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BackgroundIn face-to-face (offline) social situations a tendency, or bias, to negatively interpret ambiguous situations is consistently related to social anxiety. Although social interactions increasingly occur over the Internet (online), our understanding of cognitive processes in online social situations and how they relate to social anxiety, social experiences, and behavior, is limited.MethodsIn a sample of 324 young people (18–25 years), the current study addressed this gap in two ways: by simultaneously investigating online and offline interpretation bias in relation to social anxiety; and examining the extent to which online interpretation bias predicts peer victimization and avoidance.ResultsIn line with hypotheses, online and offline interpretation bias each correlated positively with social anxiety; the offline interpretation bias-social anxiety association was stronger. Regression analyses revealed unique associations between online interpretation bias and online peer victimization and avoidance, after controlling for social anxiety and offline interpretation bias.DiscussionFindings suggest that cognitive behavioral interventions for social anxiety could be optimized through eliciting and testing negative social beliefs related to online social settings.ConclusionsThe current study’s results indicate the importance of studying online interpretation bias to further understand social anxiety in online social environments.

Problem drinking affects not only the health of a population but also the productivity of a nation, especially if it is rampant among the working population. This study examines the association between problem drinking and work characteristics, work-family status, and social situations among the Japanese working population. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed on the basis of gender on 3136 participants (men: 65.1%, women: 34.9%) adopted from the Japanese Civil Servants Study in 2014 (response rate: 87.8%), to examine the factors related to problem drinking, after adjusting for frequency and quantity of drinking. Problem drinking was assessed using the Cutdown, Annoyed, Guilty, and Eye-opener (CAGE) questionnaire. The presence of problem drinking was found in 24.3% of men and 10.3% of women. The analysis showed that in men, poor work performance (OR: 1.34, 95% CI: 1.00–1.79), high family-to-work conflict (OR: 1.54, 95% CI: 1.14–2.09), and high work-to-family conflict (OR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.14–2.34) were significantly associated with problem drinking, whereas in women, high work-to-family conflict (OR: 2.45, 95% CI: 1.21–4.95) was significantly associated with problem drinking. Although the number of close friends is negatively associated with problem drinking in women, the significance disappeared in the fully adjusted model. It can be concluded that it is important for both men and women to strike a balance between work and family life. Moreover, owing to gender differences, work performance may be important for men, and the presence of close friends may be important for women, in reducing the risk of problem drinking. •The prevalence of problem drinking was found in 24.3% of men and 10.3% of women.•In men, low work performance and high family-work conflict were significantly associated with problem drinking.•In women, high work-to-family conflict was significantly associated with problem drinking.

Emotions are expressed by physical expressions such as body posture. Physical cues play a crucial role in recognizing emotional states. We hypothesized that bodily expressions are stored in long-term memory in association with emotion and that such memory representation, knowledge of emotion, enables us to recognize mental states as a certain emotion. The present study focused on sadness as the target emotion and aimed to clarify how bodily expressions are associated with sadness. We decomposed bodily expressions into body-trunk and hand-arm postures and created body-expression photographs by combining these bodily postures. The 44 participants assessed 16 body-expression photographs to evaluate the extent to which they expressed four major emotions (sadness, anger, fear, and happiness), sadness-related body-expression properties (e.g., duration of physical expression), and social situations (e.g., loss of loved one). Sadness was more associated with the two types of body-trunk postures (deep and shallow forward-bent) and the two types of hand-arm postures (overall-face and around-eye). We subsequently classified the bodily expressions based on three kinds of assessment and specified three main groups associated with sadness. Each sadness-related body-expression group was differently associated with body-expression properties and sadness-related situations; for instance, one sadness-related body-expression group was assessed as an activated body-expression property with short-term duration and was associated with failure situations. These findings suggest that nonverbal bodily expressions play a key part in memory representations of sadness in association with body-expression properties and social situations.

This study examines a child’s personal experiences with peer relationship building in the classroom and is guided by Vygotsky’s cultural historical concepts of the social situation of development and cultural tools and Hedegaard’s (2012) model for learning and development. Hedegaard’s (2012) dialectical—interactive approach was adopted to analyse the data for this study which was gathered using digital video observations of a grade one classroom within the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia over a five week period. This paper explores the strategies used by children that enables them to balance their desire for peer relationships while remaining within what is considered acceptable behaviours by their teachers within the classroom. It is argued that it is important for schools to continue to strive to find the balance between institutional demands while creating social situations that foster peer relationships.

