Sociocultural influences on the development of child language skills have been widely studied, but the majority of the research findings were generated in Northern contexts. The current crosslinguistic, multisite study is the first of its kind in South Africa, considering the influence of a range of individual and sociocultural factors on expressive vocabulary size of young children. Caregivers of toddlers aged 16 to 32 months acquiring Afrikaans, isiXhosa, South African English, or Xitsonga as home language completed a family (...) background questionnaire and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory about their children. Based on a revised version of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, information was obtained from the family background questionnaire on individual factors, microsystem-related factors, and exosystem-related factors. All sociocultural and individual factors combined explained 25% of the variance in expressive vocabulary size. Partial correlations between these sociocultural factors and the toddlers’ expressive vocabulary scores on 10 semantic domains yielded important insights into the impact of geographic area on the nature and size of children’s expressive vocabulary. Unlike in previous studies, maternal level of education and SES did not play a significant role in predicting children’s expressive vocabulary scores. These results indicate that there exists an interplay of sociocultural and individual influences on vocabulary development that requires a more complex ecological model of language development to understand the interaction between various sociocultural factors in diverse contexts. (shrink)

Following the recent recognition that humans are an active force in nature that gave rise to a new geological epoch, this article explores the implications of the shift to the Anthropocene for social theory. The argument assumes that the emerging conditions compel an expansion and deepening of the timescale of the social-theoretical perspective and that such an enhancement has serious repercussions for the concept of human agency. First, the Anthropocene is conceptualized as a nascent cognitively structured cultural model rather (...) than simply a geological epoch. Second, the vast and deep timescale, in the light of which the new time unit and its generative agency alone make sense, is analysed along with the human world's objective, sociocultural and subjective axes. Finally, the elements of the concept of agency are recomposed in their temporal and relational contexts. At the reflexive level throughout, the need for social theory to develop a cognitive-theoretical approach in conjunction with a weak naturalistic ontology is suggested. (shrink)

This letter explores the intricate historical and contemporary links between large language models (LLMs) and cognitive science through the lens of information theory, statistical language models, and socioanthropological linguistic theories. The emergence of LLMs highlights the enduring significance of information‐based and statistical learning theories in understanding human communication. These theories, initially proposed in the mid‐20th century, offered a visionary framework for integrating computational science, social sciences, and humanities, which nonetheless was not fully fulfilled at that time. The subsequent development of (...) sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, especially since the 1970s, provided critical perspectives and empirical methods that both challenged and enriched this framework. This letter proposes that two pivotal concepts derived from this development, metapragmatic function and indexicality, offer a fruitful theoretical perspective for integrating the semantic, textual, and pragmatic, contextual dimensions of communication, an amalgamation that contemporary LLMs have yet to fully achieve. The author believes that contemporary cognitive science is at a crucial crossroads, where fostering interdisciplinary dialogues among computational linguistics, social linguistics and linguistic anthropology, and cognitive and social psychology is in particular imperative. Such collaboration is vital to bridge the computational, cognitive, and sociocultural aspects of human communication and human−AI interaction, especially in the era of large language and multimodal models and human‐centric Artificial Intelligence (AI). (shrink)

Introduction. The emerging paradigm of socio- cultural development of the Russian Federation’s local communities is conditioned by the trans- formation of production and economic practices based on the concept of a multi-layered economy and multifunctionality emerging under the pressure of globalization on the development of localities. The desire to preserve and maintain socio-cultural traditions, customs, and values is an axiological guideline for developing local communities. The growing social vulnerability of communities creates certain conditions for losing identity, ability for self-identification, and (...) leads to the destruction of socio-cultural identity. The purpose of the study. The article analyzes the problem of socio-cultural evolution when modern- izing production and economic activity generating factors causing the transformation of culture and sociality of local communities, thus determining the processes of integration and disintegration of socioculture. Methods. Sociocultural analysis provides an op- portunity to reveal the main directions of sociocul- tural development of local communities, to explain the essence of interaction, mutual influence and unification of local communities into an interactive socio-cultural space with compatible formations and components. Scientific novelty of the research. The author dis- plays the models of culture and sociality transfor- mation reflecting the processes of modification of the local communities’ lifestyle that determine the transition from the paradigm of sustainable tradi- tional socio-cultural development to the paradigm of innovative transformations. Results. The problem of sociocultural integration and disintegration is associated with globalization processes that generate contradictions of globality and locality. The processes of integration/disin- tegration of the local communities’ sociocultural development are conditioned by the culture and sociality evolution of the constructing model of socio-cultural behavior. The pressure of globaliza- tion plunges the socio-cultural space into a state of diffusion, instability. Historically established traditions, norms, values are transformed into intermediate forms that help to adapt to new living conditions, neutralize the negative consequences of modernization. Territorial sociocultural formations are being formed, within the framework of which attempts are being made to preserve the tradition- al socio-cultural environment. Conclusions. The dynamics of sociocultural pro- cesses determines the emergence of multidirec- tional poles of sociocultural life: from the desire to preserve the traditional socio-cultural environment, to the full acceptance of the meaningful qualities of liberal socio-culture, which destroys the sociocul- tural identity of local communities. (shrink)

