Search results for "social systems"
showing 10 items of 22 documents
Face the Hierarchy: ERP and Oscillatory Brain Responses in Social Rank Processing
2014
International audience; Recognition of social hierarchy is a key feature that helps us navigate through our complex social environment. Neuroimaging studies have identified brain structures involved in the processing of hierarchical stimuli but the precise temporal dynamics of brain activity associated with such processing remains largely unknown. Here, we used electroencephalography to examine the effect of social hierarchy on neural responses elicited by faces. In contrast to previous studies, the key manipulation was that a hierarchical context was constructed, not by varying facial expressions, but by presenting neutral-expression faces in a game setting. Once the performance-based hier…
Pet dogs' behavior when the owner and an unfamiliar person attend to a faux rival.
2017
While dog owners ascribe different emotions to their pets, including jealousy, research on secondary emotions in nonhuman animals is very limited and, so far, only one study has investigated jealousy in dogs (Canis familiaris). This work explores jealousy in dogs one step further. We conducted two studies adapting a procedure devised to assess jealousy in human infants. In each study 36 adult dogs were exposed to a situation in which their owner and a stranger ignored them while directing positive attention towards three different objects: a book, a puppet and a fake dog (Study 1: furry; Study 2: plastic). Overall, the results of both studies do not provide evidence that the behavioral resp…
Job stress and emotional exhaustion at work in Spanish workers: Does unhealthy work affect the decision to drive?
2020
Objectives The purpose of this study was to assess the relationships among the following elements: unhealthy work indicators (job stress and emotional exhaustion at work), the decision to drive (or not), and driving crashes suffered by Spanish workers. Methods For this cross-sectional study, a full sample of 1,200 Spanish drivers (44% women and 56% men) was used, their mean age being 42.8 years. They answered a questionnaire divided into three sections: demographic and driving-related data; burnout, job stress, and life stress; and self-reported road behaviors and driving safety indicators. Results Overall, 41.6% of drivers reported emotional exhaustion at work. Furthermore, 80.2% of the pa…
Quantitative Analysis of Gender Stereotypes and Information Aggregation in a National Election
2013
By analyzing a database of a questionnaire answered by a large majority of candidates and elected in a parliamentary election, we quantitatively verify that (i) female candidates on average present political profiles which are more compassionate and more concerned with social welfare issues than male candidates and (ii) the voting procedure acts as a process of information aggregation. Our results show that information aggregation proceeds with at least two distinct paths. In the first case candidates characterize themselves with a political profile aiming to describe the profile of the majority of voters. This is typically the case of candidates of political parties which are competing for…
The Phenomenology of Specialization of Criminal Suspects
2012
A criminal career can be either general, with the criminal committing different types of crimes, or specialized, with the criminal committing a specific type of crime. A central problem in the study of crime specialization is to determine, from the perspective of the criminal, which crimes should be considered similar and which crimes should be considered distinct. We study a large set of Swedish suspects to empirically investigate generalist and specialist behavior in crime. We show that there is a large group of suspects who can be described as generalists. At the same time, we observe a non-trivial pattern of specialization across age and gender of suspects. Women are less prone to commi…
Anxiety and the severity of Tension-Type Headache mediate the relation between headache presenteeism and workers’ productivity
2018
The primary objective of this study was to explore the mechanisms and conditions whereby Tension-Type Headache (TTH) presenteeism relates to health-related loss of productivity as a result of both reduced physical and mental health. To this end, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to conduct a secondary data analysis of a randomized clinical trial involving 78 Tension-type Headache (TTH) patients. The results showed that TTH presenteeism did not directly relate to health-related loss of productivity, either due to physical, or mental health problems. However, through anxiety-state, TTH presenteeism decreased patients' productivity, as consequence of reduced physical and mental healt…
A Diffusive Strategic Dynamics for Social Systems
2010
We propose a model for the dynamics of a social system, which includes diffusive effects and a biased rule for spin-flips, reproducing the effect of strategic choices. This model is able to mimic some phenomena taking place during marketing or political campaigns. Using a cost function based on the Ising model defined on the typical quenched interaction environments for social systems (Erdos-Renyi graph, small-world and scale-free networks), we find, by numerical simulations, that a stable stationary state is reached, and we compare the final state to the one obtained with standard dynamics, by means of total magnetization and magnetic susceptibility. Our results show that the diffusive str…
Decentralization and heterogeneity in complex adaptative systems
2015
Purpose – Following a bacterial-based modeling approach, the authors want to model and analyze the impact of both decentralization and heterogeneity on group behavior and collective learning. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Inspired by bacterial conjugation, the authors have defined an artificial society in which agents’ strategies adapt to changes in resources location, allowing migration, and survival in a dynamic sugarscape-like scenario. To study the impact of these variables the authors have simulated a scenario in which resources are limited and localized. The authors also have defined three constraints in genetic information processing (inhibiti…
From the kinetic theory of active particles to the modeling of social behaviors and politics
2007
This paper deals with the modeling of complex social systems by methods of the mathematical kinetic theory for active particles. Specifically, a recent model by the last two authors is analyzed from the social sciences point of view. The model shows, despite its simplicity, some interesting features. In particular, this paper investigates the ability of the model to describe how a social politics and the disposable overall wealth may have a relevant influence towards the trend of the wealth distribution. The paper also outlines various research perspectives.
Structure and evolution of a European Parliament via a network and correlation analysis
2016
We present a study of the network of relationships among elected members of the Finnish parliament, based on a quantitative analysis of initiative co-signatures, and its evolution over 16 years. To understand the structure of the parliament, we constructed a statistically validated network of members, based on the similarity between the patterns of initiatives they signed. We looked for communities within the network and characterized them in terms of members' attributes, such as electoral district and party. To gain insight on the nested structure of communities, we constructed a hierarchical tree of members from the correlation matrix. Afterwards, we studied parliament dynamics yearly, wi…