Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior Takes Aim at Institutionalized Racism by Hiring Faculty of Color by the Handful – PR Web

(Top row L-R): Candace Hall, EdD; Nate Williams, PhD; and Rachel Tenial, PhD. (Bottom row L-R): Cherese Fine, PhD; Cedric Harville, PhD; and Divah Griffin.

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. (PRWEB) September 01, 2020

In one small way to combat a more than 400-year-pandemic of institutionalized racism in the U.S., Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Education, Health and Human Behavior (SEHHB) Dean Robin Hughes, PhD, is working in a deliberate and calculated way to make her University better, stronger and more equitable by hiring a group of faculty members of color, known as cluster hires.

I thought about a request for a cluster hire of faculty of color, when I learned about strategic hiring funds during my interview visit, said Hughes. In this case, its a hiring process that recruits and hires a number of faculty of color who are experts in the fields of education, applied health and specifically psychology. We intentionally sought to hire a number of individuals to fill multiple positions in the School of Education, Health and Human Behavior.

Hughes first plans involve hiring four faculty members of color. One position is still in negotiation. The current three SEHHB cluster hires are:

The University has a commitment and strategic goal to hire faculty of color, noted Hughes. We responded to the Universitys goals.

Hughes also points to research that shows the benefits of hiring faculty of color.

Faculty of color support students growth and social well-being in myriad ways, she continued. They are role models. They increase students sense of belonging. They support student retention overall, and retention of students of color specifically.

For instance, our Department of Psychology was intentional about responding to the needs of students of color. They noted that about 20% of their students were Black, and they had no Black faculty. Psychology faculty believe it is important to hire faculty of color.

The SEHHB cluster hires were achieved through the Universitys Strategic Hiring Funds made available through the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.

The funds include a three-year start-up. The units are responsible for funding after that, explained Hughes. The SEHHB administrative team is well aware of the fiscal responsibility for every hire. This is nothing new to me as a leader. All hires are fiscally strategic. All hires are made to support the expertise of the unit. All hires are made to support the community.

Hughes also named three additional hires:

We deliberately recruit the most brilliant and most qualified in every candidate pool all of the time, added Hughes.

Once hiring faculty of color, a university also has to be calculating about retaining them, according to Hughes.

This means critically reviewing policies that typically drive away faculty of color, she shared. The SEHHB is working to strategically restructure these policies, among other things, to make sure that we keep people once we recruit them. For instance, when a faculty member of color goes up for tenure and has to publish in a top tier journal (which is racist in its subtext and is always ill-defined), we have to make sure that our policies are inclusive of the top tier work that they do. Not top tier according to a few people who made that decision 400 years ago when Harvard first became a university or by the current group of scholars who are affirmed and perpetuate western cannon notions of whats good and top tier.

The SEHHB dean posed a few questions for SIUE and other colleges and universities to consider in seeking to move from an exclusive mindset, practice and environment in higher education to a more inclusive one.

Specifically, in response to questions about how hiring faculty of color advances the goals of any organization, Hughes points to a counternarrative and asked, How has hiring all white or predominantly white staff and faculty improved and advanced a college or university? How has not paying attention to purposely hiring faculty and staff of color impacted your college or university?

Its 2020, and colleges and universities are just now deconstructing racist policies. We have some catching up to do.

The SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior prepares students in a wide range of fields including public health, exercise science, nutrition, instructional technology, psychology, speech-language pathology and audiology, educational administration, and teaching. Faculty members engage in leading-edge research, which enhances teaching and enriches the educational experience. The School supports the community through on-campus clinics, outreach to children and families, and a focused commitment to enhancing individual lives across the region.

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SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior Takes Aim at Institutionalized Racism by Hiring Faculty of Color by the Handful - PR Web

Human Behavior

Diversity and prosocial behavior – Science Magazine

Abstract

Immigration and globalization have spurred interest in the effects of ethnic diversity in Western societies. Most scholars focus on whether diversity undermines trust, social capital, and collective goods provision. However, the type of prosociality that helps heterogeneous societies function is different from the in-group solidarity that glues homogeneous communities together. Social cohesion in multiethnic societies depends on whether prosocial behavior extends beyond close-knit networks and in-group boundaries. We identify two features of modern societiessocial differentiation and economic interdependencethat can set the stage for constructive interactions with dissimilar others. Whether societal adaptations to diversity lead toward integration or division depends on the positions occupied by minorities and immigrants in the social structure and economic system, along with the institutional arrangements that determine their political inclusion.

Most Western countries already are or are destined to become multiethnic societies thanks to recent patterns of migration and globalization. Growing immigration to North America and Western Europe (Fig. 1A) has commanded particular attention. Increased ethnic heterogeneity has renewed scholarly interest in intergroup dynamics of cooperation and discrimination and spurred debates over the consequences of ethnic diversity for social trust and democratic integration. Many scholars have concluded that ethnic diversity negatively affects overall levels of trust, social capital, and public goods provision. Instead, we see these changes as an opportunity to ask a more important question: How does prosocial behavior extend beyond the boundaries of the in-group and to unknown and dissimilar others? Answering this question is the key to achieving solidarity and cooperation in the heterogeneous communities we increasingly inhabit today.

