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BMC Oral Health May 2023Under dentistry's social contract with the public, dental professionals have a social responsibility to address the oral health needs of the population at large....
BACKGROUND
Under dentistry's social contract with the public, dental professionals have a social responsibility to address the oral health needs of the population at large. However, dental education places little emphasis on such moral commitments. By ascertaining dental students' stance regarding these notions, we may be able to inform changes in dental education. This paper thus explores dental students' comprehension of dentistry's social contract using the concepts of moral inclusion, moral community and empathy.
METHODS
A cross-sectional online survey collected information from undergraduate dental students at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto (N = 430). Moral inclusion was assessed through the breadth of students' moral community by computing a "moral inclusion score" (MIS) from Likert scale responses to statements that asked students about their duty of care for different population groups, wherein a higher MIS indicated a broader moral community and in turn greater moral inclusiveness. Empathy was assessed using Likert scale responses to statements that gauged the extent to which students understood the effect of social determinants on people's health. Association of the MIS with environmental, institutional and student-related factors was also investigated using non-parametric tests and linear regression.
RESULTS
The survey yielded a response rate of 51.4% (n = 221). Overall, students in this sample were morally inclusive and displayed empathy. Regression results showed that the MIS was most strongly associated with choosing a small town/rural area as a future practice location (β = 4.76, 95% CI: 0.52, 9.01) and viewing patients as consumers (β = -3.71, 95%CI: -7.13, -0.29).
CONCLUSION
Students in this sample made morally inclusive choices, which implied that they had a basic understanding of the obligations under dentistry's social contract. Improving knowledge and experience with regards to addressing the social and economic determinants of oral health and access to oral health care may positively influence students' perceptions of their professional duties under the social contract.
Topics: Humans; Students, Dental; Cross-Sectional Studies; Morals; Faculty; Dentistry
PubMed: 37165354
DOI: 10.1186/s12903-023-02994-0 -
Integrative Psychological & Behavioral... Sep 2012The paper retraces the elaboration of a model that accounts for the emergence of subjectivity-the possibility to distance self from others and oneself-if we consider... (Review)
Review
The paper retraces the elaboration of a model that accounts for the emergence of subjectivity-the possibility to distance self from others and oneself-if we consider people as always taken in social and cultural streams of meaning and tensions. It builds a model considering first, human experience as possible when a person takes distance from the here-and-now. Second, it suggests considering two general semiotic streams that feed in, or support, that distancing-social and cultural discourses, and personal experience. Third, a knitting model suggests the constant creation of personal patters out of these two streams. Fourth, a dynamic, star-like model is proposed to account for the actual and constant emergence of subjectivity out of such social and cultural configurations. The model is constituted by a 2, 3 or N-number of eight-shaped crossing loops, resulting in a star-like model situated in a 3 dimensional space. The proposition is to analyze a person in a specific situation: the attractors enabling these loops, or end-points of the star, are the relevant social and cultural elements: others with whom he or she interacts, specific bodies of shared knowledge, social representations, cultural elements and tools, and so on. In each situation, the relative strength of these elements, or the tension they generate, are negotiated by the person; the unique ways of dealing with that situation and inviting solutions can thus be seen as the emergent subjectivity. The model is explored to account for developmental dynamics at various scales in the lifecourse. Finally, the pragmatic interest of a model emphasizing complex configurations, not simple causalities, is recalled.
Topics: Communication; Culture; Ego; Humans; Models, Psychological; Psychology, Social; Social Environment
PubMed: 22660947
DOI: 10.1007/s12124-012-9203-1 -
Computational Intelligence and... 2022There have been limited studies analyzing the causes of construction workers' unsafe behaviour from the social psychology perspective. Based on a Grounded Theory...
There have been limited studies analyzing the causes of construction workers' unsafe behaviour from the social psychology perspective. Based on a Grounded Theory approach, this study first identified and defined seven coded categories related to workers' dangerous behaviour on construction sites. The original qualitative data were obtained from individual site interviews conducted with 35 construction professionals. These main categories were found connected to workers' status of safety awareness and sense of danger, which affected the type of unsafe behaviours, i.e., proactive, passive, or reactive behaviour. By further integrating social cognitive psychology theories into workers' behavioural decision-making process, the formation mechanism framework and diagram were developed to describe construction workers' unsafe behaviours based on the dynamic process of balancing the individual desires and perceived safety risks. This study advances the body of knowledge in construction safety behavioural management by performing in-depth theoretical analysis regarding workers' internal desires, activated by external scenarios and intervened by a personal safety cognition system, which could result in different motivations and various behavioural outcomes. It is argued that safety cognition serves as a mediated moderation system affecting behavioural performance. Practical suggestions on developing a proper safety management system incorporating safety education in guiding construction workers' site behaviours are presented.
