Socio-affective and cognitive predictors of social adaptation in vulnerable contexts

Abstract

People living in vulnerable environments face a harder set of challenges adapting to their context. Nevertheless, an important number of them adapt successfully. However, which cognitive and socio-affective variables are specifically related to these variations in social adaptation in vulnerable contexts has not been fully understood nor directly addressed. Here we evaluated socio-affective variables (anxious attachment style, internal locus of control, self-esteem and stress) and cognitive variables (fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, working memory, numeracy, probabilistic reasoning and logical reasoning) to explain variations in social adaptation in a sample of 232 adults living in vulnerable contexts ( M = 42.3, SD = 14.9, equal amount of men and women). Our results show that an important amount of variance in social adaptation can be explained by socio-affective variables, principally by self-esteem, while cognitive variables also contributed significantly. As far as we know, this is one of the first steps towards understanding the role of cognitive and socio-affective features on social adaptation. In the long run, this area of research could play an important role on the assignation of resources to ease people’s integration into society. Our data and R analysis scripts can be found at: https://osf.io/egxy5/ .

Social Adaptation in Context: The Differential Role of Religiosity and Self-Esteem in Vulnerable vs. Non-vulnerable Populations – A Registered Report Study

“…Religiosity has been shown, for instance, to ameliorate the repercussions of childhood poverty on self-esteem ( Henderson, 2016 ). High self-esteem, in turn, protects from the negative effects of poverty and stress ( Henderson, 2016 ; Moksnes et al, 2016 ; Neely-Prado et al, 2019 ). For example, self-esteem has been shown to attenuate the negative effects of poverty on hippocampal gray matter volume ( Wang et al, 2016 ).…”

“…However, what determines the presence of high self-esteem and high social adaptation? We have seen that high self-esteem serves as social adaptation positively in vulnerable contexts ( Neely-Prado et al, 2019 ). However, it is possible that this will also be the case for people that live in non-vulnerable contexts.…”

“…In Chile particularly, 20.7% of the population lives under conditions of multidimensional poverty ( Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, 2018 ), a category that takes into account access of people to other aspects beyond income, such as education, health, and job conditions ( Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, 2015 ). This population varies in its levels of social adaptation as well ( Neely-Prado et al, 2019 ). Thus, testing the effects of religiosity on social adaptation in a sample of Chilean people who live in vulnerable contexts compared to a non-vulnerable sample could further insight into the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects of religiosity on social adaptation of people when living in contexts characterized by chronic stress and poverty.…”

The impact of social adjustment policy on Syrian refugees

“…Social adjustment policy: Intended to organized and purposeful process to help the individual to abide by the ethics of the community and keep up with social standards and to interact with others to ensure a balance between the individual and the social framework in which he lives (Neely-Prado et al, 2019;Terziev, 2019). For the purpose of this study, adaptation policy are procedurally defined as the combination of efforts Jordan continuously provides to Syrian refugees to help them overcome the effects of asylum and contribute to their mental health and community integration.…”

What Really Matters for Social Adaptation Among Left-Behind Children in China? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Social adaptation refers to the capacity to compromise, relate, confront and to cooperate with the environment and others (Samadi & Sohrabi, 2016). Social adaptation is of great significance to individuals and is closely related to various developmental outcomes, such as academic achievement, future job, life quality and physically and mentally healthy (Neely-Prado, Navarrete, & Huepe, 2019).…”