RESUMEN
Social research highlights the stability of cultural beliefs, broadly arguing that population-level changes are uncommon and mostly explained by cohort replacement rather than individual-level change. We find evidence suggesting that cultural change may also occur rapidly in response to an economically and socially transformative period. Using data collected just before and after the outbreak of Covid-19 in the U.S., we explore whether cultural beliefs about essential and non-essential occupations are dynamic in the face of an exogenous social and economic shock. Using a sample of respondents whose characteristics match the U.S. Census on sex, age, and race/ethnicity, we fielded surveys measuring cultural beliefs about 85 essential and non-essential occupations using the evaluation, potency, and activity (EPA) dimensions from the Affect Control Theory paradigm. We expected that EPA ratings of essential work identities would increase due to positive media coverage of essential occupations as indispensable and often selfless roles in the pandemic, while EPA ratings of non-essential identities would decline. Our findings show patterns that are both clear and inconsistent with our predictions. For both essential and non-essential occupations, almost all statistically significant changes in mean evaluation and potency were negative; activity showed relatively little change. Changes in evaluation scores were more negative for non-essential occupations than essential occupations. Results suggest that pervasive and persistent exogenous events are worth investigating as potential sources of episodic cultural belief change.
RESUMEN
Objective: An explorative study focusing on the process of a Cardiac Rehabilitation Psychodynamic Group Intervention (CR-PGI) addressed to myocardial infarction (MI) patients is discussed. The study aimed at analyzing whether the treatment based on CR-PGI serves as a communicational context within which MI patients are enabled to explore new interpretations of their post-infarction condition. Methods: The intervention, divided into 12 weekly one-hour group sessions, was addressed to MI patients recruited within a Public Hospital of southern Italy. Each session was audio-recorded and lexical correspondence analysis (LCA) was applied to the verbatim transcripts, in order to provide a map of the evolution of the communication exchange occurring over the 12 sessions. Results: The findings showed that the discourses associated to the first eight sessions differed from the discourses of the last four sessions. Two main transitions occurred. The first concerns the response to the infarction, first interpreted as a process of affective elaboration and afterwards as practical management of the functional aspects associated with the condition of MI patients. The second concerns the nature of the change and contrasts a lifestyle-oriented model with a social role approach, which refers to social, legal, and medical practices related to the acknowledgment of being an MI patient. Conclusion: The findings offer preliminary support to the capacity of CR-PGI to work as a context where new meanings for the biographical rupture of the MI can be explored. Consistently with the rationale of the model, the intervention seems to have promoted the emergence of new ways of feeling and understanding one's condition.