Archive: Feb 2012

Cross-posted at Compassionate Societies.

A new study from Pew, based upon a large national survey, found that people reported a lot more cruelty and the absence of kindness that many would expect. This implies that social networking sites (SNS) could use a lot more compassion.

Among adults, 85% say that their experience on the sites is that people are mostly kind. Fewer teens said the same, only 69%.  More, social networking sites contributed to real life problems: including arguments and physical fights with friends, family members, teachers, or co-workers.  In all categories, teens were about twice as likely to report that SNS got them into trouble:

Racial minority populations encountered an even more cruel environment on SNS. Forty-two percent of Black and 33% of Hispanic SNS users said they frequently or sometimes saw language, images, or humor that they found offensive, compared with 22% of White SNS users.

Interestingly, people who used social networking sites on a daily basis were far more likely to report experiencing negative things:

SNS users also reported positive experiences, suggesting that, for many, social networking is a mixed bag of good and bad:

————————

Ron Anderson, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, has written many books and hundreds of articles, mostly on technology. In his retirement, he is doing research and writing on compassion and suffering and maintains the website CompassionateSocieties.org.

One thing I love about sociology is the way it recognizes human creativity.  It acknowledges our ability to create meaning and invent practices.  Seeing the footage below, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the human ability to constantly innovate.

Via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

During half time of the 2012 Super Bowl, a commercial aired that represents a direct attack against unions and serves as an excellent demonstration of the use of ideology to promote false consciousness. The supposed union workers in the ad complain about unions taking such high union dues and state that they did not vote for the union, suggesting that they don’t want the union and that it does not represent their interests. The commercial’s narrator says “only 10% of people in unions today actually voted to join the union” and encourages people to support the Employee Rights Act, a bill that would make it much harder for workers to join unions and easier to de-certify existing ones (click here if the video isn’t embedding correctly):

The commercial was created by the anti-union Center for Union Facts, an astroturf organization founded by DC lobbyist Richard Berman and supported by big business interests. Astroturf organizations are advocacy groups promoting a political or corporate agenda but designed to make it appear like a grassroots movement. Note that one of the union “actors” in the video is played by Berman himself. These photos show Berman as he appears in the ad and in his normal attire as an anti-union lobbyist:

[Via Republic Report.]

Federal law requires that at least 50% of a company’s workforce vote in favor of the formation of a union, and most union members join unions formed years before, so it’s not surprising that many workers today weren’t involved in the votes that founded their unions. Furthermore, according to independent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, laws like the Employee Rights Act hurt workers by leading to lower pensions; workers in unions actually have higher wages and health benefits because they can use their collective bargaining power to improve their working conditions.

In The German Ideology, Karl Marx argued that “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas … The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production.”  This ad demonstrates the use of ideology, or dominant ideas that help to perpetuate inequality. An advertisement (which cost about $3.5 million to air during the Super Bowl) produced by a large corporate-funded organization is meant to shape workers’ perception of unions in a negative light. With greater wealth (“the means of production”) and access to media (“the means of mental production”), they seek to discourage workers from joining unions, or even to leave those they are already members of, in hopes of making them easier to control. Ultimately, the goal is to convince workers to accept the ideology of the ruling class and act against their own class interests.

—————

Paul Dean is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on social inequality, including his dissertation which examines social responsibility movements that promote more socially responsible and sustainable business practices. He is also co-founder and co-editor of The Sociological Cinema.

Retronaut recently posted a fun collection of vintage photographs of children posing with toys. What makes them interesting is how unhappy they look from a contemporary point of view: confused, bored, even morose.  Thinking through the vintage photographs you have in your mind’s eye, though, you’ll recall that almost all vintage photographs include blank faces.  No smiling, no bunny ears… just people.

The contrast between then and now reveals that how-to-act-when-someone’s-taking-your-picture is a social construction. Smiling didn’t come naturally, it had to evolve socially.  Today parents teach their children how to smile for photographs and, perhaps, even to act gleeful with toys.

More at Retronaut.

UPDATE: There’s a great conversation going on in the comments.  Some have pointed out that early photograph technology required a long exposure time, making smiling impractical.  Others are sharing their experiences in other countries, where it is still the norm to stop smiling when the camera comes out, even if everyone is having a jolly time.  Lots of stuff to think about…

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at The Russell Sage Foundation.

Claude Steele and his colleagues have found ample evidence of “stereotype threat” in test-taking situations.  Stereotype threat occurs when people worry that poor performance on a task will inadvertently confirm a negative stereotype applied to the group to which they belong.  Their worry depresses performance, thus creating outcomes consistent with the stereotype. Stereotype threat depresses the performance of high-achieving African American students on difficult verbal tests as well as accomplished female math students on difficult math tests.

Not all stereotypes are negative, however, suggesting that certain stereotypes might also enhance performance.  With Min Zhou, I looked into how the stereotype that Asian Americans students are particularly smart and high achieving — as illustrated in this TIME magazine cover from 1987 — might shape their performances.

We argue that Asian American students benefit from a “stereotype promise”—the promise of being viewed through the lens of a positive stereotype that leads one to perform in such a way that confirms the positive stereotype, thereby enhancing performance.  The Chinese- and Vietnamese-Americans students we studied described how their teachers assumed that they were smart, hard-working, and high-achieving, which affected the way that their teachers treated them, the grades they received, and their likelihood of being placed into the most competitive academic tracks, like Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors. For many students, stereotype promise exerted an independent effect, and boosted performance.

