identified as a contributor to community resilience and capacity, these findings emphasize the need for local, place‐based approaches to disaster planning, particularly in small communities with resource‐extractive histories.     

Gender,Marital Status and Social Support

Abstract

While many studies have examined the separate effects of gender and marital status on patterns of perceived social support, none have examined the simultaneous effects of these two variables while controlling for other relevant variables in a large, random sample. This paper responds to this lacuna by investigating the relationships among these variables for six specific types of problems that may elicit social support from others. Using data drawn from a representative sample of the United States population, results indicate that the perception of sources of social support is primarily shaped by differences in marital status as opposed to gender. However, gender is influential in some situations. While it is not significantly related to the perception of emotional support, gender is significantly related to the perception of instrumental support. (Women manifest a tendency to consider both spouse / partner and relatives as sources of instrumental support more than men, while men rely on friends as sources of instrumental support.) The suggestion that gender may find expression within categories of marital status is supported by findings indicating that, within each of the marital status categories, when men turn to relatives and / or friends for help they tend to be male and when women turn to relatives and / or friends for help they tend to be female. Suggestions for future research are offered.     

Feedback Loops in Clinical Practice: An Integrative Framework

Practical concepts and interventions for counsellors and their clients are presented based on Maruyama's concept of feedback. Elements of psychodynamic theory, Weinberg's theory and Moreno's role theory are reformulated in terms of feedback. The concept of feedback also links network theory and chaos theory; cognitive challenges and psychodynamic interpretation. This forms an integrative framework for understanding human functioning. Human functioning emerges from the interaction of innumerable intrapersonal and interpersonal feedback loops. The feedback loops organise a network of actions, ideas and feelings, and a network of roles. Some feedback loops tend to intensify life difficulties, while others tend to resolve these difficulties. The counselling interventions evolved from problem‐gambling counselling practice, and sample interventions are provided based on a composite problem gambler.     

Betting on Illusory Patterns: Probability Matching in Habitual Gamblers

Why do people gamble? A large body of research suggests that cognitive distortions play an important role in pathological gambling. Many of these distortions are specific cases of a more general misperception of randomness, specifically of an illusory perception of patterns in random sequences. In this article, we provide further evidence for the assumption that gamblers are particularly prone to perceiving illusory patterns. In particular, we compared habitual gamblers to a matched sample of community members with regard to how much they exhibit the choice anomaly ‘probability matching’. Probability matching describes the tendency to match response proportions to outcome probabilities when predicting binary outcomes. It leads to a lower expected accuracy than the maximizing strategy of predicting the most likely event on each trial. Previous research has shown that an illusory perception of patterns in random sequences fuels probability matching. So does impulsivity, which is also reported to be higher in gamblers. We therefore hypothesized that gamblers will exhibit more probability matching than non-gamblers, which was confirmed in a controlled laboratory experiment. Additionally, gamblers scored much lower than community members on the cognitive reflection task, which indicates higher impulsivity. This difference could account for the difference in probability matching between the samples. These results suggest that gamblers are more willing to bet impulsively on perceived illusory patterns.     

Social needs of aboriginal foster parents

A total of 82 Aboriginal foster parents drawn from a provincial registry of foster parents participated in a telephone interview. The interview included the question “What do you need socially to be a good foster parent?” The responses were grouped together by participants in accordance with Trochim's (1989) concept mapping method. Forty-two unique responses were grouped into 6 clusters. These clusters referred to social participation, social networks, activities, as well as family relationships, healthy community and cultural connections.     

Cognitive ergonomics: the use of mind mapping tool in maintaining productive sector of a Brazilian paper company

The use of mind maps as a method of building knowledge, planning, organizing activities and ideas can be seen in the literature related to ergonomics. The results of such use are relevant and its use in academic area found. However, regarding to its use in industrial environments, studies can't not be found. With this scenario, and based on the perception of the ergonomist about the importance of using methods such as mind maps in support of human cognition, it seems pertinent to its use in industry sectors whose cognitive demand requires. Given these assumptions, this study aimed to apply the method of Mind Maps in Productive Maintenance sector of a Brazilian paper. The Productive Maintenance sector in the Paper Industry has an important contribution to operational performance. With practical Predictive Maintenance, Preventive Maintenance and Corrective Maintenance, the industry advocates to make the machines to produce paper is not to stop producing when they are programmed to do so. Among the practices cited, the Preventive Maintenance is one that leads to pre-determined intervals in order to reduce the possibility of placing the equipment in a condition below the required level of acceptance. Therefore, this article aims to propose using the tool "mental maps" in order to collaborate in planning and implementation of preventive maintenance activities in the sector of mechanical maintenance of a pulp and paper industry in southern Brazil. The study investigated the maintenance sector through its employees, who went through training about the tool and then use it and ergonomists company.     