Topics: Construction Industry; Grounded Theory; Humans; Psychology, Social; Safety Management; Workplace
PubMed: 35634083
DOI: 10.1155/2022/3581563 -
Personality and Social Psychology... Nov 2023Clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories influence first impressions. However, target dress is notably absent from current theories and models of person perception.... (Review)
Review
ACADEMIC ABSTRACT
Clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories influence first impressions. However, target dress is notably absent from current theories and models of person perception. We discuss three reasons for this minimal attention to dress in person perception: high theoretical complexity, incompatibility with traditional methodology, and underappreciation by the groups who have historically guided research in person perception. We propose a working model of person perception that incorporates target dress alongside target face, target body, context, and perceiver characteristics. Then, we identify four types of inferences for which perceivers rely on target dress: social categories, cognitive states, status, and aesthetics. For each of these, we review relevant work in social cognition, integrate this work with existing dress research, and propose future directions. Finally, we identify and offer solutions to the theoretical and methodological challenges accompanying the psychological study of dress.
PUBLIC ABSTRACT
Why is it that people often agonize over what to wear for a job interview, a first date, or a party? The answer is simple: They understand that others' first impressions of them rely on their clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories. Many people might be surprised, then, to learn that psychologists' theories about how people form first impressions of others have little to say about how people dress. This is true in part because the meaning of clothing is so complex and culturally dependent. We propose a working model of first impressions that identifies four types of information that people infer from dress: people's social identities, mental states, status, and aesthetic tastes. For each of these, we review existing research on clothing, integrate this research with related work from social psychology more broadly, and propose future directions for research.
Topics: Humans; Social Identification; Psychology, Social; Learning; Social Cognition; Clothing; Social Perception
PubMed: 36951208
DOI: 10.1177/10888683231157961 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Jan 2016A hallmark of human social cognition is the tendency for both adults and children to favour members of their own groups. Critically, this in-group bias exerts a strong... (Review)
Review
A hallmark of human social cognition is the tendency for both adults and children to favour members of their own groups. Critically, this in-group bias exerts a strong influence on cooperative decision-making: people (i) tend to share more with members of their in-group and (ii) differentially enforce fairness norms depending on the group membership of their interaction partners. But why do people show these group biases in cooperation? One possibility is that the enforcement of cooperative norm violations is an evolved mechanism supporting within-group cooperation (Norms-Focused Hypothesis). Alternatively, group bias in cooperation could be a by-product of more general affective preferences for in-group members (Mere Preferences Hypothesis). Here, we appraise evidence from studies of both adults and children with the goal of understanding whether one of these two accounts is better supported by existing data. While the pattern of evidence is complex, much of it is broadly consistent with the Mere Preferences Hypothesis and little is uniquely supportive of the Norms-Focused Hypothesis. We highlight possible reasons for this complexity and suggest ways that future work can continue to help us understand the important relationship between group bias and cooperation.
Topics: Adult; Child; Cognition; Cooperative Behavior; Decision Making; Group Processes; Humans; Models, Psychological; Prejudice; Psychology, Social; Social Behavior; Social Change
PubMed: 26644592
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0073 -
Science Progress 2015A defining force in the shaping of human identity is a person's need to feel special and different from others. Psychologists term this motivation Need for Uniqueness...
A defining force in the shaping of human identity is a person's need to feel special and different from others. Psychologists term this motivation Need for Uniqueness (NfU). There are manifold ways to establish feelings of uniqueness, e.g., by showing unusual consumption behaviour or by not conforming to majority views. The NfU can be seen as a stable personality trait, that is, individuals differ in their dispositional need to feel unique. The NfU is also influenced by situational factors and social environments. The cultural context is one important social setting shaping the NfU. This article aims to illuminate the NfU from a social psychological perspective.
Topics: Humans; Individuality; Personality Assessment; Psychology, Social; Self Concept
PubMed: 25942772
DOI: 10.3184/003685015X14205597448201 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Dec 2019Deployment of autonomous vehicles on public roads promises increased efficiency and safety. It requires understanding the intent of human drivers and adapting to their...
Deployment of autonomous vehicles on public roads promises increased efficiency and safety. It requires understanding the intent of human drivers and adapting to their driving styles. Autonomous vehicles must also behave in safe and predictable ways without requiring explicit communication. We integrate tools from social psychology into autonomous-vehicle decision making to quantify and predict the social behavior of other drivers and to behave in a socially compliant way. A key component is Social Value Orientation (SVO), which quantifies the degree of an agent's selfishness or altruism, allowing us to better predict how the agent will interact and cooperate with others. We model interactions between agents as a best-response game wherein each agent negotiates to maximize their own utility. We solve the dynamic game by finding the Nash equilibrium, yielding an online method of predicting multiagent interactions given their SVOs. This approach allows autonomous vehicles to observe human drivers, estimate their SVOs, and generate an autonomous control policy in real time. We demonstrate the capabilities and performance of our algorithm in challenging traffic scenarios: merging lanes and unprotected left turns. We validate our results in simulation and on human driving data from the NGSIM dataset. Our results illustrate how the algorithm's behavior adapts to social preferences of other drivers. By incorporating SVO, we improve autonomous performance and reduce errors in human trajectory predictions by 25%.
