Suchergebnisse

This paper addresses the issue of food in survivalism. Based on a netnography of the French Survivalist Network (RSF), it aims to understand the value system developed by this culture obsessed with the end of the world.

From the oversexualized characters in fighting games, such as Dead or Alive or Ninja Gaiden, to the overuse of the damsel in distress trope in popular titles, such as the Super Mario series, the under- and misrepresentation of females in video games has been well documented in several content analyses. Cultivation theory suggests that long-term exposure to media content can affect perceptions of social realities in a way that they become more similar to the representations in the media and, in turn, impact one's beliefs and attitudes. Previous studies on video games and cultivation have often been cross-sectional or experimental, and the limited longitudinal work in this area has only considered time intervals of up to 1 month. Additionally, previous work in this area has focused on the effects of violent content and relied on self-selected or convenience samples composed mostly of adolescents or college students. Enlisting a 3 year longitudinal design, the present study assessed the relationship between video game use and sexist attitudes, using data from a representative sample of German players aged 14 and older (N=824). Controlling for age and education, it was found that sexist attitudes—measured with a brief scale assessing beliefs about gender roles in society—were not related to the amount of daily video game use or preference for specific genres for both female and male players. Implications for research on sexism in video games and cultivation effects of video games in general are discussed.

Objective: To investigate the use of computer technology, especially the microcomputer as an ally in the process of psychosocial rehabilitation of people in psychological distress, seeking to identify the effects of the use of information in the social context of these people. Methods: This was a descriptive - qualitative interpretative approach, performed in Campina Grande / PB / Brazil, with 19 professionals working in the network of mental health care in 2010. We used the technique of content analysis-categorical theme proposed by Bardin. Results: The results suggest that inclusion of digital technologies in mental health services as key strategies in the rehabilitation process of the user. Conclusion: The use of computer technology is a tool that promotes social inclusion, empowerment and self-esteem of users, fundamental to the process of personal transformation bearer of psychological distress.

"Starting with the multinetwork theories advocated by C. Wright Mills, Michael Mann and Richard Lachmann, and drawing on work by specialists in anthropology and social psychology, this article presents a history of social power from hunting and gathering societies to the present. Collective power, based on cooperation, came first in human history, with distributive power coming much later. With the rise of permanent hierarchical organizations at the dawn of civilization, the issue of distributive power became paramount, making it necessary to resolve distributive power conflicts among leaders before collective power could expand any further. At this point the rank-and-file lost their ability to replace organizational leaders, who then became 'political elites' or 'power elites'. The result was the kind of top-down societies analyzed by John Higley and Michael Burton in Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy, which provides a provocative new challenge to traditional theories of democracy." (author's abstract)

"In diesem Artikel reflektieren die Autoren ihren Umgang mit dem Erleben von Spannungen im Verlauf von Forschungsprojekten. Als Wissenschaftlerinnen in unterschiedlichen Stadien der universitären Karriere beschreiben sie die je eigene Auseinandersetzung mit dem bzw. im Forschungsprozess und im Besonderen das Aushandeln von Rollen und Verantwortlichkeiten mit Blick auf die Institution, der sie zugehören einerseits und ihre feministische Orientierung andererseits. Sie diskutieren die verfügbare Literatur zur Frage der Verantwortlichkeit von Akademiker/ innen, Spannungen, die mit Forschungsarbeiten einhergehen sowie feministische Methodologien, mit denen sie sich Gender bezogenen Fragen in der eigenen Arbeit angenähert haben. Die eigene Forschungsarbeit kontextualisieren sie, indem sie reflexiv auf die je individuellen Positionen und hinzugezogenen Methodologien Bezug nehmen, und sie zeigen ihren Aushandlungsprozess zwischen akademischen Erfordernissen und der eigenen, feministischen Orientierung. Am Ende behandeln sie die Bedeutsamkeit, die aus ihrer Perspektive dem Schaffen von Räumen für feministische Zusammenarbeit innerhalb der Universität zukommt." (Autorenreferat)

