sociology

With the flu season creeping in, we’re all looking for ways to improve our health.  In Windsor, sociologists Reza Nakhaie and Robert Arnold have found answer—love.

Sociology professor Reza Nakhaie and colleague Robert Arnold studied the effect of social capital — relationships with friends, family and community — on health.

Their findings, published recently in the journal Social Science and Medicine, reveal that warm fuzzies can actually do a body good.

The Montreal Gazzette elaborated on some of these findings.

Nakhaie and Arnold’s study showed that love is the key aspect of social capital affecting changes in health status.

The researchers’ definition of love included romantic love, familial love and divine love — the sense of loving and being loved by God. The main predictors of love were being married, monthly contact with family, attendance at religious services and being born in Canada.

Their study even found that the positive effects of love were three times stronger than the negative effects of daily smoking.  But,

Nakhaie and Arnold said their study isn’t just a feel-good story; it could have policy implications for the Canadian government. “Policies aimed at family support and family unification, for example, through immigration policies, (and) efforts to minimize the disruptions of divorce, appear important for the health of Canadians,” they wrote.

The researchers were quick to point out that we mustn’t stop worrying about meeting basic needs such as a stable food supply, and that the government shouldn’t cancel its anti-smoking programs. “What we’re really saying is that it’s time that the older sociological tradition of giving more attention to love was brought back to the forefront,” Arnold said.

How do businesses affect neighborhood crime rates?  Some people would answer this question by asserting that the increased foot traffic that businesses bring to neighborhoods translates into more eyes to curb crime.  According to others, residents withdraw into their homes to avoid crowds, which could make crimes more likely. 

To test these opposing ideas, Christopher Browning and his Ohio State colleagues examined 1999-2001 rates of homicide, aggravated assault and robbery in 184 census tracts in Columbus, Ohio; and Psych Central News reported on their findings.

Neighborhoods that combine residential and business developments have lower levels of some types of violent crime[homocide and aggravated assault]…The findings were equally true in impoverished areas as they were in more affluent neighborhoods, possibly offering city planners and politicians a new option in improving crime-afflicted areas, according to the researchers.

But, neighborhood density also plays a role.

In sparsely populated neighborhoods, increases in business-residential density initially lead to more frequent violent crimes.  However, once the building density reached a certain threshold, certain types of violent crime began to decline.

As Christopher Browning put it, “A residential neighborhood needs more than the addition of one or two businesses to see any positive impact on violent crime.”

The researchers are hopeful that bringing businesses into neighborhoods could help cut back on some violent crimes.

As the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, Salon‘s Matt Davis examined the New Orleans of today.  Unlike much of the nation, New Orleans has recently being going through an economic boom.   The number of economically disadvantaged people in the Orleans Parish has halved to 68,000 over the last five years, and the median household income has been rising.

Yet, these statistics are not as positive as they seem.  Instead, they are largely the result of poor residents leaving New Orleans after Katrina and not returning.

“By most measures, it’s quite clear that the 100,000 people who are missing are the poorest and darkest former residents of the city,” says Rachel Luft, professor of sociology at the University of New Orleans. “And they are being replaced by a slew of YURPs, or young urban redevelopment professionals, who tend to be whiter, wealthier and better educated than the traditional residents of New Orleans. I think they’re being held up as the great white hope for rebuilding the city.”

Many of these “YURPs” are participating in volunteer programs like Teach for America.  Others are participating in celebrity-run charities like Brad Pitt’s organization.

…Brad Pitt’s charity, the Make It Right foundation, has acquired the nickname the “Make It White” foundation, and has drawn quiet criticism for foisting $350,000 Frank Gehry-designed houses on poor black property owners in the Lower Ninth Ward, who may well, at some point, see an incentive to sell out and realize the nonprofit’s equity in their homes.

Today, New Orleans hosts 354,850 residents, which is almost 78% of its pre-Katrina population.  Yet, only 60% of these residents are black, compared to 67% before the storm.

USA Today recently reported on a controversial new study that surveyed 642 heterosexual adults in Chicago and found that casual hook ups can lead to rewarding, long-term relationships.

University of Iowa researchers analyzed relationship surveys and found that average relationship quality was higher for people who took it slowly than for those who became sexually involved in “hook-ups,” casual dating, or “friends with benefits” relationships.

Yet, according to sociologist Anthony Paik, having sex early in the relationship did not cause the disparity.

When he factored out people who weren’t interested in getting serious, he found that those who became sexually involved as friends or acquaintances and were open to a serious relationship were just as happy as those who dated but delayed having sex.

To measure the quality of the relationship, the respondents answered questions about how much they loved their partners, their satisfaction with intimacy in the relationship, the relationship’s future, and how their lives would be different if the relationship ended.

While the study did suggest that rewarding relationships were possible for couples who delayed sex, Paik noted that:

It’s also possible for true love to emerge if things start off with a more Sex and the City approach, when people spot each other across the room, become sexually involved and then build a relationship.

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.

Lest you think that sociologists are not discovering things relevant to your day-to-day life, rest assured. Sociologist Dan Myers of Notre Dame, along with his son, claims to have discovered the shortest possible Monopoly game.  As reported on NPR:

The shortest possible game of Monopoly requires only four turns, nine rolls of the dice, and twenty-one seconds, Daniel J. Myers, a professor of sociology at Notre Dame University, told NPR’s Robert Siegel…

In short, here’s what has to happen:

“One player moves around the board very quickly, to buy Boardwalk and Park Place, and places houses on them,” Myers explained. “And the other one ends up drawing a Chance card that sends them to Boardwalk, and they don’t have enough money to pay the rent with three houses, and the game is over.”

So, what is the statistical probability of that particular game happening?

The odds are very, very, very slim.

