As a criterion of a good firm, a lucrative and growing business has been said to be important. Recently, however, high profitability and high growth potential are insufficient for the criteria, because social influences exerted by recent firms have been extremely significant. In this paper, high social relationship is added to the list of the criteria. Empirical corporate social performance versus corporate financial performance (CSP–CFP) relationship studies that consider social relationship are very limited in Japan, and (...) there are no definite conclusions for the studies in the world, because of scant data and the inappropriate methods, especially for supporting linear hypothesis which these studies are based on. In this paper, the CSP–CFP relationship is analyzed by an artificial neural networks model, which can deal with a non-linear relationship, using 10-year follow-up survey data. (shrink)

The communicative theory of emotions postulates that emotions are communications both within the brain and between individuals. Basic emotions owe their evolutionary origins to social mammals, and they enable human beings to use repertoires of mental resources appropriate to recurring and distinctive kinds of events. These emotions also enable them to cooperate with other individuals, to compete with them, and to disengage from them. The human system of emotions has also grafted onto basic emotions propositional contents about the cause (...) of the emotion, the self, and other matters. Complex emotions always contain such contents, whereas basic emotions can be experienced without them. This article explains the role of basic emotions in social relationships, their effects on reasoning, and their pathology in psychological illness, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. (shrink)

Advocates for re-localizing food systems often encourage consumers to support local farmers and strengthen local food economies. Yet, local food systems hinge not only on consumers’ willingness to buy local food but also on whether farmers have the social support networks to address diverse challenges during food production and distribution. This study characterizes the challenges and support systems of farmers selling to local markets in Québec, Canada, across multiple growing seasons using a mixed-methods research design. We sent an online (...) questionnaire to 1046 farmers and conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 respondents. Our findings show that farmers relied on an average of four support actor groups, particularly employees, customers, and other farmers. Actors played distinct roles in terms of the importance, frequency, and formality of interactions, providing immediate and long-term support through formal and informal relationships across multiple spatial scales (farm, local community, and regional/international). Our thematic analysis showed that support actors helped farmers in four key domains: (1) Knowledge sharing and emotional support; (2) Labour and workforce; (3) Material and financial aid; and (4) Consumer education and business promotion. Farmer associations provided resources to tackle various challenges, acting as bridges across multiple support actor groups. Yet, our results suggest that political desires to encourage local food systems are in some cases poorly matched with resources to address specific types of challenges farmers face. Specifically, overlooking the role of diverse social support actors in helping farmers build food production and distribution capacity could undermine efforts to foster localization. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to analyse technology and social relationships using the concept of knowledge. Therefore technology is not only a means to produce and social relationships a means to interact, but also the result of a whole of elements. The concept of knowledge aims to analyse these elements both from a structural point of view, highlighting their characteristics, and from a dynamic point of view, which considers how subjects interpret and make sense of (...) them. In this framework technologies and social relationships are reinterpreted according to knowledge that characterises each context, suggesting some clues to design technologies, information technologies and social policies. (shrink)

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of (...) emotional inconsistency across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency (USA). This cultural difference in cognitive representation was fully mediated by individual differences in cross-situational consistency levels. (shrink)

In dialogue with theorists of reading (Iser, Rogers) in the Schutzian tradition of phenomenology, this paper focuses on social relationships in novels, between the author and the reader (as a relation of Predecessor to Successors), and especially the relationship between reader and characters of the novel. The lack of the reader’s bodily engagement with the characters contrasts with everyday life, in which one can bodily affect one’s interlocutor, resembles “direct social observation” and can function as a kind (...) of epoché, initiating one into reading as a finite province of meaning. Within such a province, beyond the features of sociality and the epoché and like the epoché, the other features (form of spontaneity, tension of consciousness, experience of self, and temporality) all affect the reader‑character relationships, which in turn evoke adaptations in how these features are experienced in pragmatic everyday life. (shrink)

Social networks have become an important way for users to find friends and expand their social circle. Social networks can improve users’ experience by recommending more suitable friends to them. The key lies in improving the accuracy of link prediction, which is also the main research issue of this study. In the study of personality traits, some scholars have proved that personality can be used to predict users’ behavior in social networks. Based on these studies, this (...) study aims to improve the accuracy of link prediction in directed social networks. Considering the integration of personality link preference and asymmetric interaction into the link prediction model of social networks, a four-dimensional link prediction model is proposed. Through comparative experiments, it is proved that the four-dimensional social relationship prediction model proposed in this study is more accurate than the model only based on similarity. At the same time, it is also verified that the matching degree of personality link preference and asymmetric interaction intensity in the model can help improve the accuracy of link prediction. (shrink)

