Understanding the devaluation of vulnerable groups: A novel application of Institutional Anomie Theory

Identifying social perceptions of people ignoring COVID-19 warnings: a qualitative study in Iran

Objective

The COVID-19 pandemic has had various effects on the social life and daily activities of people in most countries in the world, including Iran. Hygienic precautions have been recommended, such as wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, to reduce the spread of the COVID-19. However, some people in society have not considered and ignored these health issues. This study aims to identify the sociological perceptions of people who ignore the COVID-19 warning. A qualitative study was carried out from May to July 2020. The interviewees were purposefully selected from people in Isfahan who avoided paying attention to the COVID-19 warnings. The saturation point was reached in 20 semi-structured interviews. The thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the transcribed documents using MAXQDA software (version 12).

Results

The results show 2 themes and 4 sub-themes related to the sociological perception of people who ignore the COVID-19 warning. The themes and sub-themes include: feelings of social anomie (disruption and social unrest, social distrust), unmet social relationship needs (intention to maintain social participation, Feeling of reduced social support). In order to tackle social perceptions contrary to health observance during the coronavirus pandemic, educational resources such as mass media, cyberspace and social programs on the necessity and importance of health observance need to be used. Policies should also be implemented in the social, cultural and legislative contexts to enhance the degree of individuals' social responsibility.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-021-05797-0.

"You Need to Get Over the Difficulties and Stand Up Again"-A Qualitative Inquiry into Young Nurses' Coping with Lateral Violence from the Feminist Perspective

Previous studies have reported lateral violence (LV) styles among nurses and the adverse impacts of LV on nurses and nursing. Young nurses, including nursing students and novice nurses, are often victims of LV. A large qualitative research study that contained three sub-studies exploring professional identity development in different professional stages was conducted by a research team in Macau, Special Administrative Region of China. Semi-structured interviews with nursing students and clinical nurses were carried out; among the 58 participants in the three sub-studies, 20 described some forms of LV and their ways of dealing with them. Framed by the feminist perspective, the researchers explored young nurses’ coping strategies in dealing with LV perpetrated by senior colleagues. Two themes were developed reflecting the coping strategies for LV: “making extra efforts” and “soothing emotional distress”. Three sub-themes were under the theme of “making extra efforts”: “catching up knowledge”, “making the most use of learning resources”, “adjusting communication manner”; another batch of sub-themes was under the theme of “soothing emotional distress”: “seeking support from schoolmates”, “living with family but crying alone”, and “adjusting lifestyle”. The study implied that young nurses exerted their agency in coping with LV in clinical practices. Nursing managers and educators should support young nurses’ efforts in overcoming power-based LV and incivility.

When good for business is not good enough: Effects of pro-diversity beliefs and instrumentality of diversity on intergroup attitudes

Instrumentality-based pro-diversity beliefs (i.e., beliefs that diverse groups outperform homogenous groups in terms of group functioning) have been shown to improve intergroup attitudes. However, such valuing of diversity due to its expected instrumentality holds the risk that outgroups may be devalued in situations when diversity ends up being detrimental to group functioning. Across four experiments, we studied the interplay between instrumentality-based pro-diversity beliefs, actual instrumentality of ethnic diversity, and outgroup attitudes. Our results do not reveal a robust interaction effect between instrumentality-based pro-diversity beliefs and actual instrumentality of diverse groups. Some evidence, however, supports the assumption that instrumentality-based pro-diversity beliefs yielded a weaker positive or even a negative effect on ethnic outgroup attitudes when ethnic diversity was perceived as non-instrumental (i.e., when diversity was perceived as having a negative impact on group functioning). Theoretical contributions, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

Marketization and anti-immigrant attitudes in cross-national perspective

This study builds upon an evolving research agenda by assessing the utility of three predictors of anti-immigrant attitudes: a "marketized mentality," its aggregated level analogue - a "marketized anomic culture," and an institutional imbalance characterized by the dominance of the economy over other social institutions. Drawing upon Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT), a macro-sociological theory originally advanced to explain crime, previous research has reported that persons who strongly embrace market-based values are prone to be prejudiced to legitimize the exclusion of groups that do not conform to the priorities of market society. Moreover, IAT identifies economic dominance in the institutional order as a macro-structural property that is also potentially relevant to understanding anti-immigrant attitudes. This study extends prior efforts by examining the relationships between the theorized predictors and anti-immigrant attitudes in a multilevel framework with data collected from the World Values Survey and international organizations.