Asian American women demonstrate higher rates of disordered eating than other women of color and comparable rates to European American women. Research suggests that leading sociocultural predictors, namely pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization, are predictive of disordered eating in Asian American women; however, no known studies have tested the intersection of sociocultural and culture-specific variables (e.g., ethnic identity, biculturalism, acculturative stress) to further elucidate disordered eating risk in this vulnerable, understudied group. Accordingly, this project used path analysis (...) to simultaneously examine the role of sociocultural and culture-specific effects on disordered eating in Asian American college women (N = 430). Self-report measures assessing disordered eating, sociocultural (pressures for thinness; thin-ideal internalization) and culture-specific (ethnic identity, biculturalism, acculturative stress) variables revealed that a number of sociocultural and culture-specific factors are predictive of disordered eating. Consistent with prior research, heightened perceived pressures for thinness and thin-ideal internalization were predictive of disordered eating, and thin-ideal internalization partially mediated the relationship between pressures for thinness and disordered eating. Acculturative stress predicted disordered eating and fully accounted for the inverse relationship between biculturalism and disordered eating. Overall, findings highlighted the salience of sociocultural predictors for disordered eating in Asian American women and identified biculturalism and acculturative stress as culture-specific contributors that may uniquely impact vulnerability to disordered eating in Asian American women. Thus, the combined consideration of sociocultural and culture-specific factors may be important in disordered eating research and in the development of individualized treatment plans for Asian American women. (shrink)

It is argued that the origins of modern science can be revealed due to joint account of external and internal factors. The author tries to keep it in mind applying his scientific revolution model according to which the growth of knowledge consists in interaction, interpenetration and even unification of different scientific research programmes. Hence the Copernican Revolution as a matter of fact consisted in realization and elimination of the gap between the mathematical astronomy and Aristotelian qualitative physics in Ptolemaic (...) cosmology. Yet the very realization of the contradictions became possible because at the first stages European science was a result of Christian Weltanschaugung evolution with its gradual elimination of pagan components. Key words: modern European science, Christian Weltanschaugung. (shrink)

Four theoretical monographs, written by biologists in the wake of the sociobiology debate, and which treat, or purport to treat, the topic of sociocultural evolution are examined in this paper. On the biosocial spectrum they range from Trivers' pure sociobiology, to Lumsden and Wilson's sociobiology "in drag," to Boyd and Richerson's genuinely dual approach, to Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman's purely cultural transmission and evolution. The latter is likely to prove of greatest interest to social scientists and represents a major advance (...) in theorizing mathematically about social change. While the most comprehensive, Boyd and Richerson's "dual inheritance" model ultimately places more emphasis on the biological evolution of the capacity for culture than on genuine gene/culture coevolution even though it is conceivable that cultural transmission and evolution could be providing the selective force responsible for some fundamental biological phenomena such as sexual reproduction in long-lived vertebrates for example. The relationship between contemporary evolutionary and non-evolutionary theories of social change is not dealt with here but the former are very relevant to the latter because evolutionists believe they have available sophisticated solutions to problems which continue to plague other theoretical traditions. (shrink)

Niche construction theory (NCT) can be applied to examine the influence of culturally constructed learning environments on the acquisition and retention of beliefs, values, role expectations, and skills. Thus, NCT provides a quantitative framework to account for cultural-historical contingency affecting development and cultural evolution. Learning in a culturally constructed environment is of central concern to many sociologists, cognitive scientists, and sociocultural anthropologists, albeit often from different perspectives. This article summarizes four pertinent theories from these fields—situated learning, activity theory, practice (...) theory, and distributed cognition. As a basis for interdisciplinary investigation, the article considers how these theories may be addressed using a cultural niche-construction framework, including the utility of an embedded model that explicitly accounts for effects of the constructed learning environment on within-individual learning dynamics in an evolutionary framework. (shrink)

This article explores home dissatisfaction using methods modelled on those used to understand negative body image and its causes. We found that a substantial proportion of UK participants (13–39%) expressed dissatisfaction with their homes. Although the strongest association was between home dissatisfaction and reported physical problems, there was evidence that dissatisfaction is also predicted by experiencing pressure from the media and your family to improve your home, as well as reporting a greater tendency to compare your home to others’. The (...) results of the study provide initial evidence for a sociocultural explanation of home dissatisfaction, analogous to sociocultural explanations of body dissatisfaction. (shrink)

In absence of effective pharmaceutical treatments, the individual's compliance with a series of behavioral recommendations provided by the public health authorities play a critical role in the control and prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection. However, we still do not know much about the rate and determinants of adoption of the recommended health behaviors. This paper examines the compliance with the main behavioral recommendations, and compares sociocultural, psychosocial, and social cognitive explanations for its variation in the French population. Based on the (...) current literature, these 3 categories of factors were identified as potential determinants of individual differences in the health preventive behaviors. The data used for these analyses are drawn from 2 cross-sectional studies conducted after the lockdown and before the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. The participants were drawn from a larger internet consumer panel where recruitment was stratified to generate a socio-demographically representative sample of the French adult population. Overall, the results show a very high rate of compliance with the behavioral recommendations among the participants. A hierarchical regression analysis was then performed to assess the potential explanatory power of these approaches in complying with these recommendations by successively entering sociocultural factors, psychosocial factors, social cognitive factors in the model. Only the inclusion of the cognitive variables substantially increased the explained variance of the self-reported adoption of preventive behaviors, providing better support for the social cognitive than the sociocultural and psychosocial explanations. (shrink)

