Adoption and feasibility of a communication app to enhance social connectedness amongst frail institutionalized oldest old: an embedded case study

The risks of social isolation and loneliness are becoming emergent issues for older adults (aged 65+) in industrialized countries, particularly for oldest old people (80+) who are frail and institutionalized. Socially isolated and lonely older people are more likely to experience depression, social disengagement, cognitive and physical decline, morbidity, and early mortality. In response to these significant negative health and socioeconomic costs, research suggests using new technologies to enhance opportunities for social connectedness as a strategy to help alleviate both social isolation and loneliness. In this context, following a participatory design method, we developed an accessible communication app with and for frail institutionalized older adults. To test the adoption of this innovative technology and its feasibility to address social isolation and loneliness, we conducted a two-month deployment of the app in a long-term care home with five oldest old and their relatives. Due to access, recruitment, and ethical challenges, the oldest old are a specially understudied group. Using an embedded case study (based on interviews, psychometric scales, field observations, and usability and accessibility testing) and a recursive approach to technology studies, our findings show that technology adoption is based on a complex set of interrelated factors: social, attitudinal, physical, digital literacy, and usability. We also discuss the feasibility of the app to enhance perceived social connectedness amongst our target population, provided that at least one strong tie is involved and communication norms and expectations across generations are considered.     

Planning Until Death Do Us Part: Partnership Status and Financial Planning Horizon

Positive economic outcomes of marriage are often explained with a higher future orientation of married individuals who are assumed to plan their finances for a longer period than the nonmarried. Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (2001–2014; N = 4,819 individuals), the authors provide the first longitudinal test of whether individuals change their financial planning horizons when they change their partnership status using fixed and random effects regressions. Results show that the financial planning horizon increases as individuals enter cohabitation. No further changes in financial planning horizons are found when they transition into marriage. Changes in horizons are similar for women and men. These results indicate that longer financial planning horizons and marriage are likely outcomes of couples' long‐term commitment, which develops during cohabitation. The symbolic and legal institution of marriage is not additionally associated with individual financial planning as a dimension of future orientation.     

“They Are Clipping Our Wings”: Health Implications of Restrictive Immigrant Policies for Mexican-Origin Women in a Northern Border Community

We examine racialization processes experienced by women of Mexican origin in a northern border community during a protracted period of restrictive immigrant policies that have disparately affected Mexican-origin communities, and consider pathways through which these experiences may affect health. This grounded theory analysis draws on interviews conducted in 2013–2014 with 48 first, 1.5, and second generation Mexican-origin women living in Detroit, MI. Racialization processes blurred boundaries between Latinas/os, immigrants, and undocumented immigrants. Racialized policies and interactions required women to negotiate shifting and often precarious social and political terrain. We describe racializing markers used by agents of multiple institutions to assess the legal status of women and members of their social networks, shaping their access to the resources over which institutional agents held power. Specifically, we consider the dynamic mechanisms by which multiple legal, social, and employment institutions exacted immigrant policing and bureaucratic surveillance. These include: (1) interior and border immigration enforcement agents’ active surveillance of residents; (2) local law enforcement officials’ assertion of authority over driver’s licenses and contact with immigration officials, often in traffic-related encounters; (3) Secretary of State clerks’ discretion in assessing legal status and issuing driver’s licenses and state IDs; (4) social welfare agents’ scrutiny of citizenship status in determining access to nutritional, economic, and medical resources; and (5) employers’ exploitation of these structural vulnerabilities to justify unfair treatment of immigrant workers. We theorize several mechanisms, by which these processes affect health, including: stigmatization; hypervigilance; and restricted access to health-promoting resources.     

Perceptions of "impingement" and marital satisfaction among wives of retired husbands

Initial pilot interviews with women whose husbands were in the first year of retirement revealed that problems of "impingement"--perceptions of husbands as intruders into their worlds-as-lived--were cited, in response to open-ended items, as the most difficult aspect of husbands' retirement. An impingement index, consisting of items constructed from those responses, was administered to the original panel of 83 women whose husbands were now in the fourth year of retirement, and to a new panel of 61 women whose husbands had been retired for one year. Paired T-tests revealed one significant difference in perceptions of impingement between the two groups of wives, and not in the expected direction. Indeed, wives in year 4 were more often bothered by some impingement conditions than wives in year 1, and these were significantly related to self-assessments of marital satisfaction. Results have implications for "adjustment" to life transitions, including situations that may inhibit initiation of adaptive responses, degree of investment in social roles, and issues of expectation.     

