Societies

Media reports suggest that the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons saw its biggest year to date in 2020, with many such reports touting the interactive and social benefits for people facing COVID-19 lockdowns. This paper explores the reported challenges and benefits of playing D&D through teleconferencing hardware and software, and the experience of using virtual tabletops. A thematic analysis of a sample of Reddit threads discussing player experiences of transitioning D&D to remote play during COVID-19 social distancing was undertaken. The findings highlight a variety of player attitudes and preferences towards playing D&D remotely. The data suggest a mostly negative sentiment towards playing D&D online for groups that had transitioned from in-person to remote play. Loss of in-person socialisation was identified as an important contributor to a poor play experience, but groups would persevere with remote play to maintain social relationships, suggesting that, for many players, D&D serves an important social function beyond mere play. Some avenues for future research are identified. Full article

Jogging is the most practiced physical activity in the west. This form of light running appears a solution to the health problems caused by the sedentary of contemporary dwelling and affirmed the role of the extensive use of urban space as a key to individual well-being and health. The COVID-19 pandemic and the imposition of lockdowns imposed a new form of kinesthetic morality based on domestic confinement; a morality that is in open contrast to that of jogging. The article explores this conflict and its consequences in terms of perception of the urban environment and the society among joggers. Based on case study research conducted in 2020 in Alessandria, NW Italy, this study delves into this abrupt change and explores how the urban spatiality changed for the joggers. In so doing, it asks what this event teaches us about the development of new, more effective, urban policies. Full article

“Progressive neoliberalism” is the current hegemonic approach to understanding social justice in Western liberal democracies. “Progressive neoliberalism” also resurrects the “deserving” vs. “undeserving” narrative that can lead to punitive and pathologising approaches to poor and unemployed people—the demographic comprising the majority of child and family social work service users. Indeed, research suggests that social workers’ attitudes towards families in poverty are strikingly congruent with “progressive neoliberalism.” This article suggests that generational changes and the particular form of group-based identity, postmodern social justice ideology often taught in social work education have unwittingly conspired to create this concerning picture. This article suggests that the resurrection of radical social work, with attention to economic inequality, is one way to counteract this trend. Full article

Over the years, social projects and programmes in Portugal have resulted in actions and outcomes to improve the integration and social inclusion of immigrant children and young people in socially vulnerable territories. This article aims to analyse the intervention experiences of teams with immigrant children and young people at risk. The developed study focused on a qualitative approach through the systematisation of measures to protect the rights of immigrant children and young people in Portugal. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out with professionals working in multidisciplinary teams intervening with immigrant children and young people. The results allow the identification of strategies and intervention methods with a positive impact on social integration supported by collaborative and participatory methodologies, but also highlight limitations such as cultural and linguistic barriers, and lack of children’s participation. Thus, it becomes fundamental to value the central role of children and young people in promoting and guaranteeing their rights. Full article

Online research presents unique challenges for elementary students as they develop and extend fundamental literacy skills to various media. Some features of internet text differ from that of traditional print, contributing to the challenges of discerning “fake news.” Readers must understand how to navigate online texts to conduct research effectively, while applying critical thinking to determine the reliability of online information. Descriptive data from an ongoing study revealed that children in grades 1–5 lack some basic understanding of how to search the “wild wide web.” Just as children benefit from explicit instruction related to text features, children benefit from instruction related to the features of the internet. This article presents a study of website evaluation that occurs early in the search process prior to the selection of a particular website or article. The application of the web literacy skills required to conduct an internet search is addressed, and recommendations prompt teachers to consider searches beyond the “walled garden,” as well as ways to handle the “messiness” of internet exploration. Full article

Worldwide, children and adolescents are exposed to violence every day and in countless contexts, whether in the family, at school, or in the community. Child multiple victimization has been the subject of extensive international research because of the impact on child and youth development. A quantitative and comparative study aiming to understand child multiple victimization and/or polyvictimization from the perspective of children is presented. Two groups were studied, with and without psychological counselling, with 20 children each, aged 12–18 years old. All the participants answered to juvenile victimization questionnaire (JVQ). The study was approved by the University Ethics Committee responsible for the study in Portugal, and it was initiated after the obtained consent of the children’s legal guardians. The results indicated that young people frequently experience violent situations, with particular emphasis on conventional crimes, e.g., theft, robbery, vandalism, and assault with or without a weapon, with sexual victimization being less common. The results also show that there is a cumulative experience of violence, which evidences multiple victimization and polyvictimization of the child/adolescent throughout their life. These phenomena are not necessarily more common between populations with clinical follow-up. When the types of violence were compared, multiple victimization and polyvictimization, this study found no differences between the samples with and without psychological counselling. It can be concluded that the multiple victimization or polyvictimization problem is not unusual among the population in the studied age range. It is important to alert to the phenomenon of child/adolescent multiple victimization, aiming at a more effective assessment and intervention among these populations. Raising awareness of the phenomenon of multiple child and youth victimization or polyvictimization is of particular importance for preventing violence at all stages of development. Full article