Two general approaches characterize current theories of sociocultural evolution. The "external selection" approach stresses the importance of intersocietal selection; the "adaptive change" approach, the importance of intrasocietal selection. This chapter identifies and critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches and outlines strategies for integrating these divergent approaches into a single evolutionary perspective.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, diverse sciences grounded in natural history made a virtue of field research that somehow tested scientists' endurance; disciplinary change derived from the premise that witnesses were made reliable by character-molding trials. The turn to the field was a function of structural transformations in various quarters, including (but hardly limited to) global politics, communications systems, and scientific institutions, and it conduced to biogeographical explanations, taxonomic schemes that admitted of heterogeneity, and affective research styles. (...) Sociocultural anthropology, which took specialized shape at the beginning of the twentieth century, shared many properties with other field sciences, but its method—participant observation—was distinctive. Critical to the method's definition were the efforts of the British experimental psychologist-anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers, who relied on notions then widespread in Europe and the United States. The discipline's future mythic hero, Bronislaw Malinowski, embraced Rivers's model. For both men, proper fieldwork meant using the researcher's body as an instrument and entailed understanding both the anthropologist's body and the research subject's body as energy systems; this symmetry facilitated a relativist perspective. Participant observation remains central to sociocultural anthropology, but the discipline's pedagogic habits contributed to loss of memory of its energetic conceptualization. -/- . (shrink)

By leveraging the case of Hindu sati, this paper elucidates the ways in which structure and culture condition suicidal behavior by way of social psychological and emotional dynamics. Conventionally, sati falls under Durkheim's discussion of altruistic suicides, or the self-sacrifice of underindividuated or excessively integrated peoples like widows in traditional societies. In light of the fact that Durkheim's interpretation was based on uneven data, nineteenth century Eurocentric beliefs, and a theoretical framework that can no longer resist modification and elaboration, by (...) reconsidering sati it is possible to sketch a new model that strengthens Durkheim's theory by making it more robust and generalizable. The following model is built on five principles. First, integration and regulation are not distinct causal forces, but overlapping contextual conditions. Second, to better explain the variation in suicidality across time and space, we must also pay attention to culture as it provides the underlying meanings of suicide that can increase the odds a person or class of persons become suicidal or are protected against suicidality. Third, structure still matters, but in many cases, the role power and power-differentials play must be considered. Fourth, understanding why and how people choose suicide depends on incorporating identity and status processes. Fifth, because the expression of social emotions like shame are patterned by structural and cultural conditions, to understand how suicidality is socioculturally patterned we must further explore the link between identity/status, social emotions, and structure and culture. (shrink)

Based on their framework, Müller & Schumann (M&S) propose a staged drug policy that matches well the neoliberal governance scheme. To mend the sad loss of the sociocultural dimension in their model, I propose three such considerations: first, sociocultural interactions with the brain; second, sociocultural context and justice of drug use; and third, sociocultural preparedness for implementing their drug policy.

Today it is difficult to investigate how to deal with the interaction of heterogeneous societies living in common spaces of coexistence (interculturality). Certainly, the intervention in this field of scientific knowledge requires to know and to be able to apply the concepts, models and paradigms of social relation that differ considerably according to the social context in which we are investigating. It is not the same (although done fairly frequently), contextualizing this situation in the American society, or in the European, (...) Asian or Latin American, to give some examples. The education, through a new concept of sociocultural relations, specific to each context, will favour the establishment of ties to promote and encourage the coexistence of peoples. This coexistence in the social context of Latin America is based on the momentum generated by the Indigenous Peoples that have led to profound changes in educational paradigms and social relations. The new situation causes the interaction of such disparate concepts as intra- and transculturality through the incidence of identity in the context of globalization. (shrink)

The thesis introduces and criticizes the discourse on technology, with a specific reference to the concept of AI. The discourse on AI is particularly saturated with reified metaphors which drive connotations and delimit understandings of technology in society. To better analyse the discourse on AI, the thesis proposes the concept of “Expected AI”, a composite signifier filled with historical and sociocultural connotations, and numerous referent objects. Relying on cultural semiotics, science and technology studies, and a diverse selection of heuristic (...) concepts, the thesis delves beneath the surface of AI discourse and demonstrates the hidden political, social, cultural, and ecological dangers of AI. The entanglement of the discourse(s) with (science) fiction, folklore, myth, and religion impacts how AI is perceived and received, as well as the expectations to AI-enabled technologies now and in the future. The thesis also proposes a more ethical and comprehensive ontological model for AI systems. The model describes AI systems as complex figurations, considering their socio-material organisation, global economic-material becoming, and impact on the environment, social institutions, and the semiosphere. The dissertation argues that AI should be understood not just as an object or sociotechnical system, but as its entire product chain encompassing people and cultures, as well as the used resources and impact (both material-ecological and semiotic) on a planetary scale. (shrink)

Recent scientific and technological developments enable the generation of increasingly sophisticated organoids: three-dimensional, lab-grown stem cell-based entities that model human organs anatomi...