Statistically speaking, it would happen “once every 253,899,891,671,040 games,” Josh Whitford, an assistant professor of sociology at Columbia University, says.

Not only is this discovery fun, it’s also not without its sociological parallels. From Myers’ interview with NPR’s Robert Siegel:

SIEGEL: Monopoly, famously, was popular in the Great Depression, when people were going broke. And now, you’ve come back during the Great Recession of the 21st century, with this theory.

Mr. MYERS: Yeah, well, there have been some comments out on the blogosphere about how it’s representative of what’s going on in our economy, that people could go bankrupt so quickly. We didn’t intend to parallel but certainly, it’s been drawn by a number of people out there.

Myers’ next project will be the shortest possible game of Risk.

SIEGEL: Well, what will fill the void, now, that’s occupied you for the past few weeks?

Mr. MYERS: Well, we’ve been getting suggestions from those out in the blog world. So the next one is to try to play the shortest possible game of Risk.

SIEGEL: Which you think might be more complicated or…

Mr. MYERS: I think it will because making someone go bankrupt isn’t quite as complicated as world domination.

What could decorative rocks and park benches have to do with sociology? The San Francisco Chronicle suggests one possibility:

For Jeffrey Miller, landscape architecture is more than just plants, waterfalls and decorative rocks. For Miller, the founder of San Francisco’s Miller Company Landscape Architects, it’s about uniting living spaces and bringing people together.

“My impetus to be a landscape architect came out of a question – how to design social and public space so that there were better relationships between people,” he said. “It wasn’t a nature-based beginning, it came from more of a sociological perspective.”

Since forming Miller Company in 1980, the former sociology student and filmmaker has been involved with some of the more dramatically landscaped residential communities in the Bay Area.

Miller applies his sociological imagination to landscaping by envisioning public spaces as opportunities for social interaction and connection, especially in big cities.

Ultimately, Miller realizes that the outdoor space of a development is almost always larger than the interior space, and what you do with that is as important as creating comfortable living rooms and spacious kitchens.

“The largest space that we have with these projects is everything that’s outside of the buildings,” he said. “So the care and design of the world outside of buildings is tremendously important to the way we live, especially in urban places. This is kind of our public living room – what we have outside – and the more we can create sociable environments for communities coming together, the better social environment we’re going to have.”

Immigration researcher, Marta Tienda, was recently profiled on NJ.com:

She is one of the world’s foremost sociologists, an achievement she insists has little to do with genius and everything to do with “trying harder than everybody else.”

“What I bring to the table is proof that anybody can make it if they do the work,” says Tienda, 59. “I want what I am and where I came from to resonate with people, particularly young Hispanic women.” …

Tienda’s road to excellence began as a child migrant worker in the farm fields of the Midwest, where she picked vegetables alongside her three sisters, brother and her father, an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

It is a journey that involved loss, sacrifice and decades of 18-hour workdays.

At college, she developed a passion for social change:

Tienda studied Spanish literature on a full scholarship at the University of Michigan. Her plan to become a teacher was derailed by a summer job working with immigrants. Tienda discovered she could mediate change, for instance, when she convinced growers it was in their best interest to provide day care for workers. She vowed to become “a problem solver.”

She recognized that sociological research could be a tool to help improve the lives of Hispanic people in the U.S.:

For more than 20 years, Tienda has done just that, although her research has expanded to cover other minorities.

Her seminal work, “The Hispanic Population of the United States,” was published in 1987 and is still used in college classrooms. Analyzing demographic patterns over a 20-year period, it was the first authoritative description of this country’s diverse Hispanic population. It led to a professorship for Tienda at the University of Chicago.

There, she helped rebuild the population studies office into a world-renowned research center and eventually became chairwoman of the sociology department. She collaborated with Israeli sociologist Haya Stier on another benchmark study — “The Color of Opportunity: Pathways to Family, Welfare and Work,” published in 2001. Based on a survey of Chicago’s racially diverse, inner city poor, it documented ways in which race limited economic opportunity.

Her strengths, colleagues say, lie in the breadth of her knowledge, her grasp of the mathematics that drive quantitative demographic research and, of course, that prodigious energy.

HBO’s “The Wire” continues to inspire sociological inquiry. According to the Times Higher Education,

Drugs, guns and institutional corruption may be standard fare on the streets of Baltimore, the setting of the cult television show The Wire, but they are surely far removed from most academics’ working lives.

This week, however, scholars are convening at Leeds Town Hall to analyse the HBO show, broadcast in the UK on FX and BBC Two, as an example of “social science fiction”.

The conference has attracted almost 50 papers and an international audience of more than 100, with sessions such as “It ain’t about right, it’s about money” by Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and “A man must have a code: the masculine ethics of snitching and not-snitching”, by Thomas Ugelvik, from the University of Oslo’s department of criminology and sociology of law.

Why does the show garner so much interest among social scientists?

The conference was organised, Professor Burrows said, to take advantage of this interest at a time when academics in the field were being urged to do more to develop “public sociology”.

“We were spending more time talking about the show than we were about work, so we thought we’d try to combine the two,” he said.

“We spend hours and hours (as academic sociologists) writing papers that not many people read, but actually many of the issues that we try to write about – particularly people who work in urban or political studies – can be dealt with more analytically in entertainment.”

The show’s broad public appeal does seem to get people outside of academia excited about social science:

“The show appeals to academics, people in the media and politicians because it talks to many of their concerns, but actually it’s far more ubiquitous than that,” he explained.

“I’ve been struck by how many young kids have got into it, usually because they think it’s about bad language, drugs and violence, but actually – and I’ve spoken to my own teenage children and their friends about this – it gets them thinking seriously about politics, culture, race. Then, suddenly, sociology, economics and political science are a little bit more sexy than perhaps they thought they were.”