Colonial Legacies and Repertoires of "Ethnic" Violence: The Case of Western India, 1941–2002

The post-colonial state is held to be a weak state whose ease of capture reduces its capacity to suppress violence. The focus on the state, however, risks neglecting the ways in which violence is deployed to render the state weak in popular perception. This perception in turn legitimates claims for a foundational shift in the basis of power. In this paper, the concept of "repertoire" as first used by Charles Tilly, is used to analyze continuities and discontinuities in the development of the "ethnic riot" in urban, western India. As an "extreme" case in which riots have shown considerable durability over time, it highlights a key point, namely, that riots can form part of a strategy of power by simultaneously projecting themselves as popular insurrection and constructing a perception of the state as weak. The persistence of this repertoire, it is further argued, derives from the historical specificities of colonial state formation which promoted an ethnically imagined and hierarchized polity, as well as political struggles which weakened alternative forms of community.     

Social capital and older people in farming communities

This study draws on data from interviews with older people aged 65 to 85 (n = 65) to assess the extent to which the concept of social capital can be used to inform our understanding of social networks in farming families. Findings indicate that key indicators of social capital such as trust, reciprocity and co-operation strongly influence and determine social relations. Interestingly, though contrary to much of the literature on social capital, a strong community spirit can exist where associational activities are extremely limited. Older people in this community have few opportunities for social interaction, yet this did not affect their perception of being part of a close knit community. Significantly this work challenges the assumption that older people are simply recipients of social capital and demonstrates that they are also important producers of social capital. The article contends that the relevance of this concept to older people in these rural communities has not been fully explored and is poorly understood.     

MASTER FRAMING AND CROSS-MOVEMENT NETWORKING IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

This article maps the network of cross-movement activism in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, and explores the relationship between position in the network and cognitive use of different injustice frames. The study is informed by a neo-Gramscian analysis that views social movements as (potential) agencies of counterhegemony. Viewed as a political project of mobilizing broad, diverse opposition to entrenched economic, political, and cultural power, counterhegemony entails a tendential movement toward comprehensive critiques of domination and toward comprehensive networks of activism. We find that the use of a broadly resonant master frame—the political-economy account of injustice —is associated with the practice of cross-movement activism. Activists whose social movement organization (SMO) memberships put them in touch with activists from other movements tend to frame injustice as materially grounded, structural, and susceptible to transformation through concerted collective action. Moreover, the movements in which political-economy framing especially predominates–labor, peace, feminism, and the urban/antipoverty sector—tend not only to supply most of the cross-movement ties but to be tied to each other as well, suggesting that a political-economy framing of injustice provides a common language in which activists from different movements can communicate and perhaps find common ground.     

Implications of behavioral and cognitive reciprocity in social network data

Cognitive maps of social behavior are of interest for theoretical as well as methodological reasons. The issue that has primarily been addressed, in comparing cognitive with behavioral social network data, is whether the participants' level of accuracy in reporting their social behavior is high enough to warrant the use of cognitive data as a substitute for behavioral data. The present paper focuses, instead, on what these imperfectly matched sets of data may tell us about low level processes of cultural codification, namely, those revealed by the transformation of behavioral interaction to cognitive report. Specifically, the analyses undertaken here indicate that the discrepancies between the two kinds of data are systematic, and that the cognitive data reflect an integration of the participants' direct relationships with each other into the set of relationships they observe as well as participate in. Participants tend to discount their high-frequency co-interactants for whom they, in turn, are relatively low-frequency co-interactants, in favor of those with whom they are reciprocally high. Thus, in reporting their direct relationships, they are in effect codifying them in terms of indirect relationships - namely, the relationships their co-interactants have with others in the set.     

Exploring the Meaning of Rural Through Cognitive Maps1

Rural often is viewed as a setting for study rather than an object of study. Often a priori definitions of rural are used; these definitions may bear little resemblance to residents' understanding of the concept. A cognitive mapping experiment to explore the meaning of rural is undertaken in this paper. Results indicate that urban residents could readily identify rural areas on a blank map of Pennsylvania. Their responses to the question varied, however, with some respondents indicating urban areas or writing images on the map. A discussion of these thought processes and implications from these varying responses are presented. Then, the cognitive maps are compared to three commonly accepted definitions of rural. Population density was found to best approximate the areas that urban residents perceived as rural. The paper concludes by discussing policy implications of the findings.     