'Web-basierte prozess-generierte Daten werden durch soziales Handeln von Nutzern erzeugt und vom jeweiligen Anbieter ohne ursprünglich wissenschaftliches Interesse aufgezeichnet. Die Autoren veranschaulichen ihre Idee einer vorteilhaften Anwendung prozess-generierter Daten mittels eines Forschungsbeispiels aus dem Bereich der partnerschaftlichen Präferenzen, welches auf Emailkontaktierungen bei einer Onlinedating-Seite fußt. Dieser Ansatz folgt dem Paradigma der Präferenzindikation mit Hilfe der Beobachtung von Wahlakten. Vor- und Nachteile dieses Ansatzes werden im Vergleich mit dem Paradigma der 'angegebenen Präferenzen', wie sie traditionell bei der Fragebogenforschung verwendet werden, diskutiert. Beide Ansätze weisen unterschiedliche informationale Einschränkungen auf und induzieren unterschiedliche Validitätsprobleme. Die Autoren schließen mit einem Ausblick auf Forschungsstraegien, die die beiden quantitativen Paradigmen integrieren.' (Autorenreferat)

A wealth of recent research in comparative politics examines how spatial variation in historical conditions shapes modern political outcomes. In an article in the American Political Science Review, Homola, Pereira, and Tavits argue that Germans who live nearer to former Nazi concentration camps are more likely to display out-group intolerance. Clarifying the conceptual foundations of posttreatment bias and reviewing the historical record on postwar state creation in Germany, we argue that state-level differences confound the relationship between distance to camps and out-group intolerance. Using publicly available European Values Survey data and electoral results from 2017, we find no consistent evidence that distance to camps is related to contemporary values. Our findings have implications for literatures on historical persistence, causal inference with spatial data, Holocaust studies, and outgroup tolerance.

The perception of people with disability (PwD) is of key importance for the full inclusion of this group in the labour market. The article presents selected results of research on the perception of PwD in the workplace. The analyses are based on the results of semiotics research conducted in Poland and of quantitative study in the form of computer-assisted Internet interviews (CAWI) carried out on representative samples from eight European countries. Opinions of Internet users were collected in Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Germany, Poland, Sweden and Great Britain. The results of semiotic analyses on texts mainly from Polish culture made it possible to identify the prevailing images of disability in Polish popular culture and inspired the authors to seek diversity in perceptions of disability depending on social and cultural patterns in a given country. The results of the international survey were used to compare all eight countries with regard to the relationship between the dimensions of culture according to G. Hofstede, and openness to people with disability in the workplace. The conducted research indicates that the perception of the issue of disability is significantly related to the selected dimensions of culture according to G. Hofstede.

Robots have been employed in the industrial sectors for over half a century; however, their appearance in the domestic sphere is a modern phenomenon, occurring in just the last decade. These so-called social robots are carrying out a variety of tasks traditionally carried out by humans, and in contexts in which they must interact with human beings. These kinds of social robots are now being used in the welfare services, providing assistive services and companionship for the infirm or elderly, and even children. Thus, the use of social robots in everyday life has triggered an animated debate about the acceptance of these devices by their end users. In this paper, multilevel analysis is applied using data from the Eurobarometer survey (sample size 27,901, covering 28 countries) to investigate how socio-demographic characteristics and country-level indicators of technological and economic development (the rate of high-technology manufactured exports, the cellular phone subscriptions rate and GDP) influence how robots are accepted in the realm of the social services. The results show that only individual (socio-demographic) and technology acceptance model (TAM) factors influence attitudes towards social robots. The effects of the contextual variables considered were not statistically strong enough to explain the attitudes towards social robots for social services.