(A) Ratio of international migrant stock (1990/2015). Europe and North America saw relatively large increases in national stocks of international migrants in the past two decades. International migrant stock refers to the percentage of foreign-born residents in a given year. Orange indicates higher ratios of migrant stock; teal indicates lower ratios of migrant stock. [Data source: United Nations Population Division] (B) Ethnoracial fractionalization (2013). Fractionalization is higher in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia than in Europe or North America. Fractionalization corresponds to the probability that two randomly chosen residents belong to the same ethnoracial group. Darker colors represent higher ethnoracial fractionalization. [Data source: Historical Index of Ethnoracial Fractionalization]

To function, large collectivities need to foster solidarity and cooperation among their members. Most theories of political orderfrom Enlightenment theories of the social contract (Hobbes and Rousseau) and Tocquevilles Democracy in America to recent work on civil society and social capitalacknowledge the need for a sense of collective identity that allows trust and solidarity to extend beyond the boundaries of the family or clan to the larger community or nation. How does this come about? According to popular models of human behavior, repeated interactions within groups and close-knit networks facilitate the emergence of a shared culture, norms of reciprocity and cooperation, and peer sanctioning, inducing positive outcomes for the collectivity (1). Homogeneous communities readily nurture trust and solidarity through these avenues. In heterogeneous communities, by contrast, social ties between noncoethnics are sparser, which limits coordination and social control. In addition, social norms might not be shared across ethnic boundaries, or there might be uncertainty among members regarding the extent to which they are shared (2). Seen in this light, it makes sense to think of diversity as a challenge to the foundations of our collective social contract.

Nevertheless, most heterogeneous communities still manage to get along. As homogeneous communities become less prevalent and more people experience life in diverse contexts, we need to move beyond traditional understandings of prosociality. In order to achieve solidarity and cooperation, diverse communities may not rely on the same mechanisms as homogeneous ones. More than a century ago, in fact, Durkheim argued that solidarity in complex, differentiated societies relies primarily on interdependence and the division of labor rather than on cultural similarity and mutual acquaintanceship (3). Following this lead, we identify two features of modern societies that have the potential to foster generalized prosociality.

The first feature is social differentiation, which refers to the growing number of identities and group affiliations that people have in their lives. As first theorized by Simmel, in modern societies individuals become less determined by a few ascribed categoriessuch as race, class, or genderand experience a greater ability to choose their group affiliations. As people emancipate from family and community ties, out of choice or necessity, the number of unknown, distant others they will interact with increases, and this has been shown to foster generalized prosociality (4, 5). A second, related feature is economic interdependence: Market-integrated societies in which strangers regularly engage in mutually beneficial transactions exhibit greater levels of generalized solidarity and trust (6, 7).

We should not take for granted that societies will inevitably adapt to increasing diversity in ways that further social integration. Critically important for social integration is the extent to which ethnic differences map onto class, religious, gender, or other differences. Differentiation brings about social integration when lines of social division are cross-cuttingthat is, when ethnic group membership does not wholly predict membership in specific class, religious, gender, or other groups. By contrast, when social cleavages are consolidated, differentiation poses a threat to social integration (8) and democratic stability (9). Ethnic diversity may thereby foster social division.

Indeed, existing studies on the effects of ethnic diversity tend to highlight its negative consequences for social capital, economic growth, and public goods provision. We start by reviewing this literature, which has dominated the debate regarding the consequences of ethnic diversity in Western societies. However, to fully understand the conditions under which heterogeneous societies can achieve social cohesion across lines of ethnic differentiation, we also need to take stock of the status of immigrants and native minorities. Then, we discuss how differentiation and economic interdependencetwo core features that emerge in modern societiesset the stage for a new kind of prosociality that extends beyond the confines of the in-group by enhancing the opportunities for intergroup contact, encouraging superordinate identification, and inhibiting in-groupout-group thinking. Overall, we argue that the type of prosociality that helps heterogeneous societies function likely derives from positive experiences in the context of strategic interactions, such as those in the workplace, and is different from the in-group solidarity that glues homogeneous communities together.

Political economy scholars have looked to ethnic diversity in their attempts to explain societal problems in developing countries, including violent conflicts and stalled economic growth (10). On the whole, however, studies paint a nuanced picture, one in which poverty and political instability, rather than ethnic or religious divisions, increase the risk of civil war (11) and in which ethnic fractionalization is associated with lower growth only in the absence of robust democratic institutions and policies (12, 13).

A second line of work, which focuses mainly on Western European and North American countries, instead probes within-country differences across homogeneous and heterogeneous communities. These studies typically report negative associations between ethnic diversity and desirable outcomes, including civic engagement (14), public goods provision (15), and self-reported trust (16). On the association between diversity and trust alone, a recent review covers nearly 90 studies (17). Although effect sizes are minimal, this scholarship often reaches alarming conclusions about the erosion of civic life at the hands of ethnic diversity.

However, in Western countries, homogeneous and heterogeneous communities differ in systematic ways, which cautions against concluding that diversity per se has negative effects. For one, heterogeneous communities are disproportionally nonwhite, economically disadvantaged, and residentially unstable. Compositional effects related to these differences largely account for the relationship between ethnic diversity and collective outcomes. For example, nonwhites and immigrants tend to report lower trust, and they are overrepresented in heterogeneous communities. Once analyses account for the fact that native whites, who are disproportionately represented in homogeneous communities, also score higher on prosocial indicators, negative associations with ethnic diversity are strongly reduced and even disappear. Similarly, economic hardship takes a toll on prosocial engagement, and diverse communities have much higher rates of concentrated poverty (18). Overall, economic indicators are by far stronger predictors of collective outcomes than are ethnoracial indicators (3, 19).