Alfred Schutz's (Vienna 1899 — New York 1959) research into the philosophy of music certainly cannot be regarded as the most notable aspect of this writer, born and educated in Vienna, later a naturalized American citizen. Nor can it legitimately be maintained that Schutz's writings on the subject form a systematic corpus in his work. Schutz was above all a social scientist, strongly attracted, as were many writers of the first half of this century, to the project of aphilosophical (...) foundation within his field of expertise. In this project, where phenomenology is encountered, the question ofintersubjectivity together with that ofcommunication among individuals, plays a crucial role. It is, therefore, undoubtedly correct to consider Schutz's theoretical interests in music within this framework; thus music tends to assume a paradigmatic value, in the sense that the musical piece in its concrete temporal development, in the presence of performers and listeners, demonstrates in a truly exemplary manner, how the process of social relationship actually functions.Although mindful of this frame of reference, nontheless we feel it can be asserted that the works of Schutz which we are about to examine are in themselves interesting stimuli, independently of any organic connection with the author's general project. These stimuli have furthermore proveked a theoretical debate that is still going on in the USA. (shrink)

According to Emmanuel Levinas, the individual bears an infinite obligation to the other person. In the Talmudic reading “Judaism and revolution,” Levinas suggests that we move from the ethical encounter to social relationships using contracts—both particular contracts and the social contract. So social relationships are created by limiting obligation, and as a result these relationships can only be practically acceptable, not ethical. Jewish religious practice for Levinas should also be understood as a set of (...) negotiated limits to our infinite obligation. (shrink)

A number of the most influential presentations of normative stakeholder theory are based upon an economic model of the firm as a nexus of contracts. In this paper I argue that the use of such a model to address moral issues is both logically and practically problematic and effectively undermines the stakeholder position. I then sketch out the key characteristics of an alternative, social relationships model of the firm, and show how this might provide a basis for the (...) development of a more relevant and robust version of normative stakeholder theory than has hitherto been proposed. (shrink)

After the three families divided up the state of Jin and the Tian family took over Qi, the political situation in the fourth century B.C.E. appeared even more chaotic. Wei conquered Chu's Luyang and Qin's Xihe, Qin defeated Wei at Shimen , and again at Shaoliang , and Wei moved its capital to Daliang. During the mid-Warring States period, Qin became dominant in the west, Qi in the east, Chu in the south, and Wei in the center. Rapid changes occurred (...) one after another; trickery and conflict were rampant. However, the shi , the intelligentsia, actually managed to expand their spheres of existence and activity accordingly in this state of tension between countries, states, and men. A few major states assembled quite a number of literati; and those men of the villages, who had in earlier times merely waited passively for opportunities to fall into their laps, crisscrossed the various feudal states; literati who previously had no cause to use military force became, one by one, the honored guests of the feudal lords. With the breakdown of the previously simple and obvious order, the gradually dismantling of the common body of the ancestral clan of the past, and the increasing complexities of social relationships after the dissolution of blood ties, social order became a matter of concern. Or, to reword this most practical issue: How could this universally chaotic society go from disorder to order? (shrink)

The essence of caring for those in need of help consists in a certain relationality, in giving and receiving a certain relationship. The relationship as such is the protagonist of the care. Material help is always necessary, at least for the time it has to be dedicated. However, the material aspect takes on meaning from the relationship between the one who helps (caregiver) and the one who receives the help (care receiver). It is a lifeworld relationship. What is lacking in (...) today’s society is not so much material and technological resources, but rather the relational skills of welcoming, supporting and socially integrating people in difficulty. The care of the Other is increasingly entrusted to new technologies and impersonal welfare mechanisms, while interpersonal social relationships become increasingly weak, liquid and unavailable. The consequences are evident in the loss of social solidarity and in the degradation of the human condition. Situations of need due to fragility, hardship, marginalization are spreading. We need a social change, first of all cultural, which brings out, rather than concealing, the relational character of human needs and, correlatively, of the necessary response. (shrink)