Animal models have long been used to investigate human mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. This practice is usually justified in terms of the benefits (to humans) outweighing the costs (to the animals). I argue on utility maximization grounds that we should phase out animal models in neuropsychiatric research. Our leading theories of how human minds and behavior evolved invoke sociocultural factors whose relation to nonhuman minds, societies, and behavior has not been homologized. Thus it is not at (...) all clear that we are gaining the epistemic or clinical benefits we want from this animal-based research. (shrink)

The relationship between body dissatisfaction and binge eating behavior has been highlighted by previous studies. However, the psychological mechanisms underlying body dissatisfaction-induced binge eating behavior remain unclear. Here, we further addressed this issue in the framework of the sociocultural model of eating disorders. Firstly, we investigated the mediation effect of perceived stress on the relationship between body dissatisfaction and binge eating. Secondly, we examined the moderation role of the self-acceptance and emotion regulation strategies on the indirect effect of (...) body dissatisfaction on binge eating behavior mediated by perceived stress. Data from 903 Chinese university students were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and SPSS PROCESS Macro. Results indicated that perceived stress mediates the relationship between body dissatisfaction and binge eating behavior. Main interactional effects have been observed when self-acceptance and cognitive reappraisal but not expressive suppression are introduced in the model as a moderator. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed. (shrink)

The fundamental tenet of contemporary sociobiology, namely the assumption of a single process of evolution involving the selection of genes, is critically examined. An alternative multiple-level, multiple-process model of evolution is presented which posits that the primary process that operates via selection upon the genes cannot account for certain kinds of biological phenomena, especially complex, learned, social behaviours. The primary process has evolved subsidiary evolutionary levels and processes that act to bridge the gap between genes and these complex behaviours. (...) The subsidiary levels are development, individual animal learning, and socioculture itself. It is argued that individual learning is pivotal to the derivation and biological analysis of culture. The differences between cultural and noncultural societies are stressed. It is concluded that such a multiple-level model of evolution can form the basis for reconciling opposing sides in the sociobiology debate. (shrink)

We propose a sociodynamic model of emotions, in which emotions are seen as dynamic systems that emerge from the interactions and relationships in which they take place. Our model does not deny that emotions are biologically constrained, yet it takes seriously that emotions are situated in specific contexts. We conceive emotions as largely functional to the sociocultural environment in which they occur; this is so because sociocultural environments foster the emergence of emotions that positively contribute to (...) social cohesion. The role of the social context includes actual, online shaping—affordances, constraints, and reward structures—and thus goes beyond merely providing the content of cognitive representations (e.g., goals, concepts). (shrink)

This volume describes the current "main contenders," including neo-Piagetian, neo-connectionist, neo-innatist and sociocultural models.

In this article I draw on existing theory in a project of synthesis and integration to develop a terminological, conceptual, and graphic model for understanding the scope of critical thinking. I begin by showing why the idea of critical scope matters. I then develop a model that maps the scope of critical thinking across individual, sociocultural, and existential domains, in conjunction with the ontological, epistemological, emotional, and political dimensions. Building on this, I outline the relationships between contexts, (...) critical frameworks, and metacritique as essential to understanding the scope of critical thinking. The model also includes a means for organising the attributes (character traits) of critical thinkers. This project provides resources to encourage and guide critical thinking at a more expansive scope in education, society, and daily life by helping people to understand the contours and potential confines of criticality. This has profound implications for education and society, helping to improve the rigour, reach, and diversity of critical thinking. This model is far from complete, and designed to invite ongoing engagement, including critique. It is intended as a rubric to prompt and inspire, not as a device to ‘measure’ or ‘assess’ critical thinking. Educationally, the intention is to provide resources for understanding, negotiating, and facilitating critical thinking at an expansive scope. (shrink)

Peter Homans offers a new understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis and relates the psychoanalytic project as a whole to the sweep of Western culture, past and present. He argues that Freud's fundamental goal was the interpretation of culture and that, therefore, psychoanalysis is fundamentally a humanistic social science. To establish this claim, Homans looks back at Freud's self-analysis in light of the crucial years from 1906 to 1914 when the psychoanalytic movement was formed and shows how these experiences culminated (...) in Freud's cultural texts. By exploring the "culture of psychoanalysis," Homans seeks a better understanding of what a "psychoanalysis of culture" might be. Psychoanalysis, Homans shows, originated as a creative response to the withering away of traditional communities and their symbols in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. The loss of these attachments played a crucial role in the lives of the founders of psychoanalysis, especially Sigmund Freud but also Karl Abraham, Carl Jung, Otto Rank, and Ernest Jones. The personal, political, and religious losses that these figures experienced, the introspection that followed, and the psychological discovery that resulted are what Homans calls "the ability to mourn." Homans expands this historical analysis to construct a general model of psychological discovery: the loss of shared ideals and symbols can produce a deeper sense of self (psychological structure-building, or individuation) and can then lead to the creation of new forms of meaning and self-understanding. He shows how Freud, Jung, and other psychoanalysts began to extend their introspection outward, reinterpreting the meanings of Western art, history, and religion. In conclusion, Homans evaluates Freud's theory of culture and discusses the role that psychoanalysis might play in social and cultural criticism. Throughout the book, Homans makes use of the many histories, biographies, and psychobiographies that have been written about the origins of psychoanalysis, drawing them into a comprehensive sociocultural model. Rich in insights and highly original in approach, this work will interest psychoanalysts and students of Freud, sociologists concerned with modernity and psychoanalysis, and cultural critics in the fields of religion, anthropology, political science, and social history. (shrink)