Topics: Algorithms; Automation; Automobile Driving; Decision Making; Game Theory; Humans; Machine Learning; Psychology, Social; Social Behavior
PubMed: 31757853
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1820676116 -
Andes Pediatrica : Revista Chilena de... Feb 2021To analyze the meanings attributed to fatherhood by first-time fathers.
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the meanings attributed to fatherhood by first-time fathers.
PARTICIPANTS AND METHOD
Qualitative research of Hermeneutic-Dialectic design. Data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews with fathers and mothers (10 of each) of children older than 12 months. The analysis of the data was carried out through the participants' discourse analysis and their articu lation with the historical-social context and the theoretical references of the research.
RESULTS
The meaning and social participation of men when they became a first-time father were grouped in five categories: meaning of the fatherhood experience; meaning of fatherhood from a gender perspective; meaning of the experience in the father-child relationship; meaning of the parenting experience in the couple relationship; and exercising fatherhood and its relationship with the health system. Con clusions: It is necessary to implement strategies to include the father in the upbringing and care of the children, favoring his participation, and thus, the growth and comprehensive development of the child conceived in the different types of families.
Topics: Adult; Child Rearing; Chile; Father-Child Relations; Fathers; Female; Hermeneutics; Humans; Infant; Interpersonal Relations; Life Change Events; Male; Men; Mothers; Parenting; Qualitative Research; Social Environment; Social Participation; Young Adult
PubMed: 34106183
DOI: 10.32641/andespediatr.v92i1.1757 -
Appetite Nov 2022Despite the established health and ecological benefits of a plant-based diet, the decision to eschew meat and other animal-derived food products remains controversial....
Despite the established health and ecological benefits of a plant-based diet, the decision to eschew meat and other animal-derived food products remains controversial. So polarising is this topic that anti-vegan communities - groups of individuals who stand vehemently against veganism - have sprung up across the internet. Much scholarship on veganism characterizes anti-vegans in passing, painting them as ill-informed, uneducated, or simply obstinate. However, little empirical work has investigated these communities and the individuals within them. Accordingly, we conducted a study using social media data from the popular platform, Reddit. Specifically, we collected all available submissions (∼3523) and comments (∼45,528) from r/AntiVegan subreddit users (N = 3819) over a five-year period. Using a battery of computerized text analytic tools, we examined the psychosocial characteristics of Reddit users who publicly identify as anti-vegan, how r/AntiVegan users discuss their beliefs, and how the individual user changes as a function of community membership. Results from our analyses suggest several individual differences that align r/AntiVegan users with the community, including dark entertainment, ex-veganism and science denial. Several topics were extensively discussed by r/AntiVegan members, including nuanced discourse on the ethicality and health implications of vegan diets, and the naturalness of animal death, which ran counter to our expectations and lay stereotypes of r/AntiVegan users. Finally, several longitudinal changes in language use were observed within the community, reflecting enhanced group commitment over time, including an increase in group-focused language and a decrease in cognitive processing. Implications for vegan-nonvegan relations are discussed.
Topics: Diet; Diet, Vegan; Humans; Psychology, Social; Social Media; Vegans
PubMed: 35787403
DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2022.106143 -
American Journal of Community Psychology Jun 2022As we planned this special issue, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, one which brought into sharp focus many of the pre-existing economic, social, and climate...
As we planned this special issue, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, one which brought into sharp focus many of the pre-existing economic, social, and climate crises, as well as, trends of widening economic and social inequalities. The pandemic also brought to the forefront an epistemic crisis that continues to decentre certain knowledges while maintaining the hegemony of Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. Thus, we set out to explore the possibilities that come with widening our ecology of knowledge and approaches to inquiry, including the power of critical reflective praxis and consciousness, and the important practices of repowering marginalised and oppressed groups. In this paper, we highlight scholarship that reflects a breadth of theories, methods, and practices that forge alliances, in and outside the academy, in different solidarity relationships toward liberation and wellbeing. Our desire as co-editors was not to endorse the plurality of solidarities expressed in the papers as an unyielding methodological or conceptual framework, but rather to hold them lightly within thematic spaces as invitations for readers to consider. Through editorial collaboration, we arrived at the following three thematic spaces: (1) ecologies of being and knowledge: Indigenous knowledge, networks, and plurilogues; (2) naming coloniality in context: Histories in the present and a wide lens; (3) relational knowledge practices: Creative joy of knowing beyond disciplines. From these thematic spaces we conclude that through repowering epistemic communities and narratives rooted in truth-telling, a plurality of solidarities are fostered and sustained locally and transnationally. Underpinned by an ethic of care, solidarity relationships are simultaneously unsettling dominant forms of knowledge and embrace ways of knowing and being that advances dignity, community, and nonviolence.
Topics: Humans; Knowledge; Pandemics; Psychology, Social; Social Change
PubMed: 35707931
DOI: 10.1002/ajcp.12602