Friendship, as a unique form of social relationship, establishes a particular union among individual human beings which allows them to overcome diverse boundaries between individual subjects. Age, gender or cultural differences do not necessarily constitute an obstacle for establishing friendship and as a social phenomenon, it might even include the potential to exist independently of space and time. This analysis in the interface of social science and phenomenology focuses on the principles of construction and constitution of this (...) specific form of human encounter. In a “parallel action,” the perspective of social science focuses on concrete socio-historical constructions of friendship in different time periods. These findings are confronted with the description of principles of the subjective constitution of the phenomenon of “friendship” from a phenomenological perspective. The point of reference for the study is the real type of the symbolically established and excessively idealized form of friendship intended for eternity which was especially popular in eighteenth century Germany. Analogous to the method of phenomenological reduction, three different levels of protosociological reduction are developed for the exploration of the unique social phenomenon of friendship. (shrink)

Building upon Gasiorowska and Zaleskiewicz's (2021, 2023), we explored how a control threat and attachment style influence social relationship preferences. This experiment aimed to investigate how experiencing a control threat affects individuals with secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment patterns when they can choose between seeking assistance from the market, asking a close person for help, or coping with the situation alone. Participants with different attachment styles were randomly assigned to either the lack of control condition ( n = 290) (...) or the having control condition ( n = 277). Individuals with an anxious attachment were more inclined to choose the market-exchange option and less likely to select the agentic and communal options when faced with a control threat. Meanwhile, those with an avoidant attachment exhibited a higher tendency to choose the agentic option, while their preference for noncontingent help decreased after exposure to the control threat. Surprisingly, secure attachment individuals showed an increased preference for noncontingent help and decreased preferences for market exchange and self-reliance when exposed to the control threat compared to when they had control. These findings suggest that participation in market relationships may meet vital psychological needs and serve as a safeguard against attachment insecurities. (shrink)

Language provides rich social information about its speakers. For instance, adults and children make inferences about a speaker's social identity, geographic origins, and group membership based on her language and accent. Although infants prefer speakers of familiar languages, little is known about the developmental origins of humans’ sensitivity to language as marker of social identity. We investigated whether 9-month-olds use the language a person speaks as an indicator of that person's likely social relationships. Infants were (...) familiarized with videos of two people who spoke the same or different languages, and then viewed test videos of those two individuals affiliating or disengaging. Results suggest that infants expected two people who spoke the same language to be more likely to affiliate than two people who spoke different languages. Thus, infants view language as a meaningful social marker and use language to make inferences about third-party social relationships. (shrink)

This observational study analyzes the impact of Internet use on the quality of life and well-being of the elderly. Specifically, it seeks to understand and clarify the effects of Internet use on relationships in terms of self-esteem, life satisfaction and online and offline social support in a sample of senior and elderly Italian people (over 60 years of age). A cohort of 271 elderly people (133 males, 138 females) aged between 60 and 94 years old participated in the (...) study: 236 were Internet Users while the other 35 were Non-Internet Users. The results showed that the time elderly people spend online has a negative effect on their perception of Offline Social Support (Offline Emotional and Informational, and Offline Affective Social Support) and a positive effect on their perception of Online Social Support (particularly on Online Positive Social Interactions). Surprisingly, Internet Use among elderly people seems to impact positively on the perception of Offline Social Support. Indeed, Elderly Internet Users have a more positive perception of Offline Social Support (particularly Offline Positive Social Interactions and Offline Affective Social Support) than Non-Internet Users. A discussion of this finding is provided, positing that the Internet seems to represent the technological side of a functional organ that allows the elderly to stay in closer touch with their family and friends, and in doing so to also overcome some age-related difficulties. (shrink)

Many authors acknowledge that people share emotions in various social contexts. However, the deeper role of social relationships for shared emotions is poorly understood. I argue that shared emotions are affected by the social relationships in which they emerge. Moreover, shared emotions help people to bond. In order to do so, emotional experiences involve an intentional component that tracks the state of our social relationships. I introduce some new terminology that helps us to (...) clearly distinguish between different kinds of emotional phenomena. I propose to use the term social-relational emotions for emotions the subcomponents of which interact across individuals. I borrow from Helm the distinction between the target, the formal object and the focus of an emotion. By drawing insights from relationship science in general and relational models theory in particular, I elaborate on and explore the idea that shared emotions track social relationships as their foci. Sharing an emotion is experienced as rewarding even when the shared emotion itself is not a pleasant one, because it makes people feel “closer” to one another. (shrink)