Are real options more valuable in the presence of agency conflicts?

The theory on real options has extended the traditional net present value rule in order to capture the value of flexibility in investment decisions. Typically, the theory of real options does not take into account agency conflicts (between central and divisional management). In this paper, we investigate the influence of agency conflicts on real options within a LEN-type model. We extend a standard LEN model with investment activities by explicitly considering the possibility to abandon an investment project after all parties involved have received further information about the project’s development. Especially, we analyze how the option’s flexibility value is influenced by the agency conflict. Our analysis shows that the real option alters the trade-off between risk sharing and incentives that underlies the agency conflict. Thereby, situations can occur in which central (and divisional) management evaluates the abandonment option ex ante differently than ex post. Using this framework, we discuss the role of commitment and the advantages of centralization and delegation of the abandonment decision.

Re-authoring to Reconcile Religious Beliefs with Affectional Orientation: A Narrative Study

Narrative qualitative research design was used to understand the processes of three lesbians with Oneness Pentecostal backgrounds who reconciled their religious beliefs with their affectional orientation. The central question for this study was “How do lesbians with Oneness Pentecostal backgrounds describe their coming out processes, and how did they reconcile their religious beliefs and sexual orientations?” Participants’ stories revealed that reconciliation processes are unique and complicated. The narrative therapy reauthoring technique was combined with a feminist theoretical framework and used to analyze participants’ stories. Three unifying themes of reconciliation were the process of redefining (a) religious beliefs, (b) family, and (c) self.     

Personal values and the acceptance of immigrants: why national identification matters / Los valores personales y la aceptación de inmigrantes: ¿Por qué es importante la identificación nacional?

: The study focused on the relations between Italian nationals’ personal values and their expectations towards the way ethnic minorities should acculturate. The main aim was to understand whether nationals’ personal values predict their acculturation preferences towards immigrants, both directly and through national identity. Four hundred and forty-six Italian high school students (M_age = 19.1; SD = 0.57; females = 54.4%) completed a self-administered questionnaire assessing personal values, nationalism, patriotism, acculturation preferences and demographics. An SEM model with bootstrapping estimations was tested. As expected, the results highlighted that personal values predict acculturation preferences towards immigrants in two ways — directly and also through an indirect effect on nationalism — supporting the claim that ingroup and outgroup definitions are closely intertwined. The results also highlighted the need to differentiate between nationalism and patriotism, with the latter having no influence on Italian nationals’ readiness to accept immigrants. Overall, the research demonstrates the relevance of personal values in studying intergroup relations and draws attention to the potential value of communication policies centred on self-transcendence values to improve interethnic relations.     

Results of a nationwide hospice and palliative care social work job analysis

The role of the hospice and palliative social worker is often ambiguous and misunderstood by colleagues and fellow team members. One reason for this is the lack of identified, clearly delineated roles, skills, and tasks employed by these specialty social workers in their daily work. This article summarizes the first nationwide job analysis of hospice and palliative social workers. A contextual, cross-sectional survey design was used to identify current and relevant job tasks from practicing hospice and palliative social workers. A sample of 482 social workers representing 46 states responded to a survey that included demographic questions and ranking of 152 tasks and importance to the position. Tasks were categorized into four broad categories: assessment and reevaluation; planning and intervention; death, grief, and bereavement; and professionalism; which includes subcategories consisting of multiple tasks and skills. Respondents identified performing a psychosocial assessment from a patient/family centered care perspective, assessment of the patient’s current and desired quality of life and of coping skills as the tasks most important to their role. This outline of the role of the hospice and palliative social worker was then used in the development of an evidence-based certification exam that may be required of those who want to receive specialty certification in the field.     

Validity of The Party Exercise for Determining Holland Codes

The Party exercise, found on many career guidance websites and published annually in the best‐selling job‐hunting book What Color Is Your Parachute? (Bolles, 2020), claims to provide a quick and easy way to determine a person's Holland RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional) code. We examined whether this commonly used exercise indeed accurately predicts Holland codes. Undergraduate students (324 women, 147 men) responded to The Party exercise and then the Self‐Directed Search (Holland & Messer, 2013). Results indicated that The Party exercise has some ability to predict some RIASEC types. However, the results do not support use of this popular exercise in lieu of a career assessment measure that has well‐established validity.