Social capital and healthy urbanization in a globalized world.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Pridmore P
PROVIDER: S-EPMC1891656 | biostudies-other | 2007 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:The goal of this article is to outline the analytical perspectives of the concept of social capital regarding health and health management. Social capital, as defined in terms of social networks and resources, has a positive impact on a number of areas, notably the health, well-being, and social and economic development of communities. It is also a useful tool for implementing social policy, especially for marginal populations, the elderly, social assistance payments, etc. An action strategy based on the support and development of networks is the key to achieving the social development, health, and well-being of populations. The social ties promoted by these networks provide people with social, cognitive, and emotional support. This has a direct impact on their self-esteem and sense of personal achievement. They also facilitate access to social resources, including social advancement opportunities. In this paper, we examine the vitality, determinants of health, and health management of Canada’s minority Francophone communities. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at 10.1007/BF03405368 and is accessible for authorized users.
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Project description:Playing digital games can nurture wellbeing by helping players recover from daily stressors, cope with life's challenges, practice emotion regulation, and engage in meaningful social interaction; however, this same leisure activity can also result in problematic gaming (i.e., harmful play at the expense of healthy behaviors), and social isolation that damages wellbeing. Research consistently demonstrates that the value or harm of gaming on wellbeing cannot be determined solely from whether and how much people play, but rather depends on contingent factors related to the player, the game, and the gaming context. In this paper, we aim to model contingent factors that differentiate between beneficial and harmful outcomes within players of the same massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). We model how passion for gaming—defined as a strong desire to engage in a beloved activity that is enjoyed and valued, in which time and energy is invested, and that ultimately integrates into a person's identity—affects loneliness and wellbeing. We employ the dualistic model that divides passion into harmonious passion (HP)—characterized by a balanced and authentic relationship with the beloved activity, and obsessive passion (OP)—characterized by preoccupation and inflexible persistence toward the loved activity. We sampled 300 frequent World of Warcraft (WoW) players, recruited from online forums, and used structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the effects of their passion for playing WoW on in-game social capital, loneliness, and wellbeing. We demonstrate that HP for playing WoW facilitates in-game social capital (both bridging and bonding), combats loneliness, and increases wellbeing, whereas OP also builds social capital, but these social ties do not combat loneliness, and OP is directly associated with increased loneliness. Further, the positive effect of HP on wellbeing is mediated through an increase in bonding social capital and a resulting decrease in loneliness. Our findings highlight that passion orientation is important for characterizing the relationship between gaming and wellbeing. We contribute to the conversation on combating problematic gaming, while also promoting digital gaming as an appealing leisure activity that provides enjoyment, recovery, and meaningful social interaction for the millions of gamers who benefit from its captivation.
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Project description:While previous research has shown that personality shapes social networks, we know very little about the relationship between these important psychological characteristics and the creation of social capital. In this article, we argue that personality shapes individuals' ability to create social capital, and we predict positive associations between each of the Big Five personality traits and social capital. We tested our hypotheses using the Social Survey of the Networks of the Dutch, 2014, which contains data on about 1,069 respondents, including social capital and Big Five personality measures. Our findings showed that personality and social capital were related such that extraversion and openness predicted instrumental social capital, and extraversion, emotional stability, and agreeableness predicted expressive social capital. Conscientiousness benefited instrumental social capital when respondents were older or when social capital was accessed via weak ties. We discuss these findings in light of existing explanations of the creation of social capital.
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Project description:The present study investigated the configuration effect of human capital, social capital, and psychological capital on job performance. The human capital questionnaire, social capital scale, psychological capital scale, and job performance scale were used to survey 458 employees. Results revealed that four antecedent configurations could achieve high task performance, and three antecedent configurations can achieve high contextual performance. The high job performance driving path was characterized by "all roads lead to Rome." Human capital, social capital, and psychological capital affected job performance in the form of configuration, which reflected the asymmetric causal relationship.