Although it is now widely recognised by business leaders that their companies need to accept a broader responsibility than short-term profits, recent research suggests that as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social reporting become more widespread, there is little empirical evidence of the range of stakeholders addressed through their CSR programmes and how such programmes are reported. Through a CSR framework which was developed in an exploratory study, we explore the nature of stakeholder relationships reported across leading (...) FTSE companies and the importance they attach to communicating both social and business outcomes. It is evident from the hypotheses tested that the bigger FTSE companies, particularly extraction companies and telecoms, are more adept at identifying and prioritising their stakeholders, and linking CSR programmes to business and social outcomes. However, we draw the general conclusion that building stronger stakeholder relationships through CSR programmes – other than with customers – is not currently a priority for most companies. We also conclude that a limited sophistication in managing multiple stakeholders may compromise the impact of CSR upon business and social results. Finally, the managerial implications and the contribution of our study are discussed before closing with an acknowledgement of the limitations of this work and suggestions for further research. (shrink)

Theoretical and empirical research on stakeholder behavior tends to focus on specific actions or responses in the context of the organization–stakeholder relationship. Despite increased efforts to look beyond the dyadic organization–stakeholder relationship, research still favors the perspective of the focal organization. The taken-for-granted assumption of the organization–stakeholder relationship may limit our understanding of how organization–stakeholder linkages are formed and evolve over time. By adopting the perspective of the stakeholder, this article examines organization–stakeholder relationship formation and tracks changes in the salience (...) of stakeholder groups otherwise considered to be nonstakeholders. This research draws from a case study of small coffee producers in Southern Mexico who formed a cooperative and developed salience within their stakeholder network after a long history of diverse individual, organizational, and institutional arrangements. The findings suggest that the replacement of bureaucratic stakeholder relationships with relationships characterized by strong moral commitment to stakeholders’ claims enabled independent farmers to transform into an integrated, solid, and worldwide competitive group of coffee producers. (shrink)

Before achieving universal acclamation as professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Munich, German philosopher Josef Pieper (1904–1997) was research assistant under Johann Plenge at The Research Institute for Organization Theory and Sociology from 1928 to 1932. The fruit of Pieper’s work under Plenge was his 1931 Grundformen sozialer Spielregln, and two years later (in 1933) the simplified, second edition. For the first time in the English-speaking world, we have this second edition translated into English by Dan Farrelly under (...) the title Rules of the Game in Social Relationships. The text responds to Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch’s (1911–1991) “exaggerated affirmation of community” and consequent utopic desire for a (global) “conversion to a community.” The novelty of Pieper’s argument is that he, like Frisch, affirms community; however, Pieper does so without accepting communitarianism. The difference between Pieper and Frisch is that the latter’s exaggerated affirmation of community, that is, communitarianism, was able to theoretically justify political totalitarian consequences. (shrink)

I FORMS AND PROBLEMS OF CULTURE INTEGRATION AND METHODS OF THEIR STUDY I. Culture Integration And Culture Unity — A Dark Problem Is every culture an ...

The subject matter of this essay is a certain understanding of the value of equality which I will call ‘relational egalitarianism’ – a view which locates the value of equality not in distributions but in social and political relationships. This is a suitable topic for a contribution to a volume based on themes from the work of G.A. Cohen for two, somewhat contradictory, reasons.

Memory perfttrmattce of 118 individuals who had been iu close dating relationships for at least 3 months was studied. For a memory task ostensibly to be performed by pairs, some Ss were paired..

This paper evaluates the indoor temperature and thermal sensation inside the naturally ventilated small-medium size, historical Anadolchioi Mosque, built in Constanta, in 1870, for the Muslim minority living in Constanta. Are considered Friday prayers (Dhuhr). The methodology used for this assessment is related to the outdoor and indoor temperatures measurements, each Friday, in July, between 10 AM and 4 PM, due to the fact that in Constanta, Friday prayers (in July) starts between 1.20 PM and 1.23 PM (depending on the (...) sun position). The measurements will indicate that, although indoor temperature is slightly higher than the outdoor one, the average indoor temperature, for the considered period, is in the recommended thermal comfort temperature range, according to ASHRAE 2010. Also, the measured indoor air temperatures and predicted temperature for comfortable indoors- given by Humphreys formula, have been compared, in order to have an idea if the building is able to provide pleasant indoor temperatures. On the other hand, the methodology is focusing on ASHRAE seven point scale, when assessing the thermal sensation. In this respect, a survey regarding the thermal sensation of the occupants indicated that a low percent (5.55%) felt uncomfortable during the religious services. The majority of occupants (77.77%) felt comfortable and do not need a cooler environment. The results are in concordance with the participants’ age profiles: older persons preferring higher indoor temperatures. (shrink)