More generally, the consequences of ethnic diversity likely depend on the extent to which ethnicity constitutes one of many lines of differentiation or instead operates as an organizing principle around which resources are distributed. It matters whether ethnicity intersects with other lines of division and, especially, economic inequality. In their investigation of public goods provision, Baldwin and Huber found that economic inequality between groupsrather than ethnolinguistic or cultural differencesundermines welfare provision (20). They speculate that this happens because richer, more powerful groups prioritize different public goods and exclude others from access. Therefore, resource asymmetries between ethnic groups, and not the multiplicity of ethnic groups per se, undermine collective efforts.

Ethnic fractionalization has been and remains relatively low in Western Europe and North America compared with several countries in Africa and Asia (Fig. 1B). The focus on Western countries is mostly driven by growing immigration (Fig. 1A). Hence, to date, systematic ethnoracial differences between homogeneous and heterogeneous communities are an artifact of studying diversity in contexts such as North America and Europe, where heterogeneity is relatively low and homogeneous communities are, by and large, homogeneously native majority communities.

It follows that although they use measures of heterogeneity and make claims about diversity, studies in Western countries are unable to attribute observed associations to heterogeneity, as opposed to immigrant or minority share. As a result, studies of ethnic diversity rehash the findings of a long-standing literature on how native majorities react to the growing presence of immigrants and minorities. This literature links the size and growth of immigrant and minority populations to perceived threat and greater hostility toward them. For example, survey and laboratory experiments found that U.S. whites who are exposed to information about the growing share of nonwhites express greater opposition to policies and parties seen to benefit nonwhites (21). Observed effects are theorized to stem from broad concerns about native majorities economic well-being, their cultural dominance, and their symbolic status within an intergroup hierarchy from which they derive social and psychological benefits (22).

Diversity, as both a concept and measure, treats groups interchangeably; a community that is 80% white and 20% Black is as diverse as one that is 80% Black and 20% white and one that is 80% Latino and 20% Asian (18). However, where there is differentiation, there is hierarchy: Native majorities, native minorities, and immigrants occupy different positions in the social order. Because intergroup dynamics tend to reproduce status and power asymmetries (23), the dynamics of similarly heterogeneous communities likely vary according to the specific groups represented and their relative sizes. Hierarchy raises another consideration: In heterogeneous contexts, we need to distinguish between benefits that accrue to single groups and those that extend to the whole collectivity (3).

Taken together, these observations caution against making generic claims about the effects of diversity. To ascertain the challenges and possibilities posed by diversity, we first need to disentangle its effects from those of inequality. This entails understanding the social cleavages and asymmetries that govern intergroup relationships in diverse societies.

To what extent and in what domains have immigrants and native minorities achieved economic, political, and social membership in Western countries?

In the United States, immigrants (primarily from Latin America and Asia) and native minorities (primarily Black Americans) contribute to present-day diversity. Regarding the experience of immigrants, scholars are split between those who contend that todays immigrants are on the same upward trajectory as earlier Europeans (24) and those who read, from some groups experiences, evidence of stalled or even downward mobility (25). Evidence of integration comes from the advances made by members of the second generation over their immigrant parents (26). However, longer-term views into the third generation or later reveal remarkable marital homogamy as well as network and residential segregation for some groups, such as Mexican Americans (27).

The experience of Black Americans, the largest native minority group in the United States, challenges the expectation that full economic, political, and social membership necessarily await later-generation Americans. Black households have less wealth and lower incomes than do Asian or Latino households. And despite recent gains, Blacks are still less likely to marry whites and more likely to be residentially segregated from whites than are Asians or Latinos. Persistent, intergenerational disadvantage among Blacks is a consequence of past institutional practices, including Jim Crow segregation and red-lining (28), present institutional practices such as mass incarceration, and contemporary discrimination in the labor market and other domains (29).

In Europe, immigrants from Turkey, Africa, and other regions, including former colonies, contribute to diversity. Their prospects for integration are sobering (30). Evidence of upward economic mobility is tempered by gaps in employment and earnings that may persist into later generations (31). A growing body of field experimental research uncovers discrimination against immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants and/or those of Arab origin, in formal markets such as those for employment and housing (32) and informal, everyday interactions (33, 34). Hostility toward certain immigrant groups is sometimes motivated by their observance and transmission of religious practices and cultural norms that are seen to conflict with liberal principles of gender equality and individual freedom (33, 35). These findings fuel the view that European societies are converging on a discriminatory equilibrium in which discrimination toward some groups drives underinvestments in human capital (30) and furthers the reproduction of values and practices that stall integration in economic and other domains.

The picture is not all negative, however. First, it is worth acknowledging that persistent, later-generation gaps in educational attainment, employment, and earnings coexist with substantial upward mobility, especially between the first and second generations (24). Second, legal status can go a long way toward securing economic mobility, as evidenced by the diverging earnings trajectories of undocumented immigrants and legal permanent residents in the United States as well as the rise in earnings induced by amnesty laws (26). When it comes to political incorporation, government efforts to promote citizenship, whether aimed directly at immigrants or at the community organizations that serve them, boost naturalization and participation through material and symbolic channelsthat is, by signaling immigrants suitability for inclusion (36).