People have access to more news from more sources than ever before. At the same time, they increasingly distrust traditional media and are exposed to more misinformation. To help people better distinguish real news from “fake news,” we must first understand how they judge whether news is real or fake. One possibility is that people adopt a relatively effortful, analytic approach, judging news based on its content. However, another possibility—consistent with psychological research—is that people adopt a relatively effortless, heuristic approach, drawing on cues outside of news content. One such cue is where the news comes from: its source. Beliefs about news sources depend on people’s political affiliation, with U.S. liberals tending to trust sources that conservatives distrust, and vice versa. Therefore, if people take this heuristic approach, then judgments of news from different sources should depend on political affiliation and lead to a confirmation bias of pre-existing beliefs. Similarly, political affiliation could affect the likelihood that people mistake real news for fake news. We tested these ideas in two sets of experiments. In the first set, we asked University of Louisiana at Lafayette undergraduates (Experiment 1a n = 376) and Mechanical Turk workers in the United States (Experiment 1a n = 205; Experiment 1b n = 201) to rate how “real” versus “fake” a series of unfamiliar news headlines were. We attributed each headline to one of several news sources of varying political slant. As predicted, we found that source information influenced people’s ratings in line with their own political affiliation, although this influence was relatively weak. In the second set, we asked Mechanical Turk workers in the United States (Experiment 2a n = 300; Experiment 2b n = 303) and University of Louisiana at Lafayette undergraduates (Experiment 2b n = 182) to watch a highly publicized “fake news” video involving doctored footage of a journalist. We found that people’s political affiliation influenced their beliefs about the event, but the doctored footage itself had only a trivial influence. Taken together, these results suggest that adults across a range of ages rely on information other than news content—such as how they feel about its source—when judging whether news is real or fake. Moreover, our findings help explain how people experiencing the same news content can arrive at vastly different conclusions. Finally, efforts aimed at educating the public in combatting fake news need to consider how political affiliation affects the psychological processes involved in forming beliefs about the news. Full article

The purpose of this research was to assess the motives, safer sex practices, and vulnerabilities of male sex workers who sold physical sex during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used a mixed strategy, utilizing purposive sampling techniques to conduct 13 online surveys with male sex workers working in Portugal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were aged between 23 and 47 years old and mostly provided their services to other men. Additionally, half of the participants were immigrants. Participants mentioned paying for essential expenses (rent, food, phone, etc.), having money for day-to-day expenses, wanting to, and enjoying it, as their main motives for engaging in sex work. Regarding sexual practices, 3 to 11 participants did not always or did not consistently use condoms during penetrative sex with their clients. Thematic analysis was used to identify the following repeated patterns of meaning regarding COVID-19-related vulnerabilities, encompassing a loss of clients and income, increased work availability, price reductions and negotiation difficulties, emotional functioning, health care access, safer sex negotiations, age, and immigration status. The findings serve as a basis for recommendations regarding social policies aimed at male sex workers who sell physical sex in Portugal. Full article

With the rise of prejudice and discrimination against ethnic and immigrant minorities, strategies to reduce prejudice and discrimination, and to counteract the impact of intolerant, anti-egalitarian ideologies, are needed. Here we focused on cultural humility, i.e., the ability to have a humble and other-oriented approach to others’ cultural backgrounds, resulting from self-examination and critical thinking about structural privileges and inequalities. In this research we proposed that cultural humility might attenuate the effects of intolerant, anti-egalitarian ideologies such as social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) on negative intergroup attitudes and perceptions. In a correlational study conducted in Italy, we found that cultural humility moderated the associations between SDO and prejudice toward immigrants, as well as between SDO and perceptions of threat posed by immigrants. Specifically, the associations of SDO with prejudice and threat were lower among respondents with high cultural humility compared to respondents with low cultural humility. Conversely, cultural humility did not moderate the effects of RWA on prejudice and threat. Findings are discussed considering the motivations underlying prejudice of high-SDO and high-RWA individuals, and proposing cultural humility training to foster positive intergroup relations. Full article

