The BBC recently reported on new research that documents the way young boys are negatively affected by gender stereotypes.

Girls believe they are cleverer, better behaved and try harder than boys from the age of four, research suggests.
By the age of eight, boys had also adopted these perceptions, the study from the University of Kent found.

Social psychologist and lead researcher, Bonny Hartley, presented children between the age of four and 10 with a series of statements describing children as being hard working, clever, and timely in the completion of the work. They then chose the silhouette of either a boy or girl depending on which gender they thought the statement most accurately described.

On average, girls of reception age right through to Year 5 said girls were cleverer, performed better, were more focused and were better behaved or more respectful, the study found.Boys in reception, Year 1 and Year 2 gave answers which were equally split between favouring boys and girls, but by Year 3 their beliefs were in line with those of the girls, the researchers said.
Ms Hartley said that children of both genders thought, in general, that adults believed that girls did better than boys at school.

Hartley also documented the immediate impact that gender expectations may have on test performance.

In a separate investigation, she tested two separate groups of children in maths, reading and writing. The first group was told that boys do not perform as well as girls, but the other was not. Boys in the first group performed “significantly worse” than in the second group, which Ms Hartley says suggests that boys’ low performance may be explained in part by low expectations.

The study demonstrates the power of socialization and speaks to the need for teachers to be particularly cognizant of vocalizing any gender-based expectations, as they may create self-fulfilling prophecies.

She also warns against the use of phrases such as “silly boys” and “school boy pranks” or teachers asking “why can’t you sit nicely like the girls?”

The birth rate in the United States hasn’t been this low in 100 years, leading social scientists to speculate on the role the Great Recession might be playing in family planning. The Associated Press reports:

The birth rate dropped for the second year in a row since the recession began in 2007. Births fell 2.6 percent last year even as the population grew, numbers released Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics show.

“It’s a good-sized decline for one year. Every month is showing a decline from the year before,” said Stephanie Ventura, the demographer who oversaw the report.

The birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year. That’s down from 14.3 in 2007 and way down from 30 in 1909, when it was common for people to have big families.

A sociologist explains how the falling Dow might relate to declining birth rates:

“When the economy is bad and people are uncomfortable about their financial future, they tend to postpone having children. We saw that in the Great Depression the 1930s and we’re seeing that in the Great Recession today,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“It could take a few years to turn this around,” he added.

The birth rate dipped below 20 per 1,000 people in 1932 and did not rise above that level until the early 1940s. Recent recessions, in 1981-82, 1990-91 and 2001, all were followed by small dips in the birth rate, according to CDC figures.

Despite this trend, there is no need to panic.

Cherlin said the U.S. birth rate “is still higher than the birth rate in many wealthy countries and we also have many immigrants entering the country. So we do not need to be worried yet about a birth dearth” that would crimp the nation’s ability to take care of its growing elderly population.

Laughter fills our world.  We laugh when we’re happy, when we’re nervous, or when we hear a really funny (or really bad) joke.  Beyond these emotional reactions, laughter can also play a key role in group dynamics and communication, even during events as sobering as a murder trial.

Joann Keyton and Stephenson Beck recently studied the full transcript of jury deliberations in a 2004 Ohio murder trial, and Science Daily shared the results.

“We’re interested in how people communicate within a group in order to accomplish a task, and we saw this as an opportunity to explore the role of laughter in how people signal support — or lack of support — for other people’s positions within a group.” Keyton notes that there is very little research on the role of laughter in communication, particularly when divorced from humor.

They learned that laughter is often used as an intentional, strategic tool to control communication and group dynamics.

For example, one juror was very vocal and made it clear early in the case that she was opposed to the death penalty. In one instance, when that juror agreed with other jury members, one of the other members said “She’s so smart,” resulting in laughter from other members of the group. “That had the effect of further distancing her from the rest of the jury,” Keyton says.

The jurors also used laughter as a way to reduce tension.

…at one point the jury was unclear on whether a sentence related to one of the charges was for 30 days or 30 years. This confusion led to widespread laughter. “The laughter allowed the jurors to release some tension, while also allowing them to acknowledge they had made an error – so they could move forward with that error corrected,” Keyton says.

“Laughter is one way of dealing with ambiguity and tension in situations where a group is attempting to make consequential decisions and informal power dynamics are in play….There are very few opportunities to see group decision making, with major consequences, in a public setting,” Keyton explains. “It is usually done in private, such as in corporate board meetings or judicial proceedings. But laughter is something that occurs frequently, and not only because something is funny. Nobody in the jury was laughing at jokes.”

