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Suicidality among Turkish Adolescents: Comparing Durkheim's and Tarde's Perspectives (open access)

Suicidality among Turkish Adolescents: Comparing Durkheim's and Tarde's Perspectives

Suicidality is an important problem among adolescents. This study compares Durkheim's and Tarde's perspectives on suicide. While the Durkheimian perspective alleges that integration, regulation, and anomie play the major role on adolescent suicidality, Tarde's theory considers imitation as the most important factor affecting suicidality. Durkheim suggests that individuals with higher integration and regulation are less likely to commit suicide. Individuals with less integration and regulation, on the other hand, are more likely to experience anomie and higher suicidality. Tarde claims that individuals with suicidal peers are more likely to commit suicide. In particular, the effects of school integration, family integration, peer integration, religious integration, neighborhood integration, family regulation, anomie, and suicide imitation on adolescent suicidality in Turkey are examined using binary logistics regression in the current attempt. The results indicate that school integration, family integration, and religious integration have significant negative effects on adolescents' suicidality whereas suicide imitation has a positive effect. The results of the study are expected to help to prevention programs purposed at reducing suicidality among adolescents.
Date: August 2018
Creator: Gurbuz, Suheyl
System: The UNT Digital Library
Religious Identity and Interreligious Communications: Predicting In-Group and Outgroup Bias with Topic-Sentiment Analysis (open access)

Religious Identity and Interreligious Communications: Predicting In-Group and Outgroup Bias with Topic-Sentiment Analysis

Intergroup relations and the factors affecting them constitute a subject of recurring interest within the academic community. Social identity theory suggests that group membership and the value we assign to it drives the expression of in-group favoritism and outgroup prejudice, among other intergroup phenomena. The present study examines how (ir)religious identities are related to topic-sentiment polarization in the form of positive in-group and negative outgroup bias during interreligious debates in YouTube commentaries. Drawing from the propositions of social identity theory, six hypotheses were tested. The data for the study, a product of a natural experiment, are comments posted on YouTube commentary sections featuring videos of interreligious debates between (a) Christian and atheist or (b) Christian and Muslim speakers. Using topic-sentiment analysis, a multistage method of topic modeling with latent semantic analysis (LSA) and sentiment analysis, 52,607 comments, for the Christian - atheist debates, and 24,179 comments, for the Christian - Muslim debates, were analyzed. The results offer support (or partial support) to the hypotheses demonstrating identity-specific instances of topic-sentiment polarization to the predicted direction. The study offers valuable insights for the relevance of social identity theory in real-world interreligious interactions, while the successful application of topic-sentiment analysis lends support for …
Date: August 2018
Creator: Grigoropoulou, Nikolitsa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Chronic Homelessness and the Aging Population: Findings in a Homeless Sample from Arkansas (open access)

Chronic Homelessness and the Aging Population: Findings in a Homeless Sample from Arkansas

Understanding underlying mechanisms and pathways that lead to chronic homelessness would help develop intervention strategies that could help prevent subsequent episodes of homelessness. Quantitative data for this cross-sectional study was gathered by interviewing individuals who were homeless in the State of Arkansas, using a structured survey between 2007 and 2011. Qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured interviews between 2016 and 2018. Chi-square statistics and a multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze the quantitative data, while phenomenological methods were used to analyze the qualitative data. Nearly half of the study participants identified themselves as being chronically homeless. Chronically homeless adults in this region were significantly more likely to be older men with no family ties, more likely to be victims of domestic violence, have higher rates of physical health problems, and have alcohol and substance abuse problems. Results from the multivariate nominal regression revealed that individuals who reported themselves as chronically homeless were more likely to be in the 50 years or older age group. In addition, study findings highlighted a dynamic interplay between three biopsychosocial risk factors for homelessness. Fostering development of inclusive sustainable communities, intergenerational relationships, and shared housing practices could help ease such social inequities and …
Date: December 2018
Creator: Chekuri, Lakshminarayana
System: The UNT Digital Library