This study aimed to examine sports programs at multicultural family support centers located throughout the country and present the possibility of social integration through the sports programs. The multicultural sports program showed that it affected the ability of migrant women in international marriages to socially integrate with other women like themselves, their husbands, and the natives, and also affected themselves. In order to clarify the purpose of the research, in-depth interviews were carried out. The collected material was transcribed, encoded, and classified. The results were analyzed from the perspective of sports’ physical, psychological, and social functions. This social integration was shown to be more effective than any other program at the multicultural family support center. Regarding their relationship with their husbands, the program provided opportunities for deepening their mutual understanding. The sports program was also utilized as a place of leisure for the women as well, and it was discovered that sports activities were being used as a means of resolving stress. The migrant women’s life radius and interpersonal relations were small due to their limited linguistic abilities. They provided opportunities to form confidence in their Korean life. Full article

Measures aimed at keeping physical and social distance during the COVID-19 pandemic have started to be a big challenge for service industries all over the world. The utilization of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI robots) in hospitality and tourism can be imposed as a potential safety-related problem solver. This study explores consumers’ intentions to use hospitality services once all restrictions related to COVID-19 have been relaxed as well as their perception of how important they find some of the safety-related protective measures when visiting accommodation facilities. Respondents find that more rigorous cleaning techniques, additional disinfection, and hand sanitizer stations are the most important safety-related protective measures when staying at the accommodation facility. Although the respondents do not perceive AI robots as an important protective measure or beneficial in delivering a catering service, the results indicate some significant differences between more and less risk-averse travelers suggesting some potential strategic pathways during the crisis but also in the post-coronavirus future. Full article

Child psychological maltreatment (CPM) was incorporated into the Quebec Youth Protection Act (YPA) in 2006. At that time, various civil-society actors were invited to present to Parliament their views on these legislative changes. The objective of this article is to document the social representations mobilized by the stakeholders in the parliamentary committee in relation to the inclusion of CPM in the Quebec YPA. After explaining our research objectives, questions, and methodology, we will discuss our results, in particular about the distinctive nature of children as a representational object. This specificity will be analyzed in order to better understand the type of communication it generates and the corresponding hegemonic representation of parents. Specifically, implications related to the representational dynamics identified are discussed in relation to our collective capacity (or incapacity) to debate sensitive issues such as child abuse. Full article

Three studies sought to explore the existence of (a)symmetric bias regarding Donald Trump. In Study 1, participants read one of three statements expressing different degrees of favorability toward electing the President of the United States via a National Popular Vote attributed to Trump or an anonymous source. In Study 2, participants read one of two statements either favoring or disfavoring the name change of the Washington NFL franchise, and the statement was attributed to either Trump or an anonymous source. In Study 3, Trump and Biden voters were asked to rate their support or opposition to counting all the votes in battleground states when continued counting was expected to either help Trump or Biden. Results for all three studies supported the asymmetric bias hypothesis. Trump supporters consistently showed bias in favor of the interests and ostensible positions of Trump, whereas Trump’s detractors did not show an opposing bias. Full article

(1) Under repressive policies, sex workers are at disproportionate risk for violence and sexually transmitted infections. The decriminalization of sex work provides increased social and health benefits to both sex workers and society. This is the first research that complements human rights-based messages with a quantifiable economic impact of such a law and a model for future calculations. (2) This research assesses the potential economic consequences of decriminalizing sex work in the District of Columbia (DC) in three areas: (A) income tax revenue, (B) criminal justice system savings, and (C) health sector savings (due to averted cases of violence, HIV, gonorrhea, and herpes). (3) An economic model is developed and utilized based on data from a literature search and agency records. (4) Decriminalizing sex work in DC will generate USD5348.68 per sex worker and USD2.53 per client annually, plus USD20,118.48 in criminal justice system savings a year. Per sex worker, USD5058.08 will be gained from income tax revenue, and USD290.60 will be generated through health sector savings (USD274.65, 0.02, 15.64, and 0.29 from averted cases of violence, HIV, gonorrhea, and herpes, respectively). Per client, decriminalization will generate USD0.05, 2.32, and 0.16 from averted cases of HIV, gonorrhea, and herpes, respectively, or USD8462.35 annually, after considering the total number of clients. Estimates are reported in 2020 USD. (5) The potential economic impact of decriminalizing sex work is widespread. The presented model, in conjunction with a rights-based foundation, should urgently be used by advocates, sex workers, decision makers, and other researchers. Full article