Contrary to more pessimistic societal assumptions, research has shown that old age often correlates with increased happiness. A recent Washington Post story reports on studies that seek to explain this trend.

One factor that may lead to increased happiness is the emotional and cognitive stability that grows with old age.

Laura Carstensen, a Stanford social psychologist, calls this the “well-being paradox.” Although adults older than 65 face challenges to body and brain, the 70s and 80s also bring an abundance of social and emotional knowledge, qualities scientists are beginning to define as wisdom. As Carstensen and another social psychologist, Fredda Blanchard-Fields of the Georgia Institute of Technology, have shown, adults gain a toolbox of social and emotional instincts as they age. According to Blanchard-Fields, seniors acquire a feel, an enhanced sense of knowing right from wrong, and therefore a way to make sound life decisions.

Wisdom, while long associated with age, has always remained a murky term. Ipsit Vahia, a geriatric psychiatrist at the University of California at San Diego, explains

“[wisdom] involves making decisions that would be to the greater benefit of a larger number of people” and maintaining “an element of pragmatism, not pure idealism. And it would involve some sense of reflection and self-understanding.”

The source of this wisdom and happiness remains subject to debate. Some emphasize neurobiological changes.

An MRI scan cannot isolate a part of the brain associated with wisdom, says Elkhonon Goldberg, a neuropsychologist and author of “The Wisdom Paradox.” Still, he says, the aging brain has a greater sense of “pattern recognition,” the ability to capture a range of similar but nonidentical information, then extract and piece together common features. That, Goldberg says, “gives some old people a cognitive leg up.”

While others attribute the change to social and emotional factors such as the ability to regulate emotions. Psychologist Susanne Scheibbe cites a pragmatic basis for cognitive change.

“Old people are good at shaping everyday life to suit their needs,” explains Scheibe. By carefully pruning their social networks or looking at life in relative terms, older adults maintain cognitive control. And although multiple chronic illnesses that cause functional disability or cognitive decline can affect well-being, most older adults are able to tune out negative information into their late 70s and 80s.

So perhaps there is something to that whole ‘respect your elders’ thing. Or as the Washington Post story concludes

If older adults are predisposed to wisdom, perhaps a graying population means a wiser one.

Nearly one in five Americans think President Obama is a Muslim, according to ABC News:

The new poll from the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 18 percent of those surveyed wrongly identified Obama as Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. At the same time, the number of Americans who knew correctly that Obama is Christian has declined from 48 percent in March 2009 to 34 percent today. But 43 percent of Americans now say they don’t know what Obama’s religion is at all.

The finding has even prompted a response from the White House.

“The president is, obviously, he’s Christian. He prays every day,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said today aboard Air Force One.
“He communicates with his religious advisor every single day,” Burton said. “There’s a group of pastors that he takes counsel from on a regular basis. His faith is very important to him, but it’s not something that’s a topic of conversation every single day.”

Burton said the president has talked “extensively” about his faith in the past and “you can bet he’ll talk about his faith again.” But “making sure Americans know what a devout Christian he is” is not the president’s top priority.

Despite such statements, sociologists have reason to doubt such misperceptions can be so easily overcome.

“I think the reality is that false beliefs spread like gossip more than actual information,” said Andrew Perrin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Perrin’s research has shown that a false perception can spread quickly if people’s friends and neighbors also have heard or believe a similar idea.

“False beliefs propagate when people think others believe them and when they have a supportive source that wants them to hold it,” Perrin said.

Perrin has found that even direct denials of the false information do not always solve the problem.

“In my own research, when [people] get reliable information that discounts these beliefs, they tend to cling to those beliefs more,” Perrin said.

Here in the U.S., we are obsessed with weight.  It’s hard to even go one day without seeing an advertisement for the latest diet or a news story about a celebrity who shed some pounds or put on a few too many.  While this obsession is due in part to our focus on physical appearance, many of us link obesity with poor health outcomes, including death.  However, a recent social epidemiological study highlighted in Miller-McCune examined the factors that lead to early death; and obesity did not make the list.  Instead, those eager to prevent early death should avoid cigarettes, sedentary lifestyles, and even living in poverty.