When such resources are not available or when discrimination is prevalent, attachment to a protective ethnic core may provide immigrants and minorities one path to economic, political, and cultural mobility (27, 37). However, insofar as enclaves reproduce segregation and contribute to discrimination by native majorities toward immigrants and minorities, they are a suboptimal and short-term reprieve to the challenges posed by diversity. A more robust solution for the successful integration of immigrants and minorities in multiethnic societies builds on the features of modern societies that facilitate cooperative encounters and shared interests across group boundaries.

The key to solidarity and cooperation in heterogeneous communities is the extension of prosociality beyond close-knit networks and in-group boundaries to unknown, dissimilar others. The large-scale interdependence of life in modern societies requires that individuals follow universal norms of reciprocity and cooperation rather than rely on mutual acquaintanceship or group identification. The observance of such norms is assured by the presence of strong coordinating institutions; for example, we rely on public transportation not because we know the bus driver or identify with them but because we trust that they will competently perform the job that corresponds to their role (3).

The type of prosociality that helps heterogeneous communities function is different from the in-group solidarity that glues homogeneous communities together. A large scholarship has documented the parochial nature of human altruism, convincingly showing that in-group preferences are a staple of human behavior (38). From an evolutionary perspective, parochial altruism emerged from the coevolution of intergroup favoritism and out-group hostility during periods of violent intergroup conflict (39). Although in-group favoritism may have served us well in small-scale societies, it cannot get us far in complex, large-scale societies characterized by heterogeneity. For diverse societies to function, they must to some extent suppress members reliance on in-group identification as the primary basis for prosocial behavior (40). Prosocial behavior in complex societies likely derives from positive experiences in the context of strategic interactions, such as those in the workplace, rather than empathic identification (41). People in modern societies are often pushed outside the comfort zones of their familiar networks to constructively interact with unknown and dissimilar others. We have learned, from a rich literature on intergroup contact, that such interactions have the potential to reduce prejudice, especially under favorable conditions, including equal status, common goals, and lack of competition (42). Here, we discuss how social differentiation, a macrostructural feature of modern societies, may favor the emergence of generalized prosociality and the special role that market integration and economic interdependence can play in facilitating productive intergroup interactions.

Differentiation may be the key, not an obstacle, to social cohesion in modern societies because an increase in the dimensions of differentiation might bring about greater social integration. A greater number of identities and affiliations brings about distinct combinations that can foster even greater cooperation (8). This, however, occurs only when the lines of differentiation are cross-cutting, whereas division follows from consolidated lines of differentiation (Fig. 2). Ethnic heterogeneity can push societies toward either pole. On the one hand, when ethnic differences overlap with status and resource differences, in-group favoritism can operate more efficiently. But far from binding people together (as it does in homogeneous societies), in-group favoritism would deepen inequality and division in heterogeneous ones. On the other hand, when heterogeneity along ethnic lines cross-cuts differences in terms of class, politics, and other dimensions, it both neutralizes in-group favoritism and deepens interdependence, fostering cohesion.

(A to C) The top layers represent various group identities that individuals might have in modern societies (such as ethnicity, class, or sexuality), and the bottom layer describes the social network that emerges from shared membership in these groups. In (A), the two dimensions of differentiation are consolidated and thus bring about social fragmentation. In (B) and (C), the dimensions are cross-cutting, thus favoring social integration. As the number of cross-cutting dimensions increases [(comparing (C) with (B)], so does overall network integration.

Social differentiation refers to the multiplicity of identities and roles that individuals may acquire and inhabit in their day-to-day lives and often leads to greater individualization. Namely, peoples ability to choose, with relative freedom, their identities and group affiliations increases, and their profiles become distinctive. When lines of differentiation are cross-cutting, the process of differentiation and individualization sets the stage for broad-based cohesion through at least three pathways.

The first is by facilitating interpersonal contact beyond close-knit, kinship ties and with others who are dissimilar in terms of some identities, including, most notably, ethnicity. Research supports the claim that generalized trust and other benefits flow from interactions outside dense networks, such as those based on kinship. Cross-societal comparisons have documented greater generalized trust and cooperation in an individualistic society such as the United States than in Japan, where monitoring and sanctioning happen primarily within the confines of close, long-term relationships (4). According to Yamagishis emancipatory theory of trust, strong ties, which are typical of collectivist societies such as Japan, produce a sense of security within the group but prevent trust from developing beyond group boundaries. Similarly, people with strong family and group ties display lower levels of trust toward generalized others in incentivized experiments. By contrast, people who are less embedded in family networks and those who have experienced uprooting events, such as divorce, are more likely to trust strangers, possibly because they have more opportunities and incentives to engage in relationships with unknown others (5). More broadly, seminal work on social networks has exposed the limits of strong ties and close-knit social relationships (43, 44). This work shines a positive light on weak ties and network positions of brokerage for their ability to connect parts of a social network that would be otherwise disconnected, facilitating access to a broader range of information and opportunities. To quote Granovetter, Weak ties, often denounced as generative of alienation...are here seen as indispensable to individuals opportunities and to their integration into communities; strong ties, breeding local cohesion, lead to overall fragmentation [(43), p. 1378].

