Simulating the Effect of Social Influence on Collective Decision-making: The Case of Educator Reporting of Child Abuse

The dissertation is directed toward a simulation study of social influence in small, task-oriented, groups composed of education professionals of differing status who hold differing beliefs about what constitutes the reportable physical abuse of elementary students by parents. It is asserted on philosophical grounds that simulation allows the development and refinement of computational, process-based, models that reflect the stratified nature of social and educational reality. More practically, simulation makes it possible to trace socio-cultural processes over time rather than simply settle for an input-output analysis. The possibility of more adequate explanation, and transformation, of social and educational systems makes simulation relatively superior to other research methods.Persons are modeled as computational objects that participate in social relations. The simulation is based on the social-psychological theory of expectation states and is expressly framed to allow comparison of: (1) a static model and process model of social influence and (2) the social theories of Giddens and Archer regarding the timing of social tie formation. National data are used to formulate models of professional belief concerning N = 111 cases of reported physical abuse. The chief findings are: (1) as applied to the group task of child abuse reporting, the collective decision outcomes obtained from the two models of social influence disagree by a number greater than that expected by chance alone, and (2) as modeled, there is essentially no difference in the simulated collective decision outcomes generated under each theory concerning the timing of social tie formation.Several refinements are needed. First, it is important to construct a more adequate characterization of the relevant beliefs of education professionals, best done via the construction of an ethnographic decision model for each professional type. Second, given the importance of social influence, the simulation should be extended to incorporate socio-linguistic, especially argumentative, behavior. Third, it is important to extend the model to take into account the constraining power of belief with respect to social action. These extensions would add believability to the model and its outputs, thus enhancing its power to inform social and educational theory and practice

Children exposed to intimate partner violence: Identifying differential effects of family environment on children\u27s trauma and psychopathology symptoms through regression mixture models

The majority of analytic approaches aimed at understanding the influence of environmental context on children\u27s socioemotional adjustment assume comparable effects of contextual risk and protective factors for all children. Using self-reported data from 289 maternal caregiver-child dyads, we examined the degree to which there are differential effects of severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, yearly household income, and number of children in the family on posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and psychopathology symptoms (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems) among school-age children between the ages of 7–12 years. A regression mixture model identified three latent classes that were primarily distinguished by differential effects of IPV exposure severity on PTS and psychopathology symptoms: (1) asymptomatic with low sensitivity to environmental factors (66% of children), (2) maladjusted with moderate sensitivity (24%), and (3) highly maladjusted with high sensitivity (10%). Children with mothers who had higher levels of education were more likely to be in the maladjusted with moderate sensitivity group than the asymptomatic with low sensitivity group. Latino children were less likely to be in both maladjusted groups compared to the asymptomatic group. Overall, the findings suggest differential effects of family environmental factors on PTS and psychopathology symptoms among children exposed to IPV. Implications for research and practice are discussed

The parent?infant dyad and the construction of the subjective self

Developmental psychology and psychopathology has in the past been more concerned with the quality of self-representation than with the development of the subjective agency which underpins our experience of feeling, thought and action, a key function of mentalisation. This review begins by contrasting a Cartesian view of pre-wired introspective subjectivity with a constructionist model based on the assumption of an innate contingency detector which orients the infant towards aspects of the social world that react congruently and in a specifically cued informative manner that expresses and facilitates the assimilation of cultural knowledge. Research on the neural mechanisms associated with mentalisation and social influences on its development are reviewed. It is suggested that the infant focuses on the attachment figure as a source of reliable information about the world. The construction of the sense of a subjective self is then an aspect of acquiring knowledge about the world through the caregiver's pedagogical communicative displays which in this context focuses on the child's thoughts and feelings. We argue that a number of possible mechanisms, including complementary activation of attachment and mentalisation, the disruptive effect of maltreatment on parent-child communication, the biobehavioural overlap of cues for learning and cues for attachment, may have a role in ensuring that the quality of relationship with the caregiver influences the development of the child's experience of thoughts and feelings

Attachment and reflective function: Their role in self-organization

The paper traces the relationship between attachment processes and the development of the capacity to envision mental states in self and others. We suggest that the ability to mentalize, to represent behavior in terms of mental states, or to have "a theory of mind" is a key determinant of self-organization which is acquired in the context of the child's early social relationships. Evidence for an association between the quality of attachment relationship and reflective function in the parent and the child is reviewed and interpreted in the context of current models of theory of mind development. A model of the development of self-organization is proposed which has at its core the caregiver's ability to communicate understanding of the child's intentional stance. The implications of the model for pathological self-development are explored, with specific reference to the consequences of maltreatment

Disrupting Illicit Supply Networks: New Applications of Operations Research and Data Analytics to End Modern Slavery

Report from a 2017 National Science Foundation workshop on promising research directions for applications of operations research and data analytics toward the disruption of illicit supply networks like human trafficking. The workshop was funded by the NSF’s Operations Engineering (ENG) and the Law & Social Sciences Program (SBE) under grant # CMMI-1726895. The report addresses the opportunity to apply advances from the fields of operations research, management science, analytics, machine learning, and data science toward the development of disruptive interventions against illicit networks. Such an extension of the current research agenda for trafficking would move understanding of such dynamic systems from descriptive characterization and predictive estimation toward improved dynamic operational control.Bureau of Business Researc

The mentalizing approach to psychopathology: State of the art and future directions