This does not mean the lead author of the aforementioned study, Paula Lantz, is proposing we all relax and pig out. The University of Michigan social epidemiologist fully recognizes obesity as a national health problem. But her research suggests our current focus on weight is a bit (ahem) narrow and at least somewhat misleading.

Instead, we should look to what causes and exacerbates obesity, such as sugary sodas and our reliance on cars. And, while personal choices factor in, social class also plays a role.

It’s hard to take personal responsibility if you don’t have the money to join a gym and you have no access to healthy food in your immediate neighborhood. The place where you can get the most calories for the least money is McDonald’s. Their food is dirt cheap on a per-calorie basis.

In other words, being poor is hazardous to your health.

Stress processes probably play a role. Chronic stress is not good for immune function. [Difficulties with] housing, transportation, income security — all those factors can produce stress.  Do you have friends and family — people who can actually help you get to the doctor? Is your community organized in such a way that it provides the resources you need?

So, while a focus on obesity is important, we should start focusing on less prominent culprits like poverty.  And, in the meantime, exercise!

Oliver Wang from The Atlantic recently wrote about the complicated relationship between sociologists and the media, an issue at the heart of this Citings and Sightings endeavor:

Here’s an age-old beef between scientists (social or otherwise) and journalists: the former tend to be exceptionally careful about drawing conclusions from their research. It’s one thing to argue, “Data X and Data Y show a relationship,” it’s another thing altogether to actually argue, “Data X is the cause of Data Y.” This is what’s known as the correlation vs. causality distinction and it is absolutely fundamental to any kind of responsible research methodology and discussion.

The problem is, journalists—or perhaps better said, editors—aren’t such big fans of that kind of nuance. They want an attention-grabbing headline that definitively states to the casual reader, “X causes Y.” A headline reading, “X and Y show a relationship but future research is needed to prove a causal link” is not so sexy. And hey, I work in journalism, I understand the importance of a sexy headline …but sexy + responsible are not always soul mates.

One example of this is the post-ASA media interpretation of a study presented by sociologists Bill McCarthy and Eric Grodsky. The eye-catching titles include:

“Study: Teen Sex Won’t Always Hurt Grades” (Time)
“Sex in romantic relationships is harmless” (Times of India)
“How Teen Sex Affects Education” (BusinessWeek)
“Teen sex not always bad for school performance” (AP)

Wang wonders, however, what nuances these intriguing titles may ignore:

Of this batch, all of them insinuate a direct relationship between teen sex and school performance. But you read the actual articles themselves, you get practically no useful information about the study except what the headline implies. Most of these articles are very short, just a few hundred words (if even that) and most barely include anything from the actual researchers (the Time post, for example, has nary a quote), telling the reader what conclusions they’re actually drawing and why. The one article that actually bothers to do any of this is the BusinessWeek post but it too is still relatively short.

Here’s the thing: I’m not saying this study is being reported wrong, i.e. that the headlines actually misinterpret the study. But if I had reported on this, the very first thing I would have done is contact the two lead researchers, UC Davis’ Bill McCarthy and U-Minn’s Eric Grodsky and ask, “couldn’t it be the case that students with high grades are more likely to pursue stable sexual relationships vs. students with low grades are also more likely to engage in casual sex?” In other words, maybe grades and relationship types are linked by some third factor: personality type, home stability, parental oversight, etc.

Now that’s journalism with a sociological eye. The article goes on to take an in-depth look at the research findings from the recent Contexts feature article on “hooking up”. Read the rest.

In June this year, a mixed martial arts (MMA) competitor died as a result of a head injury sustained during a sanctioned bout in South Carolina.  Sociologist David Mayeda, writing for online sports site BleacherReport.com, uses this tragedy as the impetus to reflect upon the intrinsic competitive nature of sport, MMA’s evolving structure, and how society regulates violence in sport.
Mayeda explains that MMA, a rapidly popularizing sport, is by its nature a violent sport.

MMA is at its core, violent. Injuries, even death, are a risk in all sports. Even in non-contact sports, such as long distance running, deaths occur on occasion (though the absolute number of long distance runners is massive in comparison to MMA). However, in most sports, there is not intent to harm. In combat sports, “the intentional use of physical force…against…another person” is required and formally sanctioned.

Even with the brutal nature of the sport, the larger leagues have been efficient at regulating and protecting fighters.