The second pathway through which social differentiation may foster cohesion is through identification, with or without direct interpersonal contact. In laboratory studies, procedures that encourage identification with a common (or superordinate) identity have been shown to reduce prejudice across group boundaries (45). This is possible when cross-cutting affiliations enable identification with a category that spans ethnic boundaries. An outstanding question is whether identification with a superordinate category can somehow achieve deeper trust and cooperation than can lower-level ethnic identification, perhaps by training individuals to be more flexible about categorization in general. If not, superordinate identification may be an imperfect solution that trades favoritism toward one group for favoritism toward another, larger group. These aspects are ripe for further testing in field settings (46).

A third pathway consists in subverting humans deep-seated capacity to think (and act) in terms of in-groupout-group categories. Category-based inconsistenciesfor example, the Harvard-educated, first-generation Latinainhibit the cognitive processes that compel us to frame encounters in us versus them terms, opening the door to more elaborate cognitive processes in which an alter is more likely to be perceived as an individual rather than an (oppositional) group member [(40), p. 854]. The distinction between this pathway and one that hinges on a common identity is subtle: Category-based inconsistencies can subvert us versus them thinking even if we do not share identities or experiences with a targetthat is, even if we are neither Ivy Leagueeducated, nor Latino, nor the first in our family to attend college.

Critically, the most effective way to secure multiethnic cohesion through this channel is not to promote a few minorities but rather to weaken the covariance between ethnic category membership and life chances writ largethat is, to cultivate a system in which a first-class education is equally accessible to whites and nonwhites, regardless of their family background. There is growing evidence that cross-cutting affiliations can mitigate bias against immigrants and minorities. Experimental evidence shows that U.S. Americans report greater willingness to admit immigrants who are highly educated or have high-status jobs (47). Relatedly, high socioeconomic status mitigates mistrust toward Blacks in a cooperative investment game (48), and signals of cultural integration mitigate bias toward Muslims in Germany (33).

Taken together, the hypothesized pathways are consistent with a model of social cohesion in which cross-cutting differentiation, rather than social closure, is the unifying force. When social cleavages are not cross-cutting but instead consolidatedfor example, when minorities and immigrants are systematically deprived of educational and employment opportunities and thereby relegated to the lower tiers of the social hierarchydisadvantaged groups will continue to be cast in a separate and marginalized social category and discriminated against.

Economic exchanges are the quintessential setting for meaningful, cooperative interactions between dissimilar others. This is partly because of the specific nature of economic transactions: They occur between parties who have different goods (or skills) to exchange and thereby bring together people who may not belong to the same social circles. Along these lines, workplace relationships tend to be less homophilious than relationships in other settings. Moreover, intergroup encounters in economic settings seem to be particularly conducive to generalized prosociality. In a series of cross-cultural studies, Henrich and his colleagues uncovered less prosocial behavior in small-scale societies based on kinship networks than in market-integrated societies in which strangers regularly engage in mutually beneficial transactions. In their words, The more frequently people experience market transactions, the more they will also experience abstract sharing principles concerning behaviors toward strangers [(6), p. 76)]. Market integration not only fosters prosociality toward unknown others; it can also shift boundaries to include noncoethnics. In a nationwide field experiment in Italy, market integration explained variation in prosocial behavior toward both natives and immigrants (7). Similar effects are imputed to globalization, understood as greater worldwide connectedness (49).

Workplaces, more than homes or neighborhoods, may be crucial for fostering the type of prosociality that holds modern societies together. Minorities and immigrants positions in the productive system and their prospects for social mobilityincluding employment opportunities in complementary sectors, and a legal regime that protects their rights as workersare therefore important not only for their own material success but for society as a whole. The economic integration of minorities and immigrants also determines the extent to which they come to identify with mainstream society (50).

Most economic exchangesfor example, hiring someone or renting an apartment from themare strategic in nature, in the sense that a persons behavior is affected by their expectations of the alter. These types of interaction entail risk and uncertainty because people have to overcome difficulties related to coordination, lack of information, and mistrust. Cooperative and prosocial behavior in these settings may still be affected by in-group favoritism but are also based on considerations that go beyond whether an ego likes or dislikes the alter, to encompass the alters trustworthiness, competence, and reputation (40). This calls for a deeper understanding of intergroup dynamics, and the institutional arrangements, that favor prosocial outcomes in the context of strategic interactions. Some field experimental work has made progress in this direction; for example, in a study of public goods provision in diverse Ugandan neighborhoods, Habyarimana and colleagues used behavioral games to disentangle the various motives and mechanisms that bring about collective action in multiethnic contexts (2). Although they did not find evidence of ethnic favoritism, they found that the reciprocity norms and sanctioning opportunities that facilitate cooperation in risky interactions are stronger among coethnics than noncoethnics.

Market integration enhances opportunities for productive interactions across group boundaries. Additionally, the strategic nature of economic exchanges elicits decision-making processes that go beyond in-group favoritism, therefore providing new venues for institutional intervention.

We can approach ethnic diversity through the lens of lost homogeneity. From this perspective, we understand that members of the white majority tend to react negatively to the growth of immigrants and minorities in their communities. However, it would be premature to conclude that diversity or diversification per se are to blame for declining levels of trust and cooperation. In the Western European and North American context, diversity is synonymous with immigrant and minority share and economic disadvantage, and statistical attempts at disentangling their effects will not get us very far.