Anorexia nervosa remains an enigma among Western cultures. Various causal explanations have been offered, encompassing biological, psychological, and sociocultural models. These explanations, however, focus on the immediate or proximal mechanisms of causation. A more thorough understanding of anorexia nervosa can be achieved by understanding the relationship between these factors and ultimate causation, the level of explanation which deals with individual reproductive fitness. This paper reviews the biological, psychological, sociocultural, and evolutionary models and indicates a necessary synthesis between proximate (...) and ultimate levels of causation in examining the anorexia nervosa puzzle. (shrink)

Learning disabilities are highly prevalent on college campuses, yet students with learning disabilities graduate at lower rates than those without disabilities. Academic and psychosocial supports are essential for overcoming challenges and for improving postsecondary educational opportunities for students with learning disabilities. A holistic, multi-level model of campus-based supports was established to facilitate culture and practice changes at the institutional level, while concurrently bolstering mentors’ abilities to provide learning disability-knowledgeable support, and simultaneously creating opportunities for students’ personal and interpersonal development. (...) Mixed methods were used to investigate implementation of coordinated personal, interpersonal, and institutional level supports for undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students with learning disabilities. A one-group pre-test post-test strategy was used to examine undergraduate outcomes. Participants included 52 STEM undergraduates with learning disabilities, 57 STEM graduate student mentors, 34 STEM faculty mentors, and 34 university administrators and personnel as members of a university-wide council. Enrolled for two years, undergraduates were engaged in group meetings involving psychoeducation and reflective discussions, development of self-advocacy projects, and individual mentorship. Undergraduates reported improved self efficacy (p =.001), campus connection (p <.001), professional development (p ≤.002), and self advocacy (p <.001) after two academic years. Graduate student mentors increased their understanding about learning disabilities and used their understanding to support both their mentees and other students they worked with. Council members identified and created opportunities for delivering learning disability-related trainings to faculty, mentors and advisors on campus, and for enhancing coordination of student services related to learning and related disorders. Disability-focused activities became integrated in broader campus activities regarding diversity. This research explicates a role that college campuses can play in fostering the wellbeing and the academic and career development of its students with developmental learning and related disorders. It offers an empirically tested campus-based model that is multilevel, holistic, and strengths-based for supporting positive outcomes of young people with learning disabilities in STEM. Moreover, findings advance the knowledge of supports and skills that are important for self-regulating and navigating complex and multi-faceted disability-related challenges within both the post-secondary educational environment and the young adults’ sociocultural context. (shrink)

Clinical musings on the nature of reality and "known experience." Therapists must rely on their clients' reporting of experience in order to assess, treat, and offer help. Yet we all experience the world through various filters of one sort or another, and our experiences are transformed through several nonconscious processes before reaching our conscious awareness. Science, philosophy, and wisdom traditions share the belief that our awareness is very restricted. How, then, can anyone accurately report their experience, let alone get help (...) with it? Neuropsychologist Aldrich Chan examines how our experience of reality is assembled and shaped by biological, psychological, sociocultural, and existential processes. Each chapter explores processes within these domains that may act as "veils." Topics in the book include: the default mode network, cognitive distortions, decision-making heuristics, the interconnected mind, memory, and cultural concepts of distress. By understanding the ways in which reality can be distorted, clinicians can more effectively help their clients reach their personal psychotherapeutic goals. (shrink)

Critical discourse analysis has become an effective multidisciplinary approach to uncovering hidden ideologies and powers along with the changing times and the increasing prevalence of various discourses in society, both in the form of information written in text and distributed in the digital world. Discourse battles are commonplace in the context of life—as a form of dialectics and freedom to convey ideas. Researchers through this article discuss basic assumptions about the basic or main principles of critical discourse analysis developed by (...) Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak. The basic assumptions are that critical discourse analysis focuses on social issues, power relations are discursive, discourse shapes society and culture, discourse manages ideological works, discourse is historical, the relationship between text and society is mediated (discourse), discourse analysis is interpretive and explanatory, and discourse is a form of social action. The article also discusses three models of discourse analysis: the Sociocultural (Norman Fairclough), Socio-cognitive (Teun A. van Dijk), and Historical-Discourse (Ruth Wodak) models. Fairclough’s sociocultural model interprets text not only through the way objects are described but also through the relationships between objects that are defined. Meanwhile, Teun A. van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model emphasizes text, social cognition, and social context, forming a chain of analysis. Lastly, Ruth Wodak’s historical-discourse model puts historical aspects of discourse into his analysis. (shrink)

The successes of the Human Genome Project have ushered in a new era of genomic science. To effectively translate these discoveries, it will be critical to improve the communication of genetic risk within families. This will require a systematic approach that accounts for the nature of family relationships and sociocultural beliefs. This paper proposes the application of the Family Systems Illness Model, used in the setting of cancer care, to the evolving field of genomics.

