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Background Substance use disorders and unmet social needs (like housing instability and social isolation) are major contributors to U.S. morbidity and mortality. We, patients, staff and researchers, established a research advisory committee (RAC) in an addictions treatment setting to guide research and interventions based on lived-experience. Methods We employed community engaged outreach methods to recruit, train, and establish the RAC, and the 10-Step Framework for Continuous Patient-Engagement to advise research activities, and to initiate our own research. Results The RAC contributed unique insights, advising on 12 research projects. We present the process and challenges of establishing the RAC and the benefits to researchers and advisors. We also summarize a case example of a co-developed a research project related to housing stability and social connection. Conclusions This experience shows that establishing a patient/community advisory committee in addictions treatment settings is doable and valuable. Co-authoring this manuscript has allowed us to share how we are shaping research that is more likely to be acceptable to community participants and feasible to implement, especially for populations with addictions and facing barriers related to social determinants of health. Plain English summary We are patients and staff advisors and scientific researchers working as collaborators in a research advisory committee (RAC) in an addiction treatment setting. We provide our lived-experience perspective to inform research around addictions and social needs (like housing, food, etc.) to ensure that research and programming are relevant to our community. In this article we describe the process of establishing the RAC and the value of the RAC to the research process and to us as individuals and to our community. We also describe how we co-developed a pilot project related to increasing housing stability and reducing social isolation. In preparing this manuscript, researcher-collaborator co-authors discussed the idea of co-developing this article at a RAC meeting. They asked interested advisors to volunteer as co-authors. Two patient advisors and one staff advisor volunteered. We then planned manuscript development between meetings and after subsequent RAC meetings. We shared iterations of the paper back and forth in digital and hard copies for input, accuracy, and agreement in revisions. We use our own language throughout the manuscript, sharing illustrative quotes provided by co-authors and by RAC advisors who are not co-authors, with some editing for clarity and contextual integration. While consent was sought for quotes and contributions, we do not directly identify the speakers rather, we attribute quotes to speaker type (e.g., patient or staff advisor, research collaborator, coauthor).

In Just Like Us: Digital Debates on Feminism and Fame, Caitlin E. Lawson examines the rise of celebrity feminism, its intersections with digital culture, and its complicated relationships with race, sexuality, capitalism, and misogyny. Through in-depth analyses of debates across social media and news platforms, Lawson maps the processes by which celebrity culture, digital platforms, and feminism transform one another. As she analyzes celebrity-centered stories ranging from \"The Fappening\" and the digital attack on actress Leslie Jones to stars' activism in response to #MeToo, Lawson demonstrates how celebrity culture functions as a hypervisible space in which networked publics confront white feminism, assert the value of productive anger in feminist politics, and seek remedies for women's vulnerabilities in digital spaces and beyond. Just Like Us asserts that, together, celebrity culture and digital platforms form a crucial discursive arena where postfeminist logics are unsettled, opening up more public, collective modes of holding individuals and groups accountable for their actions.

We examined the influence of assessors' professional power and social connections on their decision making regarding evaluation for funding of new business projects, as well as the moderating effect of the assessors' own job security. Using 1,517 observations from 2017 Beijing Innofund data, we found that the assessors' professional power and social connections were both positively related to their evaluation scores. The job security of the assessors significantly positively moderated the effect of their social connections, but the moderating effect of job security on their professional power was nonsignificant. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Expressing gratitude improves well-being for both expressers and recipients, but we suggest that an egocentric bias may lead expressers to systematically undervalue its positive impact on recipients in a way that could keep people from expressing gratitude more often in everyday life. Participants in three experiments wrote gratitude letters and then predicted how surprised, happy, and awkward recipients would feel. Recipients then reported how receiving an expression of gratitude actually made them feel. Expressers significantly underestimated how surprised recipients would be about why expressers were grateful, overestimated how awkward recipients would feel, and underestimated how positive recipients would feel. Expected awkwardness and mood were both correlated with participants’ willingness to express gratitude. Wise decisions are guided by an accurate assessment of the expected value of action. Underestimating the value of prosocial actions, such as expressing gratitude, may keep people from engaging in behavior that would maximize their own—and others’—well-being.