Mentalizing is the capacity to understand others and oneself in terms of internal mental states. It is assumed to be underpinned by four dimensions: automatic–controlled, internally–externally focused, self–other, and cognitive–affective. Research suggests that mental disorders are associated with different imbalances in these dimensions. Addressing the quality of mentalizing as part of psychosocial treatments may be helpful for individuals with various mental disorders. We suggest that mentalizing is a helpful transtheoretical and transdiagnostic concept explaining vulnerability to psychopathology and its treatment. This review summarizes the mentalizing approach to psychopathology from a developmental socioecological evolutionary perspective. We then focus on the application of the mentalizing approach to personality disorders, and review studies that have extended this approach to other types of psychopathology, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. We summarize core principles of mentalization-based treatments and preventive interventions, and the evidence for their effectiveness. We conclude with recommendations for future research

SUPPORTING DECISION MAKING FOR THE PREVENTION OF CHILD MALTREATMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA

Child maltreatment is a distressingly prevalent problem in the United States, with over 674,000 children estimated to be witness to domestic violence or otherwise affected by abuse or neglect in federal fiscal year 2017. While evidence-based programs exist to prevent child maltreatment, only a small proportion of families receive such services. Tools are needed to support decision makers when they are assessing their local context and selecting discrete evidence-based programs to reduce child maltreatment. This research addresses three aims in order to support such decision making in North Carolina (NC): 1) To understand how county-level indicators of child and family well-being co-vary using data from the U.S. Census and RWJF County Health Rankings; 2) To collaboratively develop a systems informed hypothesis of child maltreatment risk and protective factors using a Group Model Building (GMB) approach with NC stakeholders, and structure an early quantitative system dynamics simulation model to compare the potential effects of three evidence-based child maltreatment prevention programs, and 3) To develop and pilot test a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool to assess whether interventions are differentially ranked with a manual ranking compared to ranks calculated with the tool. In Aim 1, we find that latent profiles of North Carolina counties can be characterized by low, moderate, and high risk, but the moderate risk profile is also associated with the highest level of predicted drug overdose deaths and with highest mean of predicted child maltreatment reports. In Aim 2, stakeholders emphasized the role of parental trauma and access to peer supports, and the simulation model offered preliminary insights into the importance of system shocks such as newborns. In Aim 3, over half of decision makers (55%) ranked the three interventions differently with their manual ranking compared to rankings calculated with the MCDA tool. The results of this research suggest that stakeholders conceptualize of child maltreatment risk factors in a multi-level, interconnected manner, and that decision support tools such as the ones presented here can aid with facilitating, not replacing, community conversations around how best to address child maltreatment within the local context.Doctor of Philosoph

The long‐term effectiveness and cost‐effectiveness of public health interventions; how can we model behavior? A review

The effectiveness and cost of a public health intervention is dependent on complex human behaviors, yet health economic models typically make simplified assumptions about behavior, based on little theory or evidence. This paper reviews existing methods across disciplines for incorporating behavior within simulation models, to explore what methods could be used within health economic models and to highlight areas for further research. This may lead to better-informed model predictions. The most promising methods identified which could be used to improve modeling of the causal pathways of behavior-change interventions include econometric analyses, structural equation models, data mining and agent-based modeling; the latter of which has the advantage of being able to incorporate the non-linear, dynamic influences on behavior, including social and spatial networks. Twenty-two studies were identified which quantify behavioral theories within simulation models. These studies highlight the importance of combining individual decision making and interactions with the environment and demonstrate the importance of social norms in determining behavior. However, there are many theoretical and practical limitations of quantifying behavioral theory. Further research is needed about the use of agent-based models for health economic modeling, and the potential use of behavior maintenance theories and data mining

African American Women’s Experiences of Parental Discipline Post Residential Substance Abuse Treatment

Substance use amongst African American mothers has been linked to a number of adverse effects in parental practices, including higher levels of maltreatment, strained family dynamics, delays with the child’s development, and harsh forms of discipline. There is an abundance of literature on how parenting styles affect children, yet little is known about the influence of parental discipline post discharge from a substance use residential treatment facility, specifically among African American mothers. Examining the impact of substance use on African American mothers’ parenting is important as experts in the field such as behavioral health therapists can tailor therapeutic interventions to improve their parenting skills after discharge from treatment to maintain sobriety. Guided by social cognitive theory, the purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of African American women post treatment from a residential facility who completed parenting classes and the outcome of implementing learned discipline practices. Experiential anecdotes of data collected from semistructured interviews with eight participants were hand coded for emergent themes; analysis generated four essential themes and 10 subthemes of experience. This study’s implications for positive social change include contributing to the knowledge base about the process of amending parental discipline experienced by African American mothers who completed substance use treatment at a residential facility. Findings may improve support services to prevent adverse long-term effects of substance use, develop culturally relevant interventions, and promote resilience to avoid relapse

Artificial Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy

Attention in the AI safety community has increasingly started to include strategic considerations of coordination between relevant actors in the field of AI and AI safety, in addition to the steadily growing work on the technical considerations of building safe AI systems. This shift has several reasons: Multiplier effects, pragmatism, and urgency. Given the benefits of coordination between those working towards safe superintelligence, this book surveys promising research in this emerging field regarding AI safety. On a meta-level, the hope is that this book can serve as a map to inform those working in the field of AI coordination about other promising efforts. While this book focuses on AI safety coordination, coordination is important to most other known existential risks (e.g., biotechnology risks), and future, human-made existential risks. Thus, while most coordination strategies in this book are specific to superintelligence, we hope that some insights yield “collateral benefits” for the reduction of other existential risks, by creating an overall civilizational framework that increases robustness, resiliency, and antifragility