Beyond questioning the effects of ethnic diversity, scholars should develop a theory of social cohesion in multiethnic societies that considers intergroup dynamics, social cleavages, and asymmetries in resources and power. Crucial to this effort is understanding the conditions under which prosocial behavior extends beyond close-knit networks and the safe confines of the in-group. Here, we have highlighted two features of modern societies, social differentiation and economic interdependence, that set the stage for generalized prosociality to develop. We argue that, in contrast with the in-group solidarity that glues homogeneous communities together, prosociality in heterogeneous societies likely derives from positive experiences in the context of strategic interactions. Further research is needed on the mechanisms and institutional arrangements that foster this higher-level form of cooperation.

The experience of immigrants and minorities is instructive regarding the conditions and institutions that facilitate integration and mobility in Western societies. Of primary importance are employment opportunities in mainstream labor markets, especially under conditions of economic expansion, along with legal and political inclusion. Regrettably, it is precisely these conditions that are in short supply in a historical moment characterized by the rise of right-wing movements, an economic recession induced by a global pandemic, and long-standing institutional practices, such as those of law enforcement, that deepen the divides between ethnoracial groups. Whether societal adaptation to diversity moves toward integration or social division depends as much on microinteractions on the ground as on the economic and political institutions that govern these processes.

J. Habyarimana, M. Humphreys, D. N. Posner, J. M. Weinstein, Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage Foundation, 2009).

T. Yamagishi, Trust: The Evolutionary Game of Mind and Society (Springer, 2011).

S. M. Lipset, S. Rokkan, in Cleavage Structures, Party System and Voter Alignments. An Introduction (Free Press, 1967), pp. 164.

P. Collier, The Political Economy of Ethnicity (World Bank, 1998).

R. J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Univ. Chicago Press, 2012).

E. Telles, C. A. Sue, Durable Ethnicity: Mexican Americans and the Ethnic Core (Oxford Univ. Press, 2019).

A. Portes, R. Aparicio, W. Haller, Spanish Legacies: The Coming of Age of the Second Generation (Univ. California Press, 2016).

C. L. Adida, D. D. Laitin, M.-A. Valfort, Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-Heritage Societies (Harvard Univ. Press, 2016).

I. Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada (Univ. California Press, 2006).

H. Tajfel, J. Turner, 1979, An integrative theory of intergroup conflict, in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, W. G. Austin, S. Worchel, Eds. (Brooks/Cole, 1979), pp. 3347.

R. S. Burt, Brokerage and Closure (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005).

S. L. Gaertner, J. F. Dovidio, Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model (Psychology Press, 2000).

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Diversity and prosocial behavior - Science Magazine

Human Behavior

Hollywoods Jim Parsons On Portraying Sexual Predator In Life-Changing Project & The Need To Investigate All Kinds Of Human Behavior – Deadline

When Jim Parsons was approached for Netflix miniseries Hollywood, he jumped at the chance to play a complicated, real-life figure, unlike any hed played before,whose experiences force us to reflect on the entertainment industry as it is todayand the extent to which it has or has not changed over the last 70+ years.

Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the drama follows a group of ambitious actors and filmmakers in Post-World War II Tinseltown, considering what might have happened, had inequality in entertainment been addressed decades ago.

In the series, Parsons plays Henry Wilson, the talent agent who launched the careers of stars like Rock Hudson. Vicious, vulnerable, calculating and unpredictable, Wilson is a victim of his times, who ends up becoming a villain. A closeted homosexual tormented by the bigotry with which hes faced, he resorts to the life of a sexual predator, before attempting to make amends for his misdeeds.

From the perspective of the nine-time Emmy nominee, the character and the project in general were gifts that he never could have seen coming. Without being too dramatic about it, he says, I felt at the time, and I still feel now that [they] changed me in some way.

Below, the actor reflects on his approach to playing Henry, navigating uncomfortable sex scenes, the need to closely examine all kinds of human behavior, and Hollywood, as he sees it.

DEADLINE: How did you come to star in Hollywood? What excited you about being a part of this show?

JIM PARSONS: Really, the answer would be Ryan Murphy, but the longer version is that I was working on the movie version of Boys in the Band. We were in LA shooting, and Ryan was a producer on that, and one day, he knocked on my trailer. He was working on Hollywood, and asked if Id be interested in doing it.

What was funny is he goes, Its a great character. Something you havent played before, blah, blah, blah, and I was like, Okay. He goes, Im going to give you the first couple of episodes to read. Were still polishing. So, he didnt send them immediately, but I remember going home and talking to my husband about it.

My brain just began doing somersaults because this was the summer after Big Bang had ended, and I knew I was going to do Boys in the Band, but I really had prepared myself for the highs and lows of a non-working wasteland in front of me, for however long that was going to be. So when he came, I was like, Oh my God. Im trying to recalibrate, and it was my husband, Todd, who was like, Well, theres really almost no way in hell youre not doing it, because you love working with Ryan. And I was like, Youre right. Its absolutely true.

So, I read the first scripts. I hadnt ever heard of Henry Wilson beforehand, but I was only excited about playing him. I was excited to play a real character. I was excited about Google imaging him, and seeing if there was anything we could do to fuss with the appearance a little bitand there were things. So, that was that.

DEADLINE: Can you describe what you spoke with Murphy and Ian Brennan about, when you first boarded the series?