The pandemic has clearly affected higher education institutions through the transition of its learning modality to online. Furthermore, this study investigates the relationship between social support and burnout among college students amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing descriptive-correlational design, the result of the statistical analysis indicated that social support and academic burnout has a significant relationship (r=0.158). Implications of the study were discussed and recommendations for future research were suggested.

Social media challenge--or have already redefined--conventional boundaries of public and private, personal and professional, friendship, and social relations generally. Here, I consider how these developments may affect professionalism, the physician-patient relationship, and our cultural experiences in a wholly different and unexpected way.

Most studies investigating the relationship between cultural constructs and ethical perception have focused on individual- and societal-level values without much attention to other type of cultural constructs such as social beliefs. In addition, we need to better understand how social beliefs are linked to ethical perception and the level of analysis at which social beliefs may best predict ethical perceptions. This research contributes to the cross-cultural ethical perception literature by examining the relationship of individual-level social cynicism (...) belief, one of five universally endorsed social beliefs, together with individual social dominance orientation and the perception of unethical behavior. By means of two studies, we examine these relationships across societies that significantly differ on societal-level social cynicism belief. Using 371 business students from Russia and the U.S. in Study 1 and 268 professionals from Portugal and the U.S. in Study 2, we found that individual-level social cynicism belief was positively associated with social dominance orientation. Social dominance orientation, in turn, mediated the relationship between individual social cynicism belief and the perception of unethical behavior. Although we found significant societal-level differences in social cynicism belief in both studies, the relationships between individual-level social cynicism belief, social dominance orientation, and the perception of unethical behavior were structurally equivalent across societies in both studies, suggesting that societal-level differences did not significantly affect these relationships. Implications for cross-cultural business ethics research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The logic of gift and gratuitousness in business activity raised by the encyclical Caritas in Veritate stresses a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation. The logic of gift in business includes two aspects. The first is considering the logic of gift as a new conceptual lens in order to view business relationship beyond contractual logic. In this view, it is crucial to see the circulation of goods as instrumental for the development of relationships. The second aspect is (...) to qualify the relationships established through the gift, and to think about the motivation in gift-giving, which has an ethical content. We give because we have received, and through gift-giving we develop relationships that have a high ‘bonding value’. Analysing the logic of gift in business management may permit us to gain an understanding of the ambiguity of gift-giving in organizations. Looking at the relationships between organizations and employees, and organizations and customers, we can discover why the logic of gift is often misunderstood or abused in its application, and how it should be applied to be more consistent with the message of Caritas in Veritate. (shrink)

The advent of the new media technology introduces many ways to cultivate sexual connections between and among individuals across boundaries and geographical territories. Various forms of relationships, which several decades ago would not have been possible, have been cultivated. These apparent changes in sexuality and/or relationships brought implications and ramifications to modern social lives. Aggressions and exploitations among men and women of various nationalities, including Filipinos, have been observed by scholars and academics in the past 10 years. (...) To explore this situation, this research paper had the following objectives: (1) Describe the phenomenology of virtual relationships through the testimonies of Filipino women and men who are indulging themselves in this kind of relationships; 2. Explore the motivations and drives of Filipino men and women in indulging in virtual relationships; 3. Describe and classify sexual deviations and sexual neurosis that may likely develop from virtual relationships; and 4. Explain the possible exploitations of Filipino men and women that may be caused by these sexual interactions through the digital and internet technology. (shrink)