For example, Ophelia is a 23 year-old second-generation Vietnamese woman who described herself as “not very intelligent” and recalls nearly being held back in the second grade. By her account, “I wasn’t an exceptional student; I was a straight C student, whereas my other siblings, they were quicker than I was, and they were straight A students.”

Despite Ophelia’s C average, she took the AP exam at the end of junior high school, and not surprisingly, failed. Nevertheless, she was placed into the AP track in high school, but once there, something “just clicked,” and Ophelia began to excel in her classes. When we asked her to explain what she meant by this, she elaborated, “I wanted to work hard and prove I was a good student,” and also added, “I think the competition kind of increases your want to do better.” She graduated from high school with a GPA of 4.2, and was admitted into a highly competitive pharmacy program.

Once she was placed in a more challenging setting, then, where teachers’ expectations and peer performance were elevated, she benefited from stereotype promise. Ophelia did not believe at the outset that she was academically exceptional or deserving of being in the AP track (especially because she earned straight C’s in junior high school and failed the AP exam), but once anointed as academically exceptional and deserving, the stereotype promise exerted an independent effect that encouraged her to try harder and prove that she was a good student, and ultimately enhanced her performance.  While it is impossible to know how Ophelia’s academic performance would have differed had she stayed on the school’s “regular track,” that she was given the opportunity to meet her potential attests to the advantage that Asian American students are accorded in the context of U.S. schools.

In future research, I plan to study in what institutional contexts “stereotype promise” may emerge, for which groups, and in what domains. For example, males may benefit from stereotype promise in certain occupational niches where stereotypes about gender and performance prevail.

—————————–

Jennifer Lee is a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine, specializing in intersection of immigration and race and ethnicity. She wrote, with Frank Bean, a book called The Diversity Paradox, that examines patterns of intermarriage and multiracial identification among Asians, Latinos, and African Americans.

Read a Q&A on with Jennifer Lee about “stereotype promise” at the Russell Sage Foundation.

By now, you’ve undoubtedly seen multiple examples of before-and-after photos that illustrated how re-touching is used to help celebrities and models meet those unrealistic beauty standards we see in the media (see our posts on Katy Perry, a parody Photoshop ad, pre-retouched Playboy pics (NSFW!), Jessica Alba, and Demi Moore and Kim Kardashian). Dolores R. sent in a video of a man emphasizing the other side of the equation — that is, how the “before” body in supplement ads can be manipulated to make the apparent transformation especially dramatic:

For the full collection, see our Re-Touching/Photoshop Pinterest board (NSFW).

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

This is the official SocImages Election 2012 Sexism Watch.  We add content, as it arises, in reverse chronological order.

—————————

#9 Bachmann Pours Away Presidential Bid

How did we miss this one? Representative Michele Bachmann performed the comically gendered role of pouring water for all of the (male) Republican candidates and the (male) host at the start of the Republican Family Forum debate in Iowa this past November.

Some of the candidates seemed uncomfortable at this puzzling behavior, and the host joked, “I want to begin by thanking Representative Bachmann for taking care of the water for today’s event.” It’s possible that Bachmann only intended to pour water for the person sitting next to her, but was put on the spot when the host assumed she would pour water for everyone.

This event was hosted by CitizenLink, the political action arm of the uber-conservative Christian organization, Focus on the Family. CitizenLink describes itself as a “family advocacy organization that inspires men and women to live out biblical citizenship that transforms culture.” They promote traditional families as the “building block of society,” so it’s possible that Bachmann was strategically catering to an audience that is less supportive of women in “unconventional” roles.

Whether intentional or unintentional, Bachmann’s actions highlight the contradiction between traditional gender roles and conceptions of leadership.  And the lack of media focus on this incident illustrates how unremarkable it is for a woman to be in a service role in the company of men.  If Governor Rick Perry had gone around the table and dutifully poured water for all of the Republican primary contenders, it would have made the front page.

More Election 2012 Sexism Watch after the jump!

more...

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front.

There is big trouble brewing in Europe.  John Ross, in his blog Key Trends in the World Economy, highlights this brewing crisis in a series of charts, some of which I repost below.

This first chart shows the extent of the recovery from the recent economic crisis in the U.S., the EU, and Japan.  While the U.S. GDP has finally regained its past business cycle peak, the same cannot be said for Europe (or Japan).  As of the 3rd quarter 2011, EU GDP was still 1.7% below its previous business cycle peak.  The Eurozone was 1.9% below.

Recent GDP estimates for the 4th quarter show European GDP once again contracting, which strongly suggests that the region is headed back into recession without having regained its previous business cycle peak.  This development implies that Europe faces serious stagnationist pressures.

This chart looks at the growth record for the 5 largest European economies.  Germany has regained its previous GDP peak.  France is making progress toward that end.  These two countries account for 36.2% of European GDP.  However, things are quite different for the UK, Italy, and Spain.  These three countries account for 34.7% of European GDP and not only do they each remain far below their respective previous GDP peaks, their economies are once again heading downward.

The third chart highlights the economic performance of the three countries which have received the most media attention because of fears that their governments will be unable to repay their respective debts.  They are clearly in trouble, adding to the downward pressure on European GDP.  However, despite all the attention paid to them, their combined economies are only one-eighth the size of the combined economies of the UK, Italy and Spain.

The next two charts highlight the fact that economic trends are also dire throughout much of Eastern Europe.

The take-away is that European economic problems are not limited to a few smaller countries.  Some of the largest are also performing poorly and apparently headed back into recession without ever having regained their past business cycle peaks.  It is hard to see Europe escaping recession.  And it is hard to see the U.S., Asia, and Africa escaping the consequences.