PARSONS: Ryan knew from the beginning that it was going to be a fictionalized fantasy version of events, but other than that, they were still working on the episodes. I found Robert Hoflers book, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, so I just threw myself into that and waited for the scripts to come down to see what would happen, and it was really fun in that way.

Id never played somebody historical that was so literally based on them, so it was a very unique and rewarding experience to have so much background, and for that, I really should thank Robert Hofler. I mean, he wrote such a full-service book of Wilsons life. It really was my bible, and it offered me a grounding, and an emotional backdrop to come from. No matter how lascivious or ridiculous or sinister, or whatever the scene was, I always had this full person in my heart and in my mind, thanks to that.

DEADLINE: Were there other aspects to finding your way into the character of Henry? How did you work through the nuances of someone who could be so venomous, yet was ultimately so vulnerable?

PARSONS: Honestly, it was really more of just what happened once we were on set and saying the words to each other. I mean, I certainly spent a good deal of time. They wrote some really delicious dialogue for Henry, and I enjoyed learning those lines, just walking around my own apartment. So, it was just so much fun. But its always a very different beast when youre unleashing those monologues or lines onto another human being, and you get a reaction from them. So, it was more of an exploratory process in that way.

I remember there were a couple of scenesOne in particular is one of the final ones, which was when I have the apology scene to Rock. I felt so lucky to be a part of that. It was really a sweeping experience. Jake Picking, who played Rock, was so playful and so creative and so present for every scene we did together, and we were very fortunate. A lot of our stuff shot in order, enough so that that was the last scene I shot of the entire series, even though its not the last one that shows.

It was very meaningful to me, to be able to bring our own time wed spent together over the past several months, in some of those more harrowing or comical scenes that we had. It was an interesting marriage of what had really taken place, and the facts of Henry and Rock that obviously werent us.

DEADLINE: Hollywoods cast is an exceptional, eclectic mix, bringing actors from different kinds of circles together. What was it like working with this ensemble?

PARSONS: Its the kind of group that I dont want to say only Ryan Murphy can bring together, but there are very few that can put this kind of potpourri of personality and performer types together. No one does it quite like Ryan does, and whats so great is the way that extends beyond whats in front of the camera.

Ive worked with Ryan a few times now. The first two were both pieces of theater put to film, Boys in the Bandand The Normal Heart, and I think because it was such familiar territory to me, I didnt pick up as much as I did in this completely unfamiliar circumstance, where everything was new. The sheer level of creative people that Ryan attracts to his orbit I mean, God knows the business attracts creative people, but theres something very specific, and intensely playful and collaborative, about the people that Ryan brings into him.

Ryan has some ability to see what people are capable of that frequently, they themselves dont knowor maybe suspect, or are scared, or just not sure how to accomplish it. On his confidence and his belief alone, you do rise to the occasion, it seems to me, and you see that play out in the costumes. You see it play out in the sets, and certainly you see it play out in certain actors performances. Hes just really good at giving people an opportunity to do things that not only have they not necessarily been seen doing before, but that they perhaps werent positive they could accomplish. I guess thats one of his talents.

DEADLINE: In Hollywood, youre playing a predator, and the show required you to take on a number of sexually explicit scenes. Were those challenging or uncomfortable to shoot? How did you and Jake work through those?

PARSONS: The first one we did together that was predatorily charged was the one where he comes to my office and I say, Ill work with you, and then I force him into a sexual act in exchange for this. It was very early in our working relationship, and whats funny is, the part that made me most uncomfortable was a part that wasnt going to ever be on cameraand I dont believe is in the final cut, now that I think about it. But we had a shot where we were face to face and he undoes his pants, and then I dropped out of frame. And obviously, nothing was literally happening, except it was an intimacy with somebody I didnt know.

I havent played a lot of sex scenes in my career, so its not something I was used to. I dont even know if you would get used to it, so much. But it was funny the way the shoot went on long enough and I had enough scenes with him, and like I say, I had a really good relationship with him, so that by the time we got to doing the stuff where we were in bed together, after I was dancing for him and draping myself over him, it was so nice, the way that turned into a really fun thing to explore. You know, there was a ridiculous aspect to it, and then, I felt like I had a partner that I knew well enough that to go on this journey wasnt just horrifying and uncomfortable, but was also two actors, in a playground, seeing, Well, what happens when you [go through this kind of exchange]?

DEADLINE: Hollywood takes a fantastical approach to Old Hollywood history, and obviously, this kind of storytelling offers an opportunity for reflection on the world as it is now. Do you think thats the gist of what we get from this reimagining?

PARSONS: I do. But I also feel like there was an extra layer to it for me when I got the final script. Specifically as I was reading over and learning the lines for the part that I was about to play, especially again the scene where Henry apologizes to Rock, thats where he says that he has an idea for a gay love story, and I thought, This is fascinating.

Because in my opinion, it was enough that they put this alternate ending out there, and they showed the faces of people who were being directly represented on screen, and how it affected them, or how it might have affected them. But when they gave me that scene with Rock, [where] Henry had come to a bit of a reckoning in his own life, and was proposing another groundbreaking movie that would have never happened at the time, I thought, Well, this is fascinating in that level of, will you make a brave choice like this?

