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Qualitative Data is meant for the novice researcher who needs guidance on what specifically to do when faced with a sea of information. It takes readers through the qualitative research process, beginning with an examination of the basic philosophy of qualitative research, and ending with planning and carrying out a qualitative research study. It provides an explicit, step-by-step procedure that will take the researcher from the raw text of interview data through data analysis and theory construction to the creation of a publishable work. The volume provides actual examples based on the authors' own work, including two published pieces in the appendix, so that readers can follow examples for each step of the process, from the project's inception to its finished product. The volume also includes an appendix explaining how to implement these data analysis procedures using NVIVO, a qualitative data analysis program.

Objective Despite the multifactoriality of work and health, studies of psychosocial work factors with pain are typically limited to a few factors. This study examined a wide range of factors to determine (i) typical combinations of work factor levels (＂work situations＂) and (ii) whether ＂work situations＂ predicted pain complaints of six anatomic regions. Methods Questionnaires were distributed to 6175 employees twice over a two-year period. Latent profile analysis was conducted to group employees into profiles of work factor levels. Twelve work factors were measured, reflecting six themes: demands, control, role expectations, leadership, predictability, and organizational climate. Logistic and Poisson regressions compared the groups' risk of pain of the neck, head, back, shoulders, legs and arms, as well as multi-site pain (＞1 pain site). Results Four latent profiles emerged based on relative levels of work factors. Profile 1 reflected relatively ＂desirable＂ levels of all factors, demonstrating the lowest risk of pain. Profile 2 exhibited the highest, and profile 3 the lowest levels of both demands and control with similar risks of pain, suggesting high levels of control were insufficient to buffer the impact of the combination of the other factors. Profile 4 exhibited ＂undesirable＂ levels of all factors and the highest risk, most notably for multi-site pain [odds ratio (OR) 2.32, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.80-2.85 compared with profile 1]. Conclusions Different compositions of psychosocial exposures were differentially related to pain. Future studies should take the complexity of work into account by studying comprehensive arrays of co-occurring work factors with health.

Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great ape relatives. Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. Morphology, life history, social life, sexual behavior, and foraging patterns have all shifted sharply away from those of the other great apes. InThe Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact that humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. Humans came to cooperate in sharing information, and to cooperate ecologically and reproductively as well, and these changes initiated positive feedback loops that drove us further from other great apes. Sterelny develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information-sharing practices across generations and how these practices transformed human minds and social lives. Sterelny proposes that humans developed a new form of ecological interaction with their environment, cooperative foraging. The ability to cope with the immense variety of human ancestral environments and social forms, he argues, depended not just on adapted minds but also on adapted developmental environments.

Recent progress in the field of wildlife disease ecology demonstrates that infectious disease plays a crucial role in the lives of wild animals. Parasites and pathogens should be especially important for social animals in which high contact among individuals increases the potential for disease spread. As one of the best studied mammalian groups, primates offer a unique opportunity to examine how complex behaviours (including social organization) influence the risk of acquiring infectious diseases, and the defences used by animals to avoid infection. This book explores the correlates of disease risk in primates, including not only social and mating behaviour but also diet, habitat use, life history, geography and phylogeny. The authors examine how a core set of host and parasite traits influence patterns of parasitism at three levels of biological organization: among individuals, among populations, and across species. A major goal is to synthesize, for the first time, four disparate areas of research: primate behavioural ecology, parasite biology, wildlife epidemiology, and the behavioural and immune defences employed by animals to counter infectious disease. Throughout, the authors provide an overview of the remarkable diversity of infectious agents found in wild primate populations. Additional chapters consider how knowledge of infectious diseases in wild primates can inform efforts focused on primate conservation and human health. More generally, this book identifies infectious disease as an important frontier in our understanding of primate behaviour and ecology. It highlights future challenges for testing the links between host and parasite traits, including hypotheses for the effects of disease on primate social and mating systems.

Despite the multifactoriality of work and health, studies of psychosocial work factors with pain are typically limited to a few factors. This study examined a wide range of factors to determine (i) typical combinations of work factor levels (\"work situations\") and (ii) whether \"work situations\" predicted pain complaints of six anatomic regions. Questionnaires were distributed to 6175 employees twice over a two-year period. Latent profile analysis was conducted to group employees into profiles of work factor levels. Twelve work factors were measured, reflecting six themes: demands, control, role expectations, leadership, predictability, and organizational climate. Logistic and Poisson regressions compared the groups' risk of pain of the neck, head, back, shoulders, legs and arms, as well as multi-site pain (>1 pain site). Four latent profiles emerged based on relative levels of work factors. Profile 1 reflected relatively \"desirable\" levels of all factors, demonstrating the lowest risk of pain. Profile 2 exhibited the highest, and profile 3 the lowest levels of both demands and control with similar risks of pain, suggesting high levels of control were insufficient to buffer the impact of the combination of the other factors. Profile 4 exhibited \"undesirable\" levels of all factors and the highest risk, most notably for multi-site pain [odds ratio (OR) 2.32, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.80-2.85 compared with profile 1]. Different compositions of psychosocial exposures were differentially related to pain. Future studies should take the complexity of work into account by studying comprehensive arrays of co-occurring work factors with health.