Clicking is one of the most robust metaphors for social connection. But how do we know when two people \"click\"? We asked pairs of friends and strangers to talk with each other and rate their felt connection. For both friends and strangers, speed in response was a robust predictor of feeling connected. Conversations with faster response times felt more connected than conversations with slower response times, and within conversations, connected moments had faster response times than less-connected moments. This effect was determined primarily by partner responsivity: People felt more connected to the degree that their partner responded quickly to them rather than by how quickly they responded to their partner. The temporal scale of these effects (<250 ms) precludes conscious control, thus providing an honest signal of connection. Using a round-robin design in each of six closed networks, we show that faster responders evoked greater feelings of connection across partners. Finally, we demonstrate that this signal is used by third-party listeners as a heuristic of how well people are connected: Conversations with faster response times were perceived as more connected than the same conversations with slower response times. Together, these findings suggest that response times comprise a robust and sufficient signal of whether two minds “click.”

Governments and public health institutions across the globe have set social distancing and stay-at-home guidelines to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. With reduced opportunities to spend time together in person come new challenges to remain socially connected. This essay addresses how the pandemic has changed people’s use of digital communication methods, and how inequalities in the use of these methods may arise. We draw on data collected from 1,374 American adults between 4 and 8 April 2020, about two weeks after lockdown measures were introduced in various parts of the United States. We first address whether people changed their digital media use to reach out to friends and family, looking into voice calls, video calls, text messaging, social media, and online games. Then, we show how age, gender, living alone, concerns about Internet access, and Internet skills relate to changes in social contact during the pandemic. We discuss how the use of digital media for social connection during a global public health crisis may be unequally distributed among citizens and may continue to shape inequalities even after the pandemic is over. Such insights are important considering the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s social wellbeing. We also discuss how changes in digital media use might outlast the pandemic, and what this means for future communication and media research.

Marketers often employ a variety of positive emotions to encourage consumption or promote a particular behavior (e.g., buying, donating, recycling) to benefit an organization or cause. The authors show that specific positive emotions do not universally increase prosocial behavior but, rather, encourage different types of prosocial behavior. Four studies show that whereas positive emotions (i.e., love, hope, pride, and compassion) all induce prosocial behavior toward close entities (relative to a neutral emotional state), only love induces prosocial behavior toward distant others and international organizations. Love's effect is driven by a distinct form of broadening, characterized by extending feelings of social connection and the boundary of caring to be more inclusive of others regardless of relatedness. Love—as a trait and a momentary emotion—is unique among positive emotions in fostering connectedness that other positive emotions (hope and pride) do not and broadening behavior in a way that other connected emotions (compassion) do not. This research contributes to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion by demonstrating a distinct type of broadening for love and adds an important qualification to the general finding that positive emotions uniformly encourage prosocial behavior.