Within the United States, prominent MMA organizations such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Strikeforce have the resources and existing infrastructure to prevent, or at least minimize, the most serious, tragic levels of violence. Earlier this year UFC welterweight contender, Thiago Alves, was forced to withdraw from competition because of a discovered brain irregularity.

However, it is in the smaller and less visible levels of competition, that lack the money and regulation, where the danger lies.

None of the major MMA organizations provide smaller, regional ones with the financial backing that would allow for a more robust medical infrastructure and help prevent the most serious ramifications of sporting violence. Thus, up and coming fighters must gain experience in smaller organizations, where the risky consequences of more serious violence and injury rise.

Mayeda concludes by arguing that the injuries that occur at the smaller leagues must not be written off as collateral damage or disconnected from the popularity of the large MMA leagues that have dominated pay-per-view and made their way on to network television. It is the success at higher levels that is often at the root of the pressure to risk more for less at the lower levels – a lesson applicable to all types of sport.

Professional and semi-pro mixed martial artists – frequently seduced by the financial gains and popularity that the sport’s biggest stars enjoy – should be treated as human beings, not as collateral damage dismissed in the wake of the sport’s growth. Neither society’s thirst for violence nor a sport’s increasing popularity should be cited to justify or excuse athlete safety.

A media shout out for some of the great work being presented at the American Sociological Association’s Annual Meeting right now in Atlanta…

The Chicago Tribune reports on a recent study that contradicts the common perception that kids without siblings have worse social skills than their peers from larger families.

The new study questioned students in grades 7 through 12 at more than 100 schools. This time researchers found that only children were selected as friends by schoolmates just as often as peers with brothers and sisters.

“Anyone who didn’t have that peer interaction at home with siblings gets a lot of opportunities to develop social skills as they go through school,” a co-author of the study, Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, said in a news release.

No one wants to be sad. This can generally be agreed on. However, as it becomes more and more common for anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications to be prescribed, the question becomes what is a socially acceptable level of sadness for a well-functioning member of society to experience? There remains a blurry, but important line between what is considered ‘normal’ grieving and what is classified as a mental disorder or depression.  NPR’s Alix Spiegal recently explored a shift in this line due to changes in the criteria used by the American Psychiatric Association to diagnose depression.

Traditionally, the manual has steered doctors away from diagnosing major depression in people who have just lost a loved one in what’s called “bereavement exclusion.” The idea was that feelings of intense pain were normal, so they shouldn’t be labeled as a mental disorder.
But the new DSM changes this. Buried in the pages is a small but potentially potent alteration that has implications not only for people like Theresa, but ultimately for the way that we think about and understand the emotion of pain.
The DSM committee removed the bereavement exclusion — a small, almost footnote at the bottom of the section that describes the symptoms of major depression — from the manual.

Dr. Kenneth Kendler, a member of the committee behind the change, explains that grief and depression share the same symptoms – lack of sleep, loss of appetite, loss of energy. The key distinction between grief and depression is the amount of time the person experiences the symptoms.

In fact, in the new manual, if symptoms like these persist for more than two weeks, the bereaved person will be considered to have a mental disorder: major depression. And treatment, either therapy or medication, is recommended.

While Kendler believes that this change will only affect a small number, and for the better, Holly Prigerson a research at Harvard University believes otherwise.

“What we found,” Prigerson says, “is that when you follow people — for example, between zero and six months post-loss — their depression symptom levels actually increase over time and peak at about six months post-loss.”
Because grief and depression look so much alike, Prigerson says, she worries that people who are suffering from normal grief will be told that they are sick when they are not, and encouraged to treat their symptoms when they don’t need to.
That is potentially a problem, Prigerson says, because we don’t know whether the pain of normal grief actually helps people to process their loss.

Other experts expand Prigerson’s argument by voicing concern that society is continuing down a path to having an over-diagnosed and over-medicated population where to be sad is to be sick.

Dr. Allen Frances, the famous psychiatrist and a former editor of the DSM, says that more and more, psychiatry is medicalizing our experiences. That is, it is turning emotions that are perfectly normal into something pathological.
“Over the course of time, we’ve become looser in applying the term ‘mental disorder’ to the expectable aches and pains and sufferings of everyday life,” Frances says. “And always, we think about a medication treatment for each and every problem.”
From Frances’ perspective, if you can’t feel intense emotional pain in the wake of the death of your child without it being categorized as a mental disorder, then when in the course of human experience are you allowed to feel intense emotional pain for more than two weeks?