CONTEXT Most research on heterosexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has focused on women. However, heterosexual transmission of STDs cannot be prevented without a better understanding of men's, as well as women's, sexual beliefs and behaviors. METHODS Heterosexually active men's beliefs about four methods of STD prevention--abstinence, mutual monogamy, use...

INTRODUCTION Breastfeeding is recommended exclusively for the first 6 months after birth, with continued breastfeeding for at least 2 years. Yet prevalence of these recommendations is low globally, although it is an effective and cost-effective way to prevent serious infections and chronic illness. Previous studies have reported that social support greatly influences breastfeeding, but there is...

Schools are overloaded with health promotion programs that, altogether, focus on a broad array of behavioral domains, including substance abuse, sexuality and nutrition. Although the specific content of programs varies according to the domain focus, programs usually address similar concepts: knowledge, attitudinal beliefs, social influences and skills. This apparent conceptual overlap between b...

Prosocial norms like reciprocity, social responsibility, altruism, and volunteerism are ethical standards and beliefs that youth development programs often want to promote. This paper reviews evolutionary, social-cognitive, and developmental theories of prosocial development and analyzes how young people learn and adopt prosocial norms. The paper showed that very few current theories explicitly...

1 Norms It is correct to believe that Steinbeck wrote East of Eden, incorrect to believe that Updike wrote Cannery Row. It is right to believe that tomatoes are a fruit, wrong to believe that apples are a vegetable. More generally, true beliefs are correct or right, false beliefs are incorrect or wrong. This suggests that a norm of truth governs the state or attitude of belief. Since it is wron...

South Africa leads the world with the number of people infected with HIV. Even with all attempts that have been made to curb HIV, it is still evident that new infections are on the rise. Condom use remains one of the best tools against this challenge yet a small number of sexually active men use them. This study investigates the psychosocial correlates of the intention to use condoms among youn...

Introduction: As health professionals, physicians are accountablefor their professional practice. The aim of this study was to explainthe medical students’ motivation to attain social accountability inmedical schools, based on the experience of both students andfaculties.Methods: We conducted a qualitative conventional contentanalysis research in Shiraz Unive...

The purpose of this research is to test whether descriptive norms, or cognitions about typical beliefs, values, and behaviors of one’s group, can explain cultural influence in the domains of blame attribution and harm perception. In Study 1, using participants from the United States and South Korea, the authors find that individuals with lower (vs. higher) collectivistic descriptive norms ascri...

In this abstract we consider dialogues that have a normative aspect. A dialogue is regulated by norms, but can also establish new norms. Certain utterances ‘count as’ a particular dialogue move in some dialogue game, which creates obligations and permissions for the participants. But norms do not operate in isolation; we study their relation to mental attitudes of participants, in particular be...

Background Evidence suggests adolescent self-esteem is influenced by beliefs of how individuals in their reference group perceive them. However, few studies examine how gender- and violence-related social norms affect self-esteem among refugee populations. This paper explores relationships between gender inequitable and victim-blaming social norms, personal attitudes, and self-esteem among adol...