Browsing by Subject "Social isolation"
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Item All the lonely people? : How living or working alone shapes our social lives(2016-08) Rap, Robyn Alexandra; Paxton, Pamela Marie; Glass, Jennifer; Lin, Ken-Hou; Chen, WenhongSocial integration and its inverse social isolation have concerned sociologists since the inception of the discipline. Over the last 30 years, living alone and working from home — two arrangements that have implications for social integration — have become increasingly common in the United States. Do people who live alone spend more or less time doing socially integrating behaviors? Do people who work from home on a given day spend more or less time with their families? How might the answers to these questions vary based on certain key demographic characteristics? In this dissertation, I use data from the American Time Use Survey to answer these questions. I employ a comprehensive series of behavioral indicators to measure the amount of time spent in social activities. I find that the results are mixed when it comes to living alone and working from home. People who live alone spend less time with others overall, but make concerted efforts to compensate by spending more time with friends and in public places outside the home. Results varied by age, gender, and employment status. When parents work from home, they do spend more time with their children in general; however, several key differences between men and women, and married and unmarried respondents exist. This dissertation has implications for the study of social isolation, family life, and work in the 21st century.Item Assessing the psychosocial risk factors for coronary artery disease: an investigation of predictive validity for the psychosocial inventory for cardiovascular illness(2009-08) Baker, Maria Kathryn; McCarthy, Christopher J.This dissertation investigated the psychometric properties and clinical applications of the Psychosocial Inventory for Cardiovascular Illness (PICI). The PICI is an inventory developed to measure the psychosocial risk factors for heart disease including anxiety, depression, stress, social isolation, and anger. The inventory was developed to measure the ways that each psychosocial risk factor contributes to the coronary artery disease process through the lifestyle behaviors and pathophysiological mechanisms with which they are associated. The primary purpose of the study was to examine predictive validity for the PICI. With support for predictive validity, the inventory may aid in early identification of individuals at increased risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) so that behavioral, psychosocial, and medical interventions can be implemented. Both healthy and cardiac samples were used in the inventory development and validation process. The PICI was administered in conjunction with similar inventories and physiological markers of CAD were collected including percent of coronary artery blockage and history of heart attacks. Item analysis and factor analysis were used to yield a 20-item PICI comprised of three subscales to include Negative Affect, Social Isolation, and Anger. It was hypothesized that the PICI subscales would predict group membership; whether or not a participant carried a diagnosis of CAD, and would be have a strong relationship to the physiological markers of CAD that were measured. Analysis revealed that the PICI was unable to predict diagnostic status and did not have a strong relationship with the physiological markers of CAD. Results suggest that the PICI has acceptable reliability and construct validity as demonstrated in the current sample, yet further investigation must be conducted to gain support for the instrument’s predictive abilities.Item Inside Out or Outside In?(Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 1981) Smith, Kruger SmithItem The Seriously Disturbed Youngster(Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 1970) Gotts, Ernest A.Item Social isolation and health: structural sources, psychosocial resources, and social contexts(2015-08) Lee, Ph. D., Jinwoo; Pudrovska, Tetyana; Musick, Marc A; Paxton, Pamela M; Powers, Daniel AHumans are social beings so much that the feelings of not being connected to others may increase physical and mental problems. Despite ample research documenting the health risks of social isolation, we still do not understand the mechanisms through which social isolation affects health. Existing research lacks an overarching framework that would explore a broader context of social isolation and health including socioeconomic, relational, and psychosocial characteristics. This is a goal of the present dissertation. This study builds on the large body of research that has investigated the relationship between social isolation and health by considering two aspects of social isolation defined as no confidant and loneliness. In order to address the problem identified above, this study proposes a conceptual framework designed to study social isolation in relation to other important factors that are presumed to interact with social isolation. The proposed framework includes the following propositions: (a) a lower level of socioeconomic status leads to social isolation; (b) a lower level of social ties leads to social isolation (c) social isolation is associated with a lower level of psychosocial resources (i.e., perceived support, personal mastery, and self-esteem), net of SES and social ties; (d) adverse effects of social isolation on health is partly mediated by psychosocial resources; (e) negative impact of chronic stressor (i.e., economic hardship) is greater among those who are socially isolated; (f) positive impact of psychosocial resources on health is weaker among those who are socially isolated. Analyses of a nationally representative longitudinal sample from the