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Project description:New urbanization is the fundamental approach to achieve the healthy, stable, and sustainable development of the Chinese economic society. It is also the basic outlet to eliminate the "dual economic structure" in urban and rural areas. Based on the connotation of new urbanization, we constructed an evaluation system using population development, economic development, quality of life, infrastructure, resources and environment, and urban and rural harmonious development. The entropy and weighted summation methods were used to measure the level of new urbanization for 11 provincial capital cities from 2005 to 2018, and policy implications were analyzed correspondingly. The results show that there are significant differences in the development levels of new urbanization in these cities, with infrastructure construction being the primary driver. These developments have placed the economy and environment under great pressure. The quality of urban life and the level of infrastructure construction need to be improved because of the expanding economic gap between urban and rural areas. These cities with poor internal coordination also have apparent differences amongst individual factors. Overall, the policies on these factors play a positive role in the process of new urbanization. In the future, provincial capital cities need to consider the weak links and provide more focus on employment and education.
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Project description:Low levels of social interaction across class lines have generated widespread concern1-4 and are associated with worse outcomes, such as lower rates of upward income mobility4-7. Here we analyse the determinants of cross-class interaction using data from Facebook, building on the analysis in our companion paper7. We show that about half of the social disconnection across socioeconomic lines-measured as the difference in the share of high-socioeconomic status (SES) friends between people with low and high SES-is explained by differences in exposure to people with high SES in groups such as schools and religious organizations. The other half is explained by friending bias-the tendency for people with low SES to befriend people with high SES at lower rates even conditional on exposure. Friending bias is shaped by the structure of the groups in which people interact. For example, friending bias is higher in larger and more diverse groups and lower in religious organizations than in schools and workplaces. Distinguishing exposure from friending bias is helpful for identifying interventions to increase cross-SES friendships (economic connectedness). Using fluctuations in the share of students with high SES across high school cohorts, we show that increases in high-SES exposure lead low-SES people to form more friendships with high-SES people in schools that exhibit low levels of friending bias. Thus, socioeconomic integration can increase economic connectedness in communities in which friending bias is low. By contrast, when friending bias is high, increasing cross-SES interactions among existing members may be necessary to increase economic connectedness. To support such efforts, we release privacy-protected statistics on economic connectedness, exposure and friending bias for each ZIP (postal) code, high school and college in the United States at https://www.socialcapital.org .
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Project description:BackgroundTo evaluate the association between social capital and 30-day readmission to the hospital among Medicare beneficiaries overall, beneficiaries with dementia and related memory disorders, and beneficiaries with dual eligibility for Medicaid.MethodsUsing Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data linked with 2008-2015 Medicare claims from traditional Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized during the study period (1246 unique respondents, 2212 total responses), we examined whether dementia and related memory disorders and dual eligibility were associated with social capital. We then estimated a multiple regression model to test whether social capital was associated with a reduced likelihood of readmission.ResultsDementia was associated with an - 0.241 standard deviation (sd) change in social capital (95% CI: - 0.378, - 0.103), dual eligibility with a - 0.461 sd change (95% CI: - 0.611, - 0.310), and the occurrence of both was associated with an additional - 0.236 sd change (95% CI: - 0.525, - 0.053). 30-day readmission rates were 14.47% over the study period. In both adjusted and unadjusted models, social capital was associated with small and nonsignificant differences in 30-day readmissions. These effects did not vary across dementia status and socioeconomic status.ConclusionsDementia and dual eligibility were associated with lower social capital, but social capital was not associated with the risk of readmission for any population.
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Project description:Corruption is a social plague: gains accrue to small groups, while its costs are borne by everyone. Significant variation in its level between and within countries suggests a relationship between social structure and the prevalence of corruption, yet, large-scale empirical studies thereof have been missing due to lack of data. In this paper, we relate the structural characteristics of social capital of settlements with corruption in their local governments. Using datasets from Hungary, we quantify corruption risk by suppressed competition and lack of transparency in the settlement's awarded public contracts. We characterize social capital using social network data from a popular online platform. Controlling for social, economic and political factors, we find that settlements with fragmented social networks, indicating an excess of bonding social capital has higher corruption risk, and settlements with more diverse external connectivity, suggesting a surplus of bridging social capital is less exposed to corruption. We interpret fragmentation as fostering in-group favouritism and conformity, which increase corruption, while diversity facilitates impartiality in public life and stifles corruption.
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