Search results

This paper aims to survey the moral psychology of emoji, time-restricted messaging and other non-verbal elements of nominally textual computer-mediated communication (CMC). These features are increasingly common in interpersonal communication. Effects on both individual well-being and quality of intimate relationships are assessed. Results of this assessment are used to support ethical conclusions about these elements of digital communication.

Assessment of these non-verbal elements of CMC is framed in light of relevant literature from a variety of fields, including neuroscience, behavioral economics and social psychology. The resulting ethical analysis is informed by both Aristotelian and Buddhist virtue ethics.

This paper finds that emoji and other nonverbal elements of CMC have positive potential for individual well-being and interpersonal communication. They can be used to focus and direct attention, express and acknowledge difficult emotions and increase altruistic tendencies.

This paper is conceptual, extrapolating from existing literature to investigate possibilities rather than reporting on novel experiments. It is not intended to substitute for empirical research on use patterns and their effects. But by identifying positive potential, it can help both users and designers to support individual and relational well-being.

The positive effects identified here can be incorporated into both design and use strategies for CMC.

Situating ethical analysis of these trending technologies within literature from the social sciences on the effects of stylized faces, disappearing messages and directed attention can help us both understand their appeal to users and best practices for using them to enrich our social lives.

The paper uses empirically informed moral psychology to understand a deceptively trivial-looking phenomenon with wide-ranging impacts on human psychology and relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the quality of social relationships of older Filipino church members by determining their perceptions of support and non-support in their social network.

A qualitative research approach with semi-structured interviews was utilized. A purposive sample of six Filipino older adults (ages 60-89) were invited and agreed to participate in the study.

The themes found in the study confirmed the types of support outlined in social convoy theory. Several unique nuances in the types of support and non-support between the interactions of older adult Filipinos with people very close to them, somewhat close to them, and merely acquainted with them were identified. The themes of support include instrumental support, emotional care, social connectedness, and companionship during engagement in activities. Themes characterising lack of support include disrespect and lack of understanding, constraining one’s actions, helplessness in responding to the other’s needs, non-dependability and non-reliability, difficulty in maintaining social connections, making it difficult to play a desired or expected role.

The study’s limitations are the small sample size, the quality of support explored only through nominating two members of each level of closeness in the older adults’ social convoy, sample size adequacy to reach data saturation, and the lack of data on support reciprocity that may influence the respondents’ perceptions of support and non-support.

The findings of the paper point to possible interventions to improve social support for the older population. The road map for those interested in developing interventions should also put some emphasis on older adults’ needs in their continued societal engagement. Interventions may involve facilitating role transitions and providing social support systems attuned to the needs of the elderly.

The authors speculate that this lack of support experienced by the older adults relates to the loss of societal roles, especially as this relates to their identity, meaning, and changes in social interactions within their communities. It is therefore important that interventions be planned to provide structures for older adults’ transitions in their re-engagement in society and into the work-force, thereby reducing this sense of role ambiguity and providing them with more positive identities in their communities.

The results suggest another form of support distinct from the emotional and instrumental support elaborated in previous work. This support is identified as companionship from within the social network that allows older adults to sustain engagement in meaningful activities. The study’s results further suggest a lack of clarity in societal roles, i.e. a sense of role ambiguity, which older adults may experience in the transitioning from adulthood to later adulthood.

The purpose of this paper is to design and to implement an oral health educational strategy that targeted an older population residing in three social protection centers (SPC) in Villavicencio, Colombia.

The first phase consisted in determining the oral health of older citizens in the SPC. To do this, the research group gathered patients’ personal information and indices. The second phase consisted in the development of an educational strategy based on the population’s requirements. The educational strategy, focusing on oral hygiene and denture care, was implemented for the older people and their caregivers. The third and final phase consisted in the research group measuring the effect of the designed strategy by repeating oral diagnoses for the older people six months after strategy implementation.

The results of the assessment indicated that implementing a strategy to strengthen oral hygiene care was positive, given that statistically significant reductions were observed in the soft plaque index and the Gingival Index (p<0.05).

As a result of the complexity of the population, the data obtained after the strategy was implemented were significantly reduced. However, these results indicate that an educational strategy can have an effect on this type of population.

Implementing a strategy that promotes oral hygiene education and brushing skills, fosters good oral behavior and helps the older people in SPC to remember the information taught, thus contributing to their oral hygiene.

Entrepreneurship; tourism and hospitality.

Junior or senior-level business students as well as graduate-level (MBA and/or EMBA) classes in entrepreneurship, small business management, strategic management, international business or international economics.

Cuban tour guides working for the communist Castro Government dream of working for themselves or leaving for the USA. Their story is contrasted by a visit to Cuba as told by a US business professor.