Social situation is an important factor in determining whether or not individuals express emotions and how effectively they express them, but few researchers have explored its role (e.g., with others of varying degrees of intimacy and hierarchy) in the social outcomes of academic emotional suppression and expression. Relationships between the adolescents’ suppression and expression of emotions and their likability in social situations involving a range of people (e.g., classmates, good friends, teachers) were examined in the current study. A total of 120 adolescents and 74 teachers were selected for this investigation, the results indicating a difference in an individual’s likability when suppressing and expressing academic emotions in the presence of others. Specifically, expressing academic emotions in the presence of good friends achieves a higher level of likability than in the presence of classmates; furthermore, suppressing negative academic emotions in the presence of classmates garners a higher level of likability. Adolescents who express their positive and negative academic emotions in the presence of good friends can get higher likability. Teachers prefer adolescents who express positive academic emotions in their presence. These findings emphasize the importance of social situations in the use of strategies to regulate academic emotion regulation and verify the adaptability of emotional regulation.

In recent years there has been a growing call to historicize sociology by paying more attention to the contextual importance of time and place as well as to issues of process and contingency. Meeting this goal requires bringing historical sociology and interactionism into greater conversation via a historical theory of social situations. Toward this end, the authors of this article draw on Erving Goffman's work in Frame Analysis to conceptualize experience in social situations as grounded in multilayered cognitive frames and to demonstrate how such a framework helps illuminate historical changes in situated interaction. Adapted from the source document.

Camouflaging of autistic characteristics in social situations is hypothesised as a common social coping strategy for adults with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Camouflaging may impact diagnosis, quality of life, and long-term outcomes, but little is known about it. This qualitative study examined camouflaging experiences in 92 adults with ASC, with questions focusing on the nature, motivations, and consequences of camouflaging. Thematic analysis was used to identify key elements of camouflaging, which informed development of a three-stage model of the camouflaging process. First, motivations for camouflaging included fitting in and increasing connections with others. Second, camouflaging itself comprised a combination of masking and compensation techniques. Third, short- and long-term consequences of camouflaging included exhaustion, challenging stereotypes, and threats to self-perception.

This paper aims to analyze the phenomenon of the managing of the stigma of a child’s disability by their parents. Using the concept of stigma by Erving Goffman, I point to its usefulness in understanding the management of stigma by parents of children with intellectual disabilities in the context of mixed social situations. The research utilizes qualitative techniques with special emphasis on unstructured interviews. The data analysis was performed following the procedures of the grounded theory. As studies have shown, parents of children with disabilities adopt various strategies and tactics during the encounters with other persons and institutions while dealing with everyday hardships.

Camouflaging entails ‘masking’ in or ‘passing’ social situations. Research suggests camouflaging behaviours are common in autistic people, and may negatively impact mental health. To enhance understanding of camouflaging, this study examined reasons, contexts and costs of camouflaging. 262 autistic people completed measures of camouflaging behaviours, camouflaging contexts (e.g. work vs. family), camouflaging reasons (e.g. to make friends) and mental health symptoms. Findings indicated a gender difference in reasons for camouflaging, with autistic women more likely to endorse “conventional” reasons (e.g. getting by in formal settings such as work). Both camouflaging highly across contexts and ‘switching’ between camouflaging in some contexts but not in others, related to poorer mental health. These findings have implications for understanding camouflaging in autistic adults.

PurposeThe importance of both frequent and high-quality social connections is widely recognised. Previous reviews of interventions for promoting social connections found mixed results due to the inclusion of uncontrolled studies and merging of objective and subjective dimensions of social connections. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of interventions designed to promote ‘objective social contact’ and the ‘quality of social connections’; and compare the effectiveness of interventions from different theoretical orientations on these social dimensions through a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials.MethodsA systematic search of electronic databases Medline, Embase, PsycINFO and PubMed was conducted to identify randomised controlled trials of interventions for social isolation, loneliness, social participation and/or social connectedness in adults. Data were analysed using Stata V.16.0.ResultsFifty-eight studies met inclusion criteria (mean age = 62 years). Overall, interventions led to significant improvements in objective social contact (Hedges’ g = 0.43) and perceived quality of social connections (Hedges’ g = − 0.33). Increasing access to other people was the most effective strategy for promoting objective social contact (Hedges’ g = 0.67). Providing adults with skills to manage maladaptive attributional biases, fear-related avoidance of social situations, and barriers to social contact, was the most effective strategy for addressing deficits in perceived quality of social connections (Hedges’ g = − 0.53).ConclusionIn summary, different interventions had differential effects on the frequency and quality of social relationships and associated emotional distress. Psychological interventions hold the most promise for increasing meaningful social connections and reducing distress.