Finding Place in Community Change Initiatives: Using GIS to Uncover Resident Perceptions of their Neighborhoods

The growing recognition that place matters has led to numerous foundation- and government-sponsored initiatives that attempt to simultaneously strengthen neighborhoods and address the needs of families that live there. Despite the centrality of the concept of neighborhood, these place-based initiatives have few tools to understand how residents identify with the space within their target areas. This article demonstrates how resident-drawn maps gathered in a household survey can be used to uncover individual and collective neighborhood definitions. Using data gathered as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Making Connections program in 10 cities, the study finds that there is considerable variation among residents in how they define their neighborhoods, but that there are also commonly held neighborhood identities that need to be taken into account in community practice.     

Sense of community: Issues and considerations from a cross-cultural perspective

Behaviour settings such as work, family, church and community are primary settings in which we participate, they provide us with meaningful roles, relationships, and social identities. In fact, these are settings that provide us with a sense of community (SOC). SOC has been heralded as the guiding value for community research and action. It reflects the integration of people into networks and structures that provide feelings of belonging, identification and meaning. The concept has received much attention since the introduction of McMillan and Chavis' initial formulation. It is argued that research into SOC has been hampered by relying on the Sense of Community Index at the expense of the SOC model. Insights are drawn from cross-cultural psychology and research to highlight conceptual issues and to encourage exploration and the utilisation of alternative modes of investigation. Contex-tualist approaches including substantive theorising and narrative psychology, which have their roots in pragmatism, are promoted as frameworks for bringing community and SOC into focus as central to social and community development.     

What It Means to (Not) Belong: A Case Study of How Boundary Perceptions Affect Second‐Generation Immigrants’ Attachments to the Nation

Across Europe, the symbolic boundaries drawn against Muslim/Middle Eastern immigrants and their children are increasingly rigid and exclusive. While there is broad agreement in the literature that external symbolic boundaries matter for individuals’ self‐identifications, the process by which boundaries translate into experiences of (not) belonging is theoretically underdeveloped and empirically understudied. Through inductive analysis of in‐depth interviews with second‐generation immigrants of Middle Eastern descent in Denmark, this study contributes to the literature by examining boundary perceptions as the mediating link between externally drawn boundaries and subjectively felt belonging. The analysis demonstrates widespread agreement in interviewees’ perception of a bright boundary. At the same time, however, there is variation in the degree of belonging, which is explained by the interviewees’ perceptions of their own position in relation to the boundary. A central contribution of the study is a suggested reconceptualization of the concept of belonging to improve our understanding of the complexity of how second‐generation immigrants simultaneously feel attachment to and distance from the nation.     

History and Living

Increasing diversity in the United States means that all students must understand multiple cultural perspectives and identities. Educators need to facilitate learning engagements that highlight the complexities of culture and cultural identity, going beyond surface characteristics such as foods, holidays, and clothing that are often the focus in schools. Culture is a complex concept that includes linguistic and communicative patterns, belief systems, values, and many other aspects. Because it is so complex, students need multiple opportunities to explore the concept of culture and how it shapes their own lives and the lives of others. One way to do this is through mapping engagements that explore family and community traditions, the role of technology, and the development of particular aspects of cultural identity. These maps, which can be created based on the students’ own lives or on book characters, foster discussion and thoughtful consideration of how culture impacts the way we live our lives.     

R-CMap—An open-source software for concept mapping

Planning and evaluating projects often involves input from many stakeholders. Fusing and organizing many different ideas, opinions, and interpretations into a coherent and acceptable plan or project evaluation is challenging. This is especially true when seeking contributions from a large number of participants, especially when not all can participate in group discussions, or when some prefer to contribute their perspectives anonymously. One of the major breakthroughs in the area of evaluation and program planning has been the use of graphical tools to represent the brainstorming process. This provides a quantitative framework for organizing ideas and general concepts into simple-to-interpret graphs. We developed a new, open-source concept mapping software called R-CMap, which is implemented in R. This software provides a graphical user interface to guide users through the analytical process of concept mapping. The R-CMap software allows users to generate a variety of plots, including cluster maps, point rating and cluster rating maps, as well as pattern matching and go-zone plots. Additionally, R-CMap is capable of generating detailed reports that contain useful statistical summaries of the data. The plots and reports can be embedded in Microsoft Office tools such as Word and PowerPoint, where users may manually adjust various plot and table features to achieve the best visual results in their presentations and official reports. The graphical user interface of R-CMap allows users to define cluster names, change the number of clusters, select rating variables for relevant plots, and importantly, select subsets of respondents by demographic criteria. The latter is particularly useful to project managers in order to identify different patterns of preferences by subpopulations. R-CMap is user-friendly, and does not require any programming experience. However, proficient R users can add to its functionality by directly accessing built-in functions in R and sharing new features with the concept mapping community.     