To compare entrepreneurship under capitalism that is slowly relaxing their communistic rules, to learn more about the island of Cuba and its potential for tourism and new venture creation, to understand the legal, social, political, historical and cultural barriers to entrepreneurship, to hypothesize or brainstorm potential new ventures for Cuba.

Teaching notes; photos also available upon request from the author.

Perspectives on gender, gender expression, sexuality identity, and sexual orientation differ within and between generations given the great extent to which these concepts are embedded within social, cultural, and historical context. Across contexts, questions of authenticity are critical. This research compares generational perspectives about authenticity, gender and gender-related constructs, and sexuality. Through semi-structured interviews with a nonprobability, purposive sample of heterosexual and LGBTQ younger (aged 18–22) and older (aged 65+) adults, how a sense of authenticity is experienced and the degree to which individuals experience authenticity around sexual and gender identities are compared. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method of analysis, and results indicate that while younger adult respondents held expansive terminology and knowledge related to sexual and gender identities, older adult participants lacked such fluidity, and that lack was an inhibiting factor in older adults being able to name and embody their authentic sexual selves. In conclusion, both position in one’s life course (age) and one’s generational cohort (historical, cultural, and social context) influence how individuals experience authenticity around gender and sexual identities.

Prevalence rates of older adults (OA, 50+) with high-risk alcohol use are rapidly growing. Barriers to intervention persist for OA. Mobile interventions, specifically short message service (SMS, also known as text messaging), provide an opportunity to overcome such barriers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of four SMS intervention conditions compared to mobile assessment only among OA (50–65 years old, n = 49) who drink at high-risk levels compared to younger adults (YA, 21–49 years old, n = 102).

Within and between age group differences at baseline and end-of-treatment (12 weeks) were explored. Generalized linear modeling was used to test age by receipt of any SMS intervention (compared to assessment only) effects across health outcomes. Effect sizes and visual analyses were generated to assess for age by type of SMS interactions.

Both age groups reported intervention satisfaction. Two-thirds elected to continue receiving SMSs after treatment concluded. Descriptively, SMS groups demonstrated reduced drinking across age groups at end-of-treatment compared to mobile assessment only, though slightly larger effects were found for YA than for OA. Age significantly moderated the receipt of any SMS intervention only for depression (i.e., older age weakened the therapeutic effect). Of all the SMS types, tailored messages outperformed the other conditions on drinking outcomes for both age groups. Depression, craving and alcohol problems responded to gain-framed messages among OA and loss-framed messages among YA.

The findings of this paper suggest that SMS is acceptable and potentially effective across age groups. Further adaptation of SMS across age groups could enhance its effectiveness.

This is the first paper to explore the impact of older age on the efficacy of text messaging as an intervention for hazardous alcohol use.

Sustaining a spinal cord injury (SCI) at any point in time is life-altering – physically, emotionally, and financially – for all persons affected by the injury, but it can place unique challenges on younger married couples. This study examines the transition to injury for 18 couples (ages 21–55). Data were collected using individual interviews with each partner at three time points following injury and observation in the rehabilitation setting (Creekview). This resulted in 96 individual interviews and 300 hours of observation. Using the life course perspective as a guiding theoretical framework and thematic analysis, I examined how the healthcare institution influenced the couples' relationship during their rehabilitation stay and the subsequent transition home. Creekview staff and couples accepted and reinforced the dominant cultural narrative that women are natural caregivers, but larger social structures of class, gender, and the division of paid and unpaid labor worked together to push some women into caregiving faster or prevented other women from engaging in caregiving. This study examines how younger couples move through the caregiving career during an off-time transition when the expected outcome is not long-term care placement or death. This study identified three main types of caregivers, each with their own path of caregiving – naturalized, constrained, and resistant caregivers. Overall, the transition to injury is complex and this study highlights some of the ways the marital relationship is affected by a nonnormative, unexpected transition.

The purpose of this chapter is to reconsider the five principles of Elder et al.'s (2003) life course theory while centering disability status as an axis of inequality. We use existing research from the fields of the sociology of disability, disability studies, and aging and the life course to reflect on ways in which each life course principle can better attend to the experiences of disabled people. We start with the principle of time and place and discuss how cohort and period effects facilitate a deeper understanding of disabled people's experiences historically. Next, we analyze the principle of timing with an emphasis on cumulative dis/advantage to establish how disability status is an axis of inequality that contributes to the accumulation of social disadvantage and intersects with other axes of inequality (e.g., race, class, and gender). Then, we discuss the two principles of agency and linked lives and employ the concept of “bounded agency” to describe how ableism limits the agency of disabled people. Finally, we examine the principle of life-span development and discuss how adaptation and resilience are contextual and an ordinary part of human experiences. We conclude by offering recommendations for both life course and disability scholars to consider in hopes of broadening our theoretical and empirical knowledge about the lives of disabled people at every stage of the life course and the mechanisms by which resources are stratified by disability and age.