Einon's data support our original claims, although not a claim she seems to assume – of reciprocal attraction between elderly men and 20-year-old women. Implicit in her commentary is an assumption that genetic predispositions are omniscient fitness maximizers. Instead, evolutionary models assume selection-fashioned psychological mechanisms that, in the context of other mechanisms and pressures in past environments, had a positive effect on fitness relative to competing alternatives. The Over & Phillips data fit with our own data on homosexuals, and with (...) the assumption of independent modular mechanisms, rather than any existing sociocultural models. Einon also incorrectly assumes that evolutionary models have overemphasized male choice to the exclusion of female choice. (shrink)

The article develops an explanation of corporal punishment (CP) as an expression of family violence by developing a multi-level, conciliatory model of human behavior. The synthesis builds upon a review of the relevant analytic approaches and empirical evidence spanning multiple levels of human behavior to include five interrelated frameworks: (1) behavioral investment; (2) socialization; (3) cultural justification; (4) social location; and (5) societal context. The analytic levels highlight the various explanatory principles that address questions relevant mainly to investigators who (...) study behavior in terms of different levels of informational complexity. The paper outlines the most important factors that shape the use and non-use of CP within family settings. The model identifies key ontogenetic and biophysiological factors linked to the fitness of parents’ offspring, along with primary socialization processes and cultural justification mechanisms that increase the probability of the intergenerational transmission of violence. In addition, the model identifies the sociological dimensions of family relationships and the importance of social locational variables in shaping parental usage of CP, as well as the importance of communities and institutions as situated within sociocultural contexts. The main conclusion suggests that to understand and explain more fully why human beings use violence in the context of familial relationships—including corporal punishment practices—analysts must consider the different influences and possible impacts of factors across all five levels. (shrink)

Appropriate and balanced decision-making is sentinel to goal setting and the provision of appropriate clinical care that are attuned to preserving the best interests of the patient. Current family-led decision-making in family-centric societies such as those in Singapore and other countries in East Asia are believed to compromise these objectives in favor of protecting familial interests. Redressing these skewed clinical practices employing autonomy-based patient-centric approaches however have been found wanting in their failure to contend with wider sociocultural considerations that (...) impact care determinations. Evaluation of a number of alternative decision-making frameworks set out to address the shortcomings of prevailing atomistic and family-centric decision-making models within the confines of end-of-life care prove these alternative frameworks to be little better at protecting the best interests of vulnerable patients. As a result, we propose the Welfare Model that we believe is attentive to the relevant socio-culturally significant considerations of a particular case and better meets the needs of end-of-life care goals of preserving the welfare of patients. Employing a multi-professional team evaluation guided by regnant psychosocial, legal, and clinical standards and the prevailing practical and clinical realities of the particular patient’s setting the Welfare Model provides a clinically relevant, culturally sensitive, transparent, and evidence-based approach to care determinations. (shrink)

The paper aims to give a comprehensive cognitive and semiotic analysis of translation strategies implied in the translation of the film “Darkest Hour”. Regarding a film as a communicative process mediated by certain semiotic features makes it possible to analyze the semiotic character of film discourse in translation. Thus, it was decided that translation is not just a speech-oriented process but a communicative act taking place within a definite semiotic space in a cross-cultural perspective. The semiotic model of cinematic (...) discourse has a complicated structure and is analyzed based on semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic criteria. The choice of the semiotic system primarily depends on the communicative situation and its recipients. As the semiotic system of the film “Darkest Hour” is both socioculturally and situationally conditioned, the translator reconstructed the sense of the source language text by implying the translation transformations that assured the accuracy and adequacy of its translation into the target language text. (shrink)

Teams are pervasive in the history of mankind. Particularly in our fast-growing modern society, teams composed of members from different cultures and disciplines are quite often used at workplace. Though widely used, the effectiveness of teams is inconsistent. Meta-analyses show a double-edged effect of diversity on creativity and innovation, suggesting that diversity needs to be tactfully managed if we want to leverage the creative potential of teams. The current paper strives to meet this challenge and makes suggestions on how to (...) foster creativity in intercultural and interdisciplinary teams. It discusses the concepts of teams vs. groups and creativity vs. innovation. Drawing upon the sociocultural theories of creativity and innovation, particularly literature reviews and meta-analyses, this paper attempts to identify motivational, cognitive and environmental enablers of team creativity. These enablers can be summarized as a VICTORY model, which focuses on team (T) and synthesizes the sociocultural (Vision), motivational (Openness, Risk-taking, Yes-mindset) and cognitive (Ideation, Combination) antecedents of team creativity. (shrink)

Many scholars often use the terms “metaphors,” “analogies,” and “models” interchangeably and inadvertently overlook the uniqueness of each word. According to recent cognitive studies, the three terms involve distinct cognitive processes using features from a familiar concept and applying them to an abstract, complicated concept. In the field of science and religion, there have been various objects or ideas used as metaphors, analogies, or models to describe the science–religion relationship. Although these heuristic tools provided some understanding of the complex interaction, (...) they failed to address the broad nature of science and religion as well as the multifarious relationship between the two in a sociocultural context. Unlike the previous candidates, the concept of language, including the notions of linguistic worldview, linguistic identity, dialects, power, and bilingualism, offers a unique and comprehensive window through which science, religion, and the relationship between the two are seen with clarity. (shrink)

The practice of medicine—and especially the patient-doctor relationship—has seen exceptional shifts in ethical standards of care over the past few years, which by and large originate in occidental countries and are then extrapolated worldwide. However, this phenomenon is blind to the fact that an ethical practice of medicine remains hugely dependent on prevailing cultural and societal expectations of the community in which it serves. One model aiming to conceptualise the dichotomous efforts for global standardisation of medical care against differing (...) sociocultural expectations is the individualism-collectivism model, with the ‘West’ being seen as individualistic and the ‘East’ being seen as collectivistic. This has been used by many academics to explain differences in approach towards ethical practice on key concepts such as informed consent and patient autonomy. However, I argue that this characterisation is incomplete and lacks nuance into the complexities surrounding cross-cultural ethics in practice, and I propose an alternative model based on the ethics of clinical care in Hong Kong, China. Core ethical principles need not be culture-bound—indeed, their very existence mandates for them to be universal and non-derogable—but instead cultural alignment occurs in the particular implementation of these principles, insofar as they respect the general spirit of contemporary ethical standards. (shrink)

