Category Archives: Sociology

Social factors as part of a medical diagnosis

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This story from the Chicago Tribune tells of Dr. Saul Weiner who has been studying the effect of social circumstances, such as socioeconomic concerns, on medical diagnoses. After one of his own cases, Weiner decided to study the issue further:

Weiner arranged to send actors playing patients into physicians’ offices and discovered that errors occurred in 78 percent of cases when socioeconomic concerns were a significant factor, according to a paper published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Weiner recommends adding a “contextual history” to the physical history that physicians usually document with first-time patients.

Treating the whole person seems like it would produce better results for the patient.

Measuring happiness

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Forbes has released a list of the world’s happiest countries. The story discusses a few important factors in determining happiness, including income and feeling like one’s psychological and social needs are met on a daily basis.

According to the story, here is how Gallup measured happiness between 2005 and 2009:

First they asked subjects to reflect on their overall satisfaction with their lives, and ranked their answers using a “life evaluation” score between 1 and 10. Then they asked questions about how each subject had felt the previous day. Those answers allowed researchers to score their “daily experiences”–things like whether they felt well-rested, respected, free of pain and intellectually engaged.

It appears Gallup is working with two different dimensions of happiness:

1. Overall life satisfaction. Have you been able to meet your goals?

2. Happiness on a day-to-day basis. Are you relatively free to enjoy life each day?

It is interesting to note that relatively few people in any of the countries are categorized as “suffering.” Additionally, there is not a whole lot of variation in the daily experience index (1-10 scale).

Elite college admission practices

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Last year, two Princeton sociologists (T.J. Espenshade and A.W. Radford) published a book titled No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. The book has drawn a number of comments in the blogosphere.

The book was mentioned in the New York Times this past Sunday as Ross Douthat wrote about “the roots of white anxiety.” Douthat summarizes the book’s findings:

Unsurprisingly, they found that the admissions process seemed to favor black and Hispanic applicants, while whites and Asians needed higher grades and SAT scores to get in. But what was striking, as Russell K. Nieli pointed out last week on the conservative Web site Minding the Campus, was which whites were most disadvantaged by the process: the downscale, the rural and the working-class.

According to Douthat, these decisions have consequences: “This breeds paranoia, among elite and non-elites alike” and “Among the highly educated and liberal, meanwhile, the lack of contact with rural, working-class America generates all sorts of wild anxieties about what’s being plotted in the heartland.”

Granted, this study was restricted to eight elite universities. But many Americans have an image of liberal academia that bears little relation to average lives of shopping at Wal-Mart, living in suburbia, and going to church.

Expanding your “weak ties” on Facebook

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An article from NewScientist looks at the usefulness of “weak ties” among Facebook friends. This term dates back to a very influential sociology paper from the early 1970s:

In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter showed how the loose acquaintances, or “weak ties”, in our social network punch far above their weight in their influence over our behaviour and choices (American Journal of Sociology, vol 78, p 1360). Granovetter found that a significant percentage of people get their jobs as a result of information provided by a weak tie. Subsequent studies have revealed that weak ties benefit our health and happiness. Granovetter suggested that this is because these friends-of-friends aren’t like you, yet they are likely to be similar enough in social outlook and personal interests to have a positive influence.

Interesting suggestion in the article that we can only handle about 150 “genuine social relationships.” Even with tools like Facebook, relationships still require more focused interaction and we are limited in this regard. So if we have more than 150 Facebook friends, are we simply fooling ourselves?

Sites like Facebook allow for a broad friendship network with little maintenance needed by either “friend.” A question I have: while these “weak ties” may now be more accessible, how often do people use them to their direct advantage? Say I am looking for a job – can I find one on Facebook? I have several friends that are selling products or services and this seems to be a good way to get word out.

Assessing the government response to 9/11

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The Washington Post has unveiled a two-year investigation into what the US government has built and developed since September 11, 2001 to counter terrorism and other threats. The overall theme of the investigation (stated here by a retired Army Lt. General): “The result, he added, is that it’s impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities.”

So it appears there is a lot of work being done by lots of people – and the payoff of all of this is unknown.

This is a great issue for someone to solve: how to bring together all kinds of related information (brought in by many people) and make it interpretable and useful.

Slow reading and the Internet

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An article from the Guardian discusses “slow reading” and whether reading on the Internet has made us all stupider.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual tidbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other.

Because of these developments, critical thinking and analysis skills will be vitally important in the 21st century. For many, the problem is no longer getting information – the issue is now how to put it all together.

Defining the Washington elite

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Politico is reporting today on an online poll where they compare opinions of the “Washington elite” vs. other Americans. The main news seems to be the divergent opinions between the two groups but the means of measurement is intriguing as well. To qualify as a Washington elite:

[R]espondents must live within the D.C. metro area, earn more than $75,000 per year, have at least a college degree and be involved in the political process or work on key political issues or policy decisions.

Another point of interest: only 227 Washington elite are in the poll. This is a fairly small group for a typical poll to use for analysis. The margin of error for the Washington elites is 6.53%.

Find the story and full polling results here.

Schooling and race in North Carolina

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Interesting story about schools in North Carolina struggling with this issue: how to create diverse “community schools.” The article details some of the integration efforts and their degrees of success.

A confounding factor: many of the people in the area, nearly 50% in Wake County, were born outside the state and haven’t experienced the long history of integration efforts.

Problems for green technology in America

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Wired explores five reasons why the green tech sector has had a difficult time in the United States.

These five reasons are primarily cultural: green technology faces an image issue. Either dire circumstances or a breakthrough technology might be needed to push forward.

Skin-whitening cream in India

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Yahoo reports on a controversy in India over an ad for Vaseline from Unilever. The campaign was based around having men lighten their Facebook profile pictures.

The ad campaign has drawn attention from around the world as people have both attacked and defended it. The issue is a long-running one in India as it is tied to the caste system and lighter skin people sitting at the top. Skin color has social consequences:

A 2009 poll by an online dating company of 12,000 participants living in Northern India found that they rate skin tone the most important factor in choosing a romantic partner. “Fair skin is generally associated with beauty, greater affluence and increased employability,” writes Riddhi Shah at Salon, who copped to using the creams herself even while criticizing the country’s racist ideas about beauty in her work.

It is interesting that this campaign is targeted toward men as the article suggests this is a recent development in the skin-whitening market in India.