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1 – 10 of 11A long-standing question is how group perception, which is the perception of a whole group, becomes an exaggerated perception of the individuals who comprise the group. The…
Abstract
Purpose
A long-standing question is how group perception, which is the perception of a whole group, becomes an exaggerated perception of the individuals who comprise the group. The question receives scant attention within computer-mediated communication (CMC), which is increasingly a communication mode for groups and a research tool to study groups. I address this gap by examining bias in group perception when rating copresence, which is the sense of being together, with the group.
Methodology/approach
I model bias as occurring when perceivers differentially weigh ratings of individual group members on a variable while rating the whole group on the same variable. I analyzed how the degree of bias in participants’ ratings of copresence with a status-differentiated group varied by the availability of visual cues during CMC in an experiment. I also examined how the group’s status hierarchy impacted bias.
Findings
Bias increase as the availability of visual cues decreased and ratings of middle status members were weighed more in group perception than ratings of other members.
Research limitations
Middle status was based on possessing inconsistent statuses. Inconsistency, and not status position, may have rendered these members more salient than others.
Social implications
Interventions that target group perception may benefit from targeting the group’s middle status members. Researchers and practitioners can minimize bias in group perception through increasing the availability of visual cues in CMC.
Originality/value
The findings illustrate the underpinnings of copresence with an entire group. This is important because copresence shapes several group processes during CMC.
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Existing descriptions of trust in health care largely assume a straightforward association between a patient’s relationship with a regular provider and his or her trust in health…
Abstract
Purpose
Existing descriptions of trust in health care largely assume a straightforward association between a patient’s relationship with a regular provider and his or her trust in health care. I extend status characteristics theory (SCT) and social identity theory (SIT) to suggest greater variability in this association by investigating the role of social differences between patients and their regular providers. Whereas the SIT extension predicts lower trust in dissimilar than similar dyads, the predictions from the SCT extension depend on status in dissimilar dyads. Further, research examining how social differences in patient–provider dyads shape trust largely emphasizes racial differences, but the theories implicate gender differences too.
Methodology/approach
I analyze a longitudinal dataset of patient–provider dyads offering a conservative test of the extensions.
Findings
Results generally support predictions from the SCT extension. Specifically, patients’ status based on differences in either race or gender: (1) is inversely related to their trust in health care and (2) influences the resiliency of their trust, whereby the degree health care met prior expectations matters less (more) for the trust of low (high) status patients than equal status patients.
Research limitations/implications
When patients and providers differ on both race and gender, findings sometimes depart from predictions. This indicates differences in two social categories is a unique situation where the contributions of each category are distinct from that of the other.
Originality/value
This research extends SCT to explain greater variability in the connection between patient–provider dyads and trust in health care, while also showing how gender compares to race.
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This chapter provides both an introduction to the volume and a brief review of literature on education and other social factors and health beliefs in health care services.
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter provides both an introduction to the volume and a brief review of literature on education and other social factors and health beliefs in health care services.
Methodology/approach
Literature review.
Findings
The chapter argues for the importance of greater examination of education, other social factors, and health beliefs in the use of health care services.
Originality/value
Reviews the issues of education, social factors, and beliefs and previews this volume.
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A fairly consistent finding in research on trust in physicians is that racial and ethnic minorities cite lower levels than whites. This research typically samples only health care…
Abstract
Purpose
A fairly consistent finding in research on trust in physicians is that racial and ethnic minorities cite lower levels than whites. This research typically samples only health care users, which limits our understanding of what underlies distrust. It remains unclear whether the distrust is generalized, which is distrust that is unrelated to using health care regularly or recently.
Methodology/approach
Using data from the Health Information National Trends Survey, multivariable logistic regressions assessed whether racial and ethnic differences in distrust (1) are equivalent among health care users and non-users; (2) regardless of respondents’ health and socio-economic status; and (3) manifest in other health information sources.
Findings
Racial and ethnic minorities are less likely than whites to trust physicians as health information sources. These racial and ethnic differences are equivalent among health care users and non-users, regardless of respondents’ health and socio-economic status. The racial and ethnic patterns do not manifest when predicting trust in other health information sources (Internet, family or friends, government health agencies, charitable organizations).
Research limitations/implications
Data are derived from a cross-sectional survey, which makes it difficult to account comprehensively for self-selection into being a health care user. Despite the limitations, this research suggests that racial and ethnic minorities possess a generalized distrust in physicians, necessitating interventions that move beyond improving health care experiences.
Originality/value
Many researchers have surmised that a generalized distrust in physicians exists among racial and ethnic minorities. This chapter is the first to explicitly examine the existence of such distrust.
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Steven Hitlin and Nicole Civettini
This study engages an understudied presupposition that values are relatively impervious to situational pressures. We do this within a key sociological context, incorporating…
Abstract
Purpose
This study engages an understudied presupposition that values are relatively impervious to situational pressures. We do this within a key sociological context, incorporating social status as a meso-level structure, by measuring values before and after a competition situation with an experimentally controlled outcome to determine the situational robustness of values.
Methodology/approach
We incorporate measures of values into a standard competition experiment, looking at how winning or losing and the status of the perceived competition influence peoples’ values.
Findings
Drawing on the well-established expectation states literature, we demonstrate that perceptions of gaining or losing a competition influence core values. Overall, positive, related situational feedback seemed to heighten all of the values-measures, while receiving (manipulated) negative, specific feedback dampened the rating of all values.
Research limitations
This is an initial exploration of the received wisdom; future work should involve different manipulations, wider arrays of values-measurement, and more diverse samples.
Practical implications
We hope that our interpretations of these results suggest how perceived status influences core internal experiences. The processes described have implications for the experiences of groups that win or lose political competitions, and other social interactions whereby people feel more or less affirmed in terms of their core beliefs.
Social implications
This suggests that individuals and groups who perceive themselves as winning competitions, elections, or challenges will feel affirmed in their core beliefs, and be more motivated to pursue those valued ends. People who perceive themselves as being situationally unsuccessful will feel a general dampening of these core beliefs.
Originality/value
This chapter is the first to link the internal study of values with the general expectation states tradition. It is exploratory, and results suggest this is a fertile area for future inquiry.
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Jane D. McLeod, Tim Hallett and Kathryn J. Lively
We propose an elaboration of the social structure and personality framework from sociological social psychology that is intended to promote integration across social psychological…
Abstract
Purpose
We propose an elaboration of the social structure and personality framework from sociological social psychology that is intended to promote integration across social psychological traditions and between social psychology and sociology, using the study of inequality as an example.
Methodology/approach
We develop a conceptualization of “generic” proximate processes that produce and reproduce inequality in face-to-face interaction: status, identity, and justice.
Findings
The elaborated framework suggests fundamental questions that analysts can pose about the macro-micro dynamics of inequality. These questions direct attention to the “how” and “why” of macro-micro relations by connecting structural and cultural systems, local contexts, and the lives of individual persons; highlighting implicit processes; making meaning central; and directing our attention to how people act efficaciously in the face of constraint.
Practical implications
Applying this framework, scholars can use existing theories and generate new ones, and can do so inductively or deductively.
Social implications
Research on inequality is enriched by social psychological analyses that draw on the full complement of relevant methods and theories.
Originality/value
We make visible the social psychological underpinnings of sociological research on inequality and provide a template for macro-micro analyses that emphasizes the centrality of social psychological processes.
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