Many anthropological explanations of magical practices are based on the assumption that the immediate cause of performing an act of magic is the belief that the magic will work as claimed. Such explanations typically attempt to show why people come to believe that magical acts work as claimed when such acts do not identifiably have such effects. We suggest an alternative approach to the explanation of magic that views magic as a form of religious behavior, a form of communication that (...) promotes or protects cooperative social relationships. We suggest that all forms of religious behavior involve persons communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim and that this act communicates a willingness to accept nonskeptically the influence of the person making such a claim. Thus, religious behavior communicates a willingness to cooperate with the claim maker and others who accept his or her influence. We suggest that magic, which can be distinguished by the communicated acceptance of the claim that certain techniques have supernatural effects, also promotes cooperation. Different types of magic, including sorcery, love magic, and curing magic, can be shown to communicate different types of messages, such as a threat to use violence to punish unsocial behavior, sexual desire, or concern for a person's well-being. Ethnographic examples are used to support this hypothesis. This approach requires no assumptions about whether the practitioners of magic do or do not believe that the magical acts work as claimed. It attempts only to account for the identifiable talk and behavior that constitute magical acts by examining the identifiable, and often important, effects of these acts on the behavior of others. (shrink)

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, (...) alter the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

BackgroundThe pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 has burdened an unprecedented psychological stress on the front-line medical staff, who are at high risk of depression. While existing studies and theories suggest that factors such as gratitude, social support, and hope play a role in the risk of depression, few studies have combined these factors to explore the relationship between them.ObjectiveThis study examined the mediating roles of social support and hope in the relationship between gratitude and depression among front-line medical (...) staff during the pandemic of COVID-19.MethodsThis study used the Gratitude Questionnaire, the Perceived Social Support Scale, the State Hope Scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale to examine the gratitude, social support, hope, and depression among 344 front-line medical workers in Wuhan, which was the hardest-hit area of COVID-19 in China.ResultsThe results showed that the prevalence of mild depressive disorder was 40.12% and the prevalence of major depressive disorder was 9.59% among front-line medical staff during the pandemic of COVID-19; gratitude has a direct and negative effect on depression. Gratitude was negative predictors of depression through the mediating variables of social support and hope [βgratitude–social support–depression = −0.096, 95%CI; βgratitude–hope–depression = −0.034, 95%CI], as well as via an indirect path from social support to hope [βgratitude–social support–hope–depression = −0.089, 95%CI ].ConclusionThe study findings indicate that gratitude as a positive emotion can reduce depression in medical staff by promoting social support and hope, respectively. Gratitude also reduced depression in health care workers through a chain mediating effect of social support and hope. Overall, gratitude can directly foster social support and hope, and protect people from stress and depression, which has implications for clinical interventions among front-line medical staff during the pandemic of COVID-19. (shrink)

Numerous major holidays celebrate socially gathering in person. However, in major holidays that happened during the pandemic, desires to nurture relationships and maintain holiday traditions often conflicted with physical distancing and other measures to protect against COVID-19. The current research sought to understand wellbeing during American Thanksgiving in 2020, which happened 8months into the COVID-19 pandemic, after months of physical distancing and stay-at-home orders. American Thanksgiving is a major holiday not limited to any religion. We asked 404 American adults (...) how they spent Thanksgiving Day and to report on their experiences of that day. Predictors of wellbeing that we drew from self-determination theory were satisfaction of the fundamental needs for social connection, for doing what one really wants, and feeling effective. The predictors of wellbeing that we drew from regulatory focus theory were a focus on growth, and a focus on security. We found that feeling socially connected and focusing on growth related most strongly to wellbeing. Additionally, participants who saw even one other person face-to-face reported significantly higher relatedness satisfaction, promotion focus, and wellbeing than those who did not. Our research could help construct persuasive messages that encourage nurturing close relationships at major holidays while remaining safe against the virus. (shrink)

Previous studies have noted that personality traits are important predictors of well-being, but how big five personality influences social well-being is still unknown. This study aims to examine the link between big five personality and five dimensions of social well-being in the Chinese cultural context and whether social support can play the mediating effect in the process. This study included 1,658 participants from different communities in China, and regression analyses were conducted. Results revealed that five personality traits (...) were significantly related to overall social well-being; extraversion was significantly related to social integration; agreeableness was positively related to all five dimensions of social well-being; conscientiousness was positively related to social actualization, social coherence, and social contribution; neuroticism was negatively related to social integration, social acceptance, social actualization, and social coherence; openness was positively related to social integration, social acceptance, social coherence, and social contribution. Social support plays mediating roles in the relationships between extraversion/agreeableness/conscientiousness/neuroticism/openness and social well-being, respectively. (shrink)