Human ontogeny has been shaped through evolution, resulting in markers of physical, cognitive, and social development that are widely shared and often used to demarcate the lifespan. Yet, development is demonstrably biocultural and strongly influenced by context. As a result, emic age categories can vary in duration and composition, constituted by both common physical markers as well as culturally meaningful indicators, with implications for our understanding of the evolution of human life history. Semi-structured group interviews (_n_ = 24) among Sidama (...) adults and children, as well as individual interviews with children (_n_ = 30), were used to identify age categories across the lifespan and to specifically investigate acquisition of sociocultural skills and cognitive development. Ten major age categories were identified, covering birth through death. These largely map onto patterning of human universals, but specific cultural beliefs and behaviors were indicated as important markers of development. Adults and children are oriented toward the dynamic relationships between physical development and acquisition of skills tied to social and cultural success. Culture, ecology, and ontogeny are co-determinants of human development, and the interactions among them should be considered in studies examining human life history and its evolution. (shrink)

Studies of occupational sex segregation rely on the sociocultural model to explain why some occupations are numerically dominated by women and others by men. This model argues that occupational sex segregation is driven by norms about gender-appropriate work, which are frequently conceptualized as gender-typed skills: work-related tasks, abilities, and knowledge domains that society views as either feminine or masculine. The sociocultural model thus explains the primary patterns of occupational sex segregation, which conform to these norms: (...) Requirements for feminine skills increase with women’s representation in the occupation. However, the model does not adequately explain cases of segregation that deviate from these norms or investigate the ways in which feminine and masculine skills co-occur in occupations. The present study fills these gaps by evaluating two previously untested explanations for deviations from the sociocultural model. The findings show that requirements for physical strength increase with women’s representation in professional occupations because physical strength skills co-occur with substantially higher requirements for feminine skills that involve helping and caring for others. These results indicate that the sociocultural model, and more generally explanations for how gender norms drive occupational sex segregation, can be improved by examining patterns of gender-typed skill co-occurrence. (shrink)

The challenge of developing creativity to enhance human potential is conceptualized as a multifaceted wicked problem due to the countless interactions between people and environments that constitute human development, athletic skill, and creative moments. To better comprehend the inter-relatedness of ecologies and human behaviors, there have been increasing calls for transdisciplinary approaches and holistic ecological models. In this paper we explore an ecological dynamics rationale for creativity, highlighting the conceptual adjacency of key concepts from transdisciplinarity, dynamic systems theory, ecological psychology (...) and social-cognitive psychology. Our aim is to extend the scope of ecological dynamics and contextualize the application of non-linear pedagogy in sport. Foregrounding the role of sociocultural constraints on creative behaviors, we characterize the athlete-environment system as an ecological niche that arises from, and simultaneously co-creates, a form of life. We elaborate the notion that creative moments, skill and more generally talent in sport, are not traits possessed by individuals alone, but rather can be conceived as properties of the athlete-environment system shaped by changing constraints. This re-conceptualization supports a pedagogical approach predicated on notions of athletes and sports teams as complex adaptive systems. In such systems, continuous non-linear interactions between system components support the exploration of fluent and flexibly creative performance solutions by athletes and sports teams. The implications for practice suggest that cultivating a constellation of constraints can facilitate adaptive exploration of novel affordances (opportunities/invitation for action), fostering creative moments and supporting creative development in athletes. Future models or frameworks for practice contend that pedagogies should emerge from, and evolve in, interaction with the sociocultural context in which practitioners and athletes are embedded. (shrink)

Most writing on informed consent in Africa highlights different cultural and social attributes that influence informed consent practices, especially in research settings. This review presents a composite picture of informed consent in Nigeria using empirical studies and legal and regulatory prescriptions, as well as clinical experience. It shows that Nigeria, like most other nations in Africa, is a mixture of sociocultural entities, and, notwithstanding the multitude of factors affecting it, informed consent is evolving along a purely Western model.Empirical (...) studies show that 70–95% of Nigerian patients report giving consent for their surgical treatments. Regulatory prescriptions and adjudicated cases in Nigeria follow the Western model of informed consent. However, adversarial legal proceedings, for a multiplicity of reasons, do not play significant roles in enforcing good medical practice in Nigeria. Gender prejudices are evident, but not a norm. Individual autonomy is recognized even when decisions are made within the family. Consent practices are influenced by the level of education, extended family system, urbanization, religious practices, and health care financing options available. All limitations notwithstanding, consent discussions improved with increasing level of education of the patients, suggesting that improved physician's knowledge and increasing awareness and education of patients can override other influences.Nigerian medical schools should restructure their teaching of medical ethics to improve the knowledge and practices of physicians. More research is needed on the preferences of the Nigerian people regarding informed consent so as to adequately train physicians and positively influence physicians’ behaviors. (shrink)