Social media offers a nearly unlimited number of opportunities to bond with others. The present research, however, suggests that social media use can have both positive and negative implications for our well-being. Passive use of social media entails viewing others' social media pages without interacting with the page owner. Across three studies, which included two survey-based studies and an experimental study, consistent results are found showing that passive social media use moderates the relationship between social media usage/intensity and perceived social connection. Study 1 found social media intensity involving more passive engagement was associated with less social connection and lower well-being. Study 2 found that the interaction between social media use across 11 social media platforms and high passive use of these platforms is associated with lower perceived social connection and, subsequently, higher stress. In response to a call for more experimental research by Verduyn et al. (2017), Study 3 manipulated social media use (heavy or light) and type of social media use (passive vs. active) and found that heavy social media use has a negative impact on social connection when used passively, but a positive effect when used actively. In addition, the present study adds to the emerging literature which shows that one's emotional connection to social media, and the time spent on social media, in combination with how social media is used (passively or actively), is associated with perceived social connection and user well-being. Future research directions and study limitations are discussed. Les médias sociaux offrent un nombre quasi illimité d'occasions de se rapprocher des autres. La présente étude suggère toutefois que l'utilisation des médias sociaux peut avoir des conséquences à la fois positives et négatives sur notre bien-être. L'utilisation passive des médias sociaux consiste à consulter les pages des autres sur les médias sociaux sans interagir avec le propriétaire de la page. Dans trois études, comprenant deux études basées sur des enquêtes et une étude expérimentale, des résultats cohérents montrent que l'utilisation passive des médias sociaux modère la relation entre l'utilisation/intensité des médias sociaux et le niveau de connexion sociale perçu. L'étude 1 a révélé que l'intensité des médias sociaux impliquant un engagement plus passif était associée à un niveau de connexion sociale moindre et à un bien-être plus faible. L'étude 2 a révélé que l'interaction entre l'utilisation des médias sociaux sur 11 plateformes de médias sociaux et une utilisation passive élevée de ces plateformes est associée à un niveau de connexion sociale perçu plus faible et, par la suite, à un stress plus élevé. En réponse à un appel à un nombre accru de recherches expérimentales lancé par Verduyn et al. (2017), l'étude 3 a manipulé l'utilisation des médias sociaux (fréquente ou faible) et le type d'utilisation des médias sociaux (passive vs active) et a constaté que l'utilisation fréquente des médias sociaux a un impact négatif sur le niveau de connexion sociale lorsqu'elle est utilisée de manière passive, mais un effet positif lorsqu'elle est utilisée de manière active. En outre, la présente étude s'ajoute à la littérature émergente qui montre que le lien émotionnel d'une personne avec les médias sociaux et le temps passé sur les médias sociaux, en combinaison avec la façon dont les médias sociaux sont utilisés (passivement ou activement), sont associés au niveau de connexion sociale perçu et au bien-être de l'utilisateur. Les orientations de recherche futures et les limites de l'étude sont discutées. Public Significance Statement The primary goal of social media is to help individuals connect with others. The present research, however, finds that intense social media use is sometimes negatively associated with an individual's sense of social connection and, ultimately, their well-being. Results across three studies reveal that heavy users of social media are more likely to experience negative consequences, such as feeling socially disconnected and experiencing greater stress and lower well-being, if they use social media in a passive manner (i.e., to view others' social media pages without actively interacting with others) as opposed to using social media to actively engage with others.

Historically social connection has been an important way through which humans have coped with large-scale threatening events. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns have deprived people of major sources of social support and coping, with others representing threats. Hence, a major stressor during the pandemic has been a sense of social disconnection and loneliness. This study explores how people's experience of compassion and feeling socially safe and connected, in contrast to feeling socially disconnected, lonely and fearful of compassion, effects the impact of perceived threat of COVID-19 on post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress. Adult participants from the general population (N = 4057) across 21 countries worldwide, completed self-report measures of social connection (compassion for self, from others, for others; social safeness), social disconnection (fears of compassion for self, from others, for others; loneliness), perceived threat of COVID-19, post-traumatic growth and traumatic stress. Perceived threat of COVID-19 predicted increased post-traumatic growth and traumatic stress. Social connection (compassion and social safeness) predicted higher post-traumatic growth and traumatic stress, whereas social disconnection (fears of compassion and loneliness) predicted increased traumatic symptoms only. Social connection heightened the impact of perceived threat of COVID-19 on post-traumatic growth, while social disconnection weakened this impact. Social disconnection magnified the impact of the perceived threat of COVID-19 on traumatic stress. These effects were consistent across all countries. Social connection is key to how people adapt and cope with the worldwide COVID-19 crisis and may facilitate post-traumatic growth in the context of the threat experienced during the pandemic. In contrast, social disconnection increases vulnerability to develop post-traumatic stress in this threatening context. Public health and Government organizations could implement interventions to foster compassion and feelings of social safeness and reduce experiences of social disconnection, thus promoting growth, resilience and mental wellbeing during and following the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the globe. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, limiting face-to-face interaction is the best strategy for reducing the spread of COVID-19. We investigate the impact of social distancing on social connection and well-being, while also considering the moderating influence of smartphone use. In a survey of 400 students, the study presented herein finds that smartphone use attenuates the negative impact of social distancing on social connection and well-being. Contrary to popular sentiments regarding the influence of smartphone use on well-being, increased smartphone use during the pandemic may foster social connection and well-being. Overall, the research presented provides evidence that the perceived loss of social connection with others is not a de facto outcome of social distancing. The study’s findings have important implications for public policymakers, government officials, and others, including consumer researchers. These implications include stressing the important role technology can play in staying socially connected during the current pandemic and the importance of reframing “social distancing” as “physical distancing with social connectedness”.