Climate change is likely to have significant impacts on the forestry sector in New Zealand. However, an understanding of how forest growers are reducing their risks from climate change impacts is still in its infancy. This paper applies the protection motivation theory to identify socio-psychological factors influencing forest growers’ adaptation to climate change. This study presents the survey results from 60 forest growers who have the combined responsibility for managing more than 70% of New Zealand’s plantation forests. We investigated whether their perceived response efficacy, self-efficacy and their understanding of response costs are predictors of their protective or adaptive measures. Based on our survey, risk reduction and risk spreading are the two types of protective measure frequently reported by the respondents to deal with climate risks. Consistent with the protection motivation theory, our findings show that respondents who are more likely to implement protective or adaptive measures if they perceive the threat severity to be high have high self-efficacy and resource efficacy, and exhibit low maladaptive responses such as evading and postponing behaviours. Furthermore, our findings also suggest that there is a low self-efficacy belief with strong maladaptive behaviour among the respondents that negatively influence their motivation to implement adaptation measures. This result provides guidance to policy makers, researchers and forest companies on how to make climate change adaptation efforts effective by considering the forest growers motivation to adapt to climate change.

The precautionary measures and uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have serious psychological impacts on peoples’ mental health. We used longitudinal data from Hiroshima University to investigate loneliness before and during the pandemic among older and younger people in Japan. We provide evidence that loneliness among both older and younger people increased considerably during the pandemic. Although loneliness among younger people is more pervasive, the magnitude of increase in loneliness during the pandemic is higher among older people. Our logit regression analysis shows that age, subjective health status, and feelings of depression are strongly associated with loneliness before and during the pandemic. Moreover, household income and financial satisfaction are associated with loneliness among older people during the pandemic while gender, marital status, living condition, and depression are associated with loneliness among younger people during the pandemic. The evidence of increasing loneliness during the pandemic is concerning for a traditionally well-connected and culturally collectivist society such as Japan. As loneliness has a proven connection with both physical and mental health, we suggest immediate policy interventions to provide mental health support for lonely people so they feel more cared for, secure, and socially connected.

Psychological interventions for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are not always effective and can leave some individuals with enduring symptoms. Little is known about factors that are associated with better or worse treatment outcome. Our objective was to address this gap. We undertook a systematic review following Cochrane Collaboration Guidelines. We included 126 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychological interventions for PTSD and examined factors that were associated with treatment outcome, in terms of severity of PTSD symptoms post-treatment, and recovery or remission. Associations were neither consistent nor strong. Two factors were associated with smaller reductions in severity of PTSD symptoms post-treatment: comorbid diagnosis of depression, and higher PTSD symptom severity at baseline assessment. Higher education, adherence to homework and experience of a more recent trauma were associated with better treatment outcome. Identifying and understanding why certain factors are associated with treatment outcome is vital to determine which individuals are most likely to benefit from particular treatments and to develop more effective treatments in the future. There is an urgent need for consistent and standardized reporting of factors associated with treatment outcome in all clinical trials.

In the first book devoted exclusively to the contentious politics of autism, noted political scientist and public policy expert John J.Pitney, Jr., explains how autism has evolved into a heated political issue disputed by scientists, educators, social workers, and families.

Understanding how emotions and psychological states influence both individual and collective actions is critical for expressing the real complexity of biosocial and ecological systems. Recent breakthroughs in mathematical modeling have created new opportunities for systematically integrating these emotion-specific elements into dynamic frameworks ranging from human health to animal ecology and socio-technical systems. This review builds on mathematical modeling approaches by bringing together insights from neuroscience, psychology, epidemiology, ecology, and artificial intelligence to investigate how psychological effects such as fear, stress, and perception, as well as memory, motivation, and adaptation, can be integrated into modeling efforts. This article begins by examining the influence of psychological factors on brain networks, mental illness, and chronic physical diseases (CPDs), followed by a comparative discussion of model structures in human and animal psychology. It then turns to ecological systems, focusing on predator–prey interactions, and investigates how behavioral responses such as prey refuge, inducible defense, cooperative hunting, group behavior, etc., modulate population dynamics. Further sections investigate psychological impacts in epidemiological models, in which risk perception and fear-driven behavior greatly affect disease spread. This review article also covers newly developing uses in artificial intelligence, economics, and decision-making, where psychological realism improves model accuracy. Through combining these several strands, this paper argues for a more subtle, emotionally conscious way to replicate intricate adaptive systems. In fact, this study emphasizes the need to include emotion and cognition in quantitative models to improve their descriptive and predictive ability in many biosocial and environmental contexts.