The article proceeds from the concept of understanding local government in Russia as a projection of the potestar (pre-state) organization of public life, which transforms under the dominance of methods of state organization of public life, but retains its influence as the essential core of political and social interaction between people. The existing complex «state-municipal» mechanism for exercising power at the local level largely determines the forms and nature of political actors’ interaction at the regional level. State authorities, which are (...) focused on the totality of their own administrative influences, have not yet succeeded in fully integrating local self-government into the general public space of responsibility for powers, since local power is unbuilt initially on the principles of autogenesis, autochthony and autonomy. The current situation contributes to the archaicism of a part of social relations. For some time now, to work in the multidimensional reality of society, the authorities have begun to need analytical models to understand what is happening. As an explanatory theoretical basis for the modes of existence of local authorities developed and described by the author in the current stage of development of Russian statehood, a modal methodology is used, supplemented by the results of constructing model-oriented political ontologies, which reflect the aggregates of the layers and actors of the municipal sphere of sociopolitical reality at the regional level that are actually and actively present in the Russian society. The author is interested in searching the patterns that operate in the environment created and cultivated by the organizational and activity efforts of state structures against the background of sociocultural and other characteristics inherent in the regions. Possible working models for the needs of public administration arising from the modes offered by the author are still under development, since the reform of constitutional rules proposed by the country’s leadership raises the question of new forms of organizing the continuum of coexistence and interaction of local and state authorities in Russia. The article outlines the main research lines that indicate a number of features and reference points of the author’s approach in understanding the relationship between local government and municipal government, which may serve as an occasion for a new circle of discussions of specialists interested in the prospects for the development of political potential in the Russian municipal environment. (shrink)

This investigation focused on relationships among sexual assault, self-blame, and sexual revictimization. Among a female undergraduate sample of adolescent sexual assault victims, those endorsing greater self-blame following sexual assault were at increased risk for sexual revictimization during a 4.2-month follow-up period. Moreover, to the extent that sexual assault victims perceived nonconsensual sex is permitted by law, they were more likely to blame themselves for their own assaults. Discussion focuses on situating victim-based risk factors within sociocultural context.

À partir de 79 récits biographiques recueillis principalement à Moscou auprès d’hommes et de femmes qui ont terminé leurs études au plus tard à la fin des années 1980, l’auteure s’intéresse aux liens entre les transitions macrosociales et les bifurcations biographiques. L’article analyse dans un premier temps l’évolution des modèles socioculturels de parcours de vie en Russie soviétique et post-soviétique et met en lumière le passage d’un parcours de vie asexué à une forte sexuation des parcours de vie. Dans un (...) second temps, il montre comment chez les femmes le fait d’adhérer au modèle familial avec une forte distinction de rôles genrés a façonné des récits hors Histoire et chez les hommes des récits de rupture biographique associée au changement d’époque. (shrink)

The increasing demographic changes of populations in many countries require an approach for managing the complexity of sociocultural differences. Such an approach could help healthcare organizations to address healthcare disparities and inequities, and promote cultural safety for healthcare providers and patients alike. Almutairi's critical cultural competence (CCC) is a comprehensive approach that holds great promise for managing difficulties arising from sociocultural and linguistic issues during cross‐cultural interactions.CCChas addressed the limitations of many other cultural competence approaches that have been (...) discussed in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to define the construct ofCCCand the theoretical components of theCCC. (shrink)

Controlled elicitation of linguistic and psycholinguistic experimental data facilitate strong inferences about phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic structures and functions, yet neglect the ecological validity of responses. Ecological validity in this paper refers to whether data gathered under controlled conditions are commensurate with routine problem solving and language use in natural settings. All methods produce "white room" effects that compromise data gathering and analysis. Unexamined folk knowledge and experiences also guide the investigator s interpretation of data from field research, laboratories, (...) testing sessions, and target sentences. Story recall data from children in a combined second-third grade classroom and their narrative responses to cartoons without sound are used to illustrate ecological validity issues. The child's spontaneous, imaginative narratives about the story and cartoons resemble adult folk theory, and their semantic content reveal sociocultural knowledge essential for understanding subjects ' reasoning and information processing skills. (shrink)

In the historical progress of nations, economic wealth plays an important role as well as prosperity in social and cultural make-up. When the entire Turkish history is considered, we come across with the institution of Akhism that is both related to the regulation of sociocultural life as well as to the operation of business life within the framework of certain principles and rules. Even though Akhism has aspects in parallel with today’s management philosophies, history has not been immutable and (...) economical activities have changed since the thirteenth-century establishment of Akhism. This theoretical study intends to introduce Akhism that stands as a turning point in Ottoman history in social, cultural and economical aspects. Then the purposes of the institution, its principles and historical progress will be outlined. Furthermore, Akhi associations as well as conflicts with total quality management, social responsibility and corporate culture will be diagnosed. (shrink)

Models of culture and action argue that crises can be generative of change, with changing contexts setting off reflexivity—a view of crisis as self-evident that is echoed in comparative historical work. Looking to the beginning of the Cold War in Romania and France, this article elaborates two instances when crises did not produce reflexive recognition. This echoes performative approaches that highlight actors needing to interpret crises into being yet underscores that crisis claims nonetheless take place in contexts potentially marked by (...) shifting sociocultural scaffoldings. Rooted in the empirical finding that actors can live through—and be affected by—structural transformations without thinking of themselves as being in crisis, I put forward a conception of crises as unclear as they are taking place. Actors can guess at being or not being in crisis, with no guarantee their guess is fortuitous. Crisis management will be the result of these guesses: some informed, some lucky—and some, indeed, disastrous. (shrink)