The moderating role of length of stay in the relationship between cognitive dysregulation and peer attachment in adolescent boys and girls living in residential care

In Portugal, youth at risk tend to be placed in residential care for long periods of time, during which peers assume a status close to that of family. However, these adolescents often present deficits in emotional regulation, which can compromise the quality of their relationships with peers. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the relationship between emotional dysregulation experienced by institutionalized adolescents and their own perception of peer attachment, testing whether the length of stay moderates this relationship, for boys and girls independently. Data was collected from a sample of 100 Portuguese adolescents (71 boys; 29 girls), aged 12–18, living in residential care for 43 months average (SD = 43.14). They responded to the Abbreviated Dysregulation Inventory, which measures cognitive, affective and behavioral dysregulation, and the peer version of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, which measures communication, trust and alienation.Only cognitive dysregulation accounted for the variability of perceived attachment to peers, in the total scale and in communication and trust. When the level of cognitive dysregulation reported by the adolescents is high, there is a positive effect of length of stay in the previous relationships, but only for boys.Results outline how length of placement contributes to youth at risk to reach certain outcomes. They also emphasize the need to develop specific interventions in residential care contexts to address specific characteristics such as gender differences, in order to continuously promote positive interactions with peers in these contexts.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in Romania: From Theory to Practice

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered as an appropriate tool for enhanced competitiveness of Romanian and foreign-capital companies in the domestic market, but also as a means to improve community responsibility and availability of the locally operating Multinational Corporations and for all large, medium-sized and small enterprises with public or private (Romanian or foreign) capital. As CSR is a new and challenging concept for a post-command economy, a learning process was initiated and fostered by various actors. The paper offers comments on the perception of CSR by local managers and academia as well as considerations on how to implement CSR in the specific business environment of an EU candidate country.     

Conceptualising social capital in relation to the well-being of children and young people: a critical review

This exploratory article forms the background for an empirical study for the Health Education Authority on children, young people, health, well-being and social capital. In terms of morbidity, children tend not to exhibit clear health problems, but obviously engage in activities that have important implications for their health and well-being (West & Sweeting, 1996), and these activities may be influenced by, as well as impact upon, children's social capital. Social capital is an elusive concept and has been defined in various ways, and refers to sociability, social networks and social support, trust, reciprocity, and community and civic engagement. The paper contrasts three interpretations of the concept, by Coleman (1988, 1990), Putnam (1993, 1995) and Bourdieu (1986). It concludes that the concept is currently poorly specified as it relates to children, and that the use of the term is inherently problematic, and needs to be carefully critiqued and empirically grounded before it can usefully be applied in social policy formulations. One possible way forward might be to conceptualise social capital not so much as a measurable ‘thing’, rather as a set of processes and practices that are integral to the acquisition of other forms of ‘capital’ such as human capital and cultural capital (ie qualifications, skills, group memberships, etc).     

Effects of mobile information-seeking on the intention to obtain reproductive cancer screening among chinese women: testing an integrative model

Because the cognitive perspective has often been used in health behavior research, the influence of information and communication technology has been neglected although it plays a significant role in healthcare in the increasingly mobile age. The aim of this study is to test an integrative model including technological and cognitive variables to demonstrate that perceived usefulness and ease of mobile media use, health consciousness, and risk perception predict reproductive cancer information-seeking through mobile media and the intention to obtain cancer screening. The analyses of data collected in a survey of 1,065 young and middle-aged women in Nanjing, China showed that the cognitive variables of health consciousness and risk perception directly predicted cancer screening. In addition, the cognitive variables and the technological variables (i.e., perceived usefulness and ease of mobile media use, respectively) indirectly predicted cancer screening through mobile information-seeking. The implications of these results are discussed.