Emotionen spielen in der Krise der liberalen Weltordnung eine zentrale Rolle. Wut und Hass fordern sie von innen heraus – Appelle an die Vernunft helfen nicht weiter. (IP)

Von verletzten Ehrgefühlen als Kriegsgrund, Männerfreundschaften in der Außenpolitik und der Frage, ob Staaten Emotionen haben. (IP)

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit einer Fachdisziplinen übergreifenden Analyse, inwieweit Partnerwahlen von klassistischen Denkmustern geprägt wurden und in was für einem Umfang sie zu einer heterosexuellen Partnerschaft langfristig beitragen. Es werden hierfür sozialstrukturelle, evolutionspsychologische und familienökonomische Erklärungsansätze gegenübergestellt, welche die Grundlage für eine umfassende sozialpsychologische Analyse bietet. Ebenfalls wird die These überprüft, inwieweit Diskriminierungscharakteristika an Partnerschaften mit klassistischen Grundgefüge zu erkennen sind und wie sie sich individuell auf den Menschen auswirken. Der grundsätzliche Kulturkreis beschränkt sich auf den deutschsprachigen Raum, verweist jedoch auch auf internationale Beispiele, um Abweichungskulturen aufzuzeigen. Anhand der Theorie soll die Frage abgehandelt werden, ob Klassendenken tatsächlich Hauptindikator von langfristigen Partnerschaften darstellen.

Twenty years after the Holocaust, Germany and Israel signed contracts for scientific collaborations. Fifty years later, those collaborations have become an asset for science in both countries. Notwithstanding those win-win collaborations, the trauma of the Holocaust still casts a long shadow over them, creating uncanny experiences and fear. This paper reports findings from interviews with 125 Israeli scientists who have collaborated with German colleagues. It employs Freud's analysis of the uncanny, an experience which mixes cozy familiarity with a sense of eeriness, confronting subjects with unconscious, repressed personal impulses or memories. The paper extends Freud's analyses by showing that uncanny experiences may result from a cultural – rather than a personal – trauma. Specifically, the results show that while Israeli scientists enjoy their collaborations with German colleagues, they occasionally experience fear and unease in their presence. Some identify Nazi mnemonics, others report on uncanny moments in their partners' homes. Those uncanny experiences appear among young and old scientists alike, suggesting that their scientific reason is captive of the cultural trauma of the Holocaust. I conclude by pointing that Israeli scientists are captives of their national trauma just as ordinary people are. Their reason proves to be a weak counterforce in mitigating the eruption of repressed emotions generated by the cultural trauma of the Holocaust.

This article explores users' attitudes, perceptions, views, and emotions toward car automation and robotization, two processes increasingly affecting society in different ways––namely, the rise of autonomous and robotized cars (and vehicles in general) and the increasing level of robotization of current cars. To address these questions, we investigated the feeling of trust and comfort toward driverless cars among Europeans using two Eurobarometer surveys. Making use of two representative samples of the European population, we aimed to explore citizens' attitudes and opinions about automation and digitization. The two surveys involved, respectively, 27,801 and 27,901 participants from all EU-28 countries. Furthermore, we investigated, in Northern Italy, the perception of robotization of cars and other technologies of everyday use, as well as the attitudes and opinions of children and preteens (n = 740), and adolescents (n = 801)—relevant social groups not covered in the Eurobarometer surveys.

This article describes the ways in which music is an important part of identity, and hence serves some similar functions to other forms of identity-related communication (e.g., language). It will describe how music is used to incite intergroup hatred (e.g., among soccer fans, military music) and to support valued identities (anthems, etc.). Relevant literature on stereotyping (including stereotyping of groups related to music) is included. The article also discusses how music is used to reduce intergroup hostility (e.g., via cross-cultural musical collaboration and contact). The article connects the various literatures from communication, social psychology, sociology, and ethnomusicology, providing a broad overview of the many connections between communication, music, and social identity. It closes with a research agenda for those interested in studying intergroup communication and music.