Black Americans have historically been excluded from societal associations and faced wavering instability in their households, forcing them to work together for their individual and collective well-being. In past research, more than half of Black American students enrolled in school opted to pursue social or educational careers. Findings suggest that Black Americans’ occupational development is influenced by their family and community ties. In this conceptual paper, the foundation of the development of identity in African American culture is presented, as it relates to occupational decision-making. First, we discuss the influences of general identity development on occupational decision-making. Second, we argue that Black cultural identity is multidimensional, with strong community and family factors that play a special role in occupational choice. Third, we suggest future research paradigms to link racial identity, culture, and occupational choice among Black American students. By exploring the fundamental beliefs of Black cultural identity, and how they buffer against each other, Black American students will be better able to make occupational decisions. Full article

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether some dimensions of civic and religious social capital are connected to antisocial attitudes of the youth. Based on the social capital theory and previous research, the author assumed that membership of voluntary associations as a dimension of civic social capital and attendance at religious services as a dimension of religious social capital, will be negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes of the youth. The integrated dataset of the last European Values Study and the World Values Survey waves were used as the sources of the research data. The dataset was comprised of 11,411 respondents who were younger than 25 years old from 79 countries. As hypothesized, at the individual level, attendance at religious services was negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes, whereas membership of voluntary associations was positively correlated with antisocial attitudes. At the country level, none of the hypothesized correlations were confirmed. A cross-level interaction between GDP and associational membership was found. The author explains the findings by evoking the special characteristics of religious social capital and its strength in building moral obligations and by suggesting possible differences in incentives for joining voluntary associations in the countries with different levels of economic wealth. Full article

This qualitative study explores Asian Americans’ ethnic identity concerning their process of exploring their own identity belonging and the impact of an ethnic community in a southern city in the United States. The South has mainly consisted of European Americans and African Americans. However, it has diversified to include an increasing number of Latinx and Asian Americans over the last several decades. Yet, the growing Asian American community remains disparate in its ethnic identity and nationality. Therefore, this study uses the phenomenological method to provide a more in-depth understanding of ethnic identity in an Asian American community within a southern region of the United States. Themes emerging from interviews included the need to bridge two worlds, the desire to be part of a community, and the existence of a two-layer community involving both ethnic and racial identity. This study contributes to a greater understanding of Asian Americans’ experiences in and adaptation to the Southern region within the United States. Implications for practice are provided for social workers when working alongside Asian American clients. Full article

Parental mental health is a risk factor for numerous issues affecting a child’s physical and psychological development, especially the perpetration of child maltreatment. This paper aims to contribute a theoretical review of the risks faced by some children living in families with parental mental health problems and argues that psychotherapy has an essential role in resolving emotional and interpersonal difficulties, based on the example of Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). This model has revealed benefits in interventions with several types of patients and is consequently a promising model for preventing the risk of aggressive behaviors. The programs addressing both parents and children have been proven to contribute to more informed and effective interventions. Full article

Cyber-violence is the type of online risk behavior inclined to harm others. Development of new forms of cyber-violent behavior leads to the need to revise specific-item measures of cyber-violence periodically. The aim of this research was to explore the psychometric properties of the revised Committing and Experiencing Cyber-Violence Scale: its latent structure, reliability, and descriptive statistics of underlying dimensions, as well as the relation of some known correlates of cyber-violence, like indicators of psychosocial functioning and online behavioral problems, with cyber-violence. Online questionnaires (cyber-violence, depression, anxiety and stress, problematic Internet use, and problematic gaming) were filled out by 1725 adolescents from a convenient sample. Using exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis, the questionnaire’s latent structure and contribution of relevant correlates for explaining cyber-violence variance was examined. Results: Exploratory factor analysis showed a five-factor solution with satisfactory reliability: shaming, information manipulation, hate speech, technology abuse, and information sharing. Participants commit and experience cyber-violence rarely, leading to a positive distribution of data in the factors. The Committing and Experiencing Cyber-violence subscales have a large positive correlation. Gender (male), grades, maternal education, depression, anxiety, stress, problematic Internet use, and problematic gaming are positive predictors of experiencing cyber-violence, whereas gender (male), grades, hours spent online on weekdays, depression, anxiety, stress, problematic Internet use, and problematic gaming are positive predictors of committing cyber-violence. Conclusions: Cyber-violence is connected with lower psychosocial functioning and more risky behavior online (problematic Internet use, problematic online gaming). Full article