U.S. generally support these arguments. This study found that social isolation is a product of both socioeconomic status and social integration: Higher education, being employed, and having more income all contributes to the lower likelihood of social isolation; community ties, social network ties, and intimate ties are associated with lower chance of reporting social isolation. This study also found that social isolation predicts lower level of each of perceived support, personal mastery, and self-esteem, net of SES and social ties, and these associations in turn mediate adverse effects of social isolation on health. Furthermore, this study found that social isolation moderates the association between chronic stressor and health. Findings showed that social isolation amplifies adverse health effects of economic hardship and attenuates protective effects of psychosocial resources. The implication of main findings, the study limitations, and the recommendation for future research are also discussed.Item Social isolation enhances calcium signaling and synaptic plasticity in dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area(2012-08) Ramsey, Leslie Anne; Morikawa, Hitoshi; Mauk, Michael; Jones, Theresa; Harris, Adron; Johnston, DanielEnvironmental experiences play a critical role in an individualʼs risk of becoming addicted. Positive experiences may mitigate addiction vulnerability, whereas adverse experiences, particularly during adolescence, have been shown to increase addiction risk. Social isolation in rodents is a model system used to study the effects of such experiences, yet its impact on the learning and memory processes that underlie addiction remains elusive. Although social isolation is known to alter the functioning of the dopaminergic system, as well as reward processing and learning, its effect on dopamine (DA) neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is unknown. The data presented in this dissertation demonstrate that social isolation of rats during a critical period in adolescence (postnatal days 21-42) enhances long-term potentiation (LTP) of N-methyl D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-mediated glutamatergic transmission in the VTA. Activation of NMDARs is critical to the generation of DA neuron bursts that encode rewards and reward-predictive cues, and NMDARs are necessary for associative reward learning. The isolation-induced enhancement of NMDAR LTP results from augmentation of metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR)-dependent calcium (Ca²⁺) signaling via an increase in inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate(IP3) sensitivity. Isolation-mediated effects on Ca²⁺ signaling and NMDAR plasticity were not reversed by a subsequent period of resocialization. Furthermore, social isolation during this critical period occludes the effect of repeated amphetamine exposure on mGluR/IP₃-mediated Ca²⁺ signaling and synaptic plasticity. Although corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) further facilitates mGluR/IP3-mediated Ca²⁺ signaling in DA neurons, alterations in CRF receptors are not responsible for the effects of isolation on Ca²⁺ signaling and synaptic plasticity. In addition, the learning of associations between environmental stimuli and drug rewards is acquired more quickly and is more resistant to extinction in isolated animals. Data presented in this dissertation lend support to the theory that enhanced mGluR/IP₃-mediated Ca²⁺ signaling and NMDAR plasticity facilitate the learning and memory of drug-associated stimuli. This dissertation provides the first demonstration of a cellular basis for the critical time window of social isolation during adolescence. NMDAR plasticity in the VTA may thus represent a neural substrate by which early life experiences regulate addiction vulnerability. (Note: Behavioral data were acquired by Mickael Degoulet)Item The wound is always raw : searching, uncertainty, and collective support in the lives of mothers of disappeared people in contemporary Mexico(2019-06-26) De la O, Moravia; González-López, Gloria, 1960-Mothers of disappeared people are caught at the intersection of two very difficult experiences: actively searching for their daughters and sons and facing the tremendous pain that comes from having a disappeared loved one. Drawing from ten in-depth interviews with mothers of disappeared people in contemporary Mexico, this thesis explores the impacts of both of these challenges and the ways that these mothers navigate them. In particular, uncertainty, the search for their daughters and sons, social isolation, and collective support emerged as key components of the experiences of this group of women. Their experiences highlight the traumatic nature of the uncertainty about the fate and whereabouts of their daughters and sons and the emotional and cognitive flexibility that allows them to simultaneously hold seemingly contradictory beliefs that go beyond the dichotomy of life and death. The State maintains and reproduces uncertainty through the legal-administrative stage of disappearance, rooted in a historically flawed, corrupt, and inefficient bureaucracy. In this way, the uncertainty that characterizes disappearance is not only an individually traumatizing event, but also becomes part of a complex and multidimensional expression of State violence. For many mothers, actively engaging in the search for their disappeared loved one is an important coping mechanism and a source of personal empowerment, but it also creates important challenges in their lives. Although many mothers experience social isolation in the aftermath of the disappearance of their daughters and sons, the various forms of legal-administrative, emotional, and material support that they access through involvement in collectives of relatives of disappeared people are important sources of strength and resilience