When you take a stand, when you say, I dont care if people are going to argue about it, or the threat that were not going to make money. I have a need to tell this story. It should be told, and so Im just going to do it, it can affect people who you never dreamed it would affect. Like, I dont think anybody thought, just for example, in this case, this character was going to be affected in the way he was by this. But I felt like that was one of the ripple effects, is that everything that the movie, Meg, had brought about made him look at his life in a different way, and certainly inspired him to try and make his own groundbreaking movie, in that way.

I just think thats one of the most beautiful things that is true to life, that when you do something new and brave in that way, the dominoes start to fall, and more and more innovative, progressive ideas like that start to come out, and it just feeds on each other. But it all starts with one small need. One small spark, as it were, to start this whole raging fire.

DEADLINE: Interestingly, while Henry is someone who would be justifiably canceled in our modern-day culture, in Hollywood,hes offered redemption. Do you have a sense of what the intention was, in taking the characters story in this direction? How did you perceive Henry, in the end?

PARSONS: I couldnt speak for what [the writers] really were going for.

I will say that, both from working on the film, and going through my own life, and certainly from reading Robert Hoflers book about Henry, I dont think there can be any doubt that the society that Henry was living in as a gay man, both in the world at large and in Hollywood, these things fed the side of him that hungered for more power. They fed the side of him that could be controlling, and cruel, and secretive, and dirty to the point of hurtful with his sexual urges, things like that.

I dont offer a full forgiveness pass, but I do think to your point about how we really do live in such a cancel culture, Im not saying thats never warranted, although I do wonder. But I would say that with a character like Henry, and a situation like this, maybe its a chance to try and just get a better look at all the myriad reasons that lead somebody to behave awfully.

And again, I think you can do that without forgiving them. You can do that without working with them again. You can do that without supporting them. But I think that we do ourselves a disservice, as humans in general, when we cut off the conversation completely, when we decide not to explore it at all, because its just too heinous to look at. Never mind. Theres very few human behaviors that arent worth investigating, I guess is my point.

DEADLINE: How much do you think Hollywood has truly changed since its Golden Age?

PARSONS: Without having lived through it, I think in some ways, its a night-and-day difference. You know, its an interesting thing because it is a business, and I think that they deal with this smartly in Hollywood, where its like, they need to make money. They cant afford, literally, to have the protest that shut down the theaters, because then whats going to happen?

So, that part will, to one degree or another, always be true. Its a business, but because of activism, because of people with stories to tell that they kept pushing and pushing, that people were saying no to, stories and characters and different lives, we see more and more of because theyve broken through. Because when they push, and shove, and claw their way into the spotlight, they more often than not show that they can find an audience, that the business can still be fed and be representative of all people and all stories, that theres a place at the table.

That being said, its a huge business. Its turning the Titanic, and thats a long journey. So, is it better than it seems to have been in the past? Well, yeah, from what I know about it. It seems like it is. But I think very few would deny that theres more to do, and further to go.

DEADLINE: What are you most proud of, in terms of the work that you did on Hollywood?

PARSONS: I dont know. I will say that I wrote Ryan an email. We were about midway through shooting, right at the new year, and thats why I wrote him. It was just something about reflecting on my last year, and how I didnt see this role coming. I didnt see this project coming, and it was such a gift to me, [not just because of] the opportunity to play this character.

Between costumes and makeup, and all the people Ryan surrounds himself with, it was one of the most fun, creative, fulfilling jobs Ive gotten to do in a long time. I dont mean to pooh-pooh any other job I was doing, but it was just such a gift. It changed my own internal trajectory, at least a little bit, to where it is Im headed for next, and I guess thats one of the things I love about being an actor, and this career, is that you take on a project, and you dont know what its going to lead to, mostly because you never know what each projects going to open up to you about yourself, and what areas its going to ask you to explore.

DEADLINE: Whats next for you? As you mentioned, theres The Boys in the Band, directed by your Hollywood co-star Joe Mantello

PARSONS: A couple of years ago, we optioned Michael Ausiellos book [Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies] about him and his husband, and thats been going very well. David [Marshall Grant] and Dan [Savage], who are writing it, have just done such a beautiful job. I dont know date-wise [about production], but its still moving along. Its not wallowing in a file cabinet somewhere; its actively happening.

Im not involved as an actor on this, but as a producer, were working on the show Call Me Katwith Mayim Bialik over at Fox, and we have a table read for that tomorrow. I dont know, schedule-wise, what [the coronavirus pandemic] means, but these things are going on.

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Hollywoods Jim Parsons On Portraying Sexual Predator In Life-Changing Project & The Need To Investigate All Kinds Of Human Behavior - Deadline

Human Behavior

SparkPost Expands Its IntelliSeeds(TM) Data Network to Deliver the Most Reliable, Expansive Real-Time Email Deliverability Insights in the World -…

COLUMBIA, Md., Sept. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SparkPost, the world's largest email delivery and analytics engine that delivers nearly 40 percent of the world's email, today announced it expanded itsIntelliSeeds email data to include an additional 24 ISPs. Now firmly into Europe, their reach includes Poland, France, Germany Hungary, and coverage in China and Korea. This expansion delivers marketers easier access to email data insights, all the while ensuring a real-time, accurate and global look at email performance data. Ultimately, the expanded IntelliSeeds network allows marketers to better understand how their global email communications are performing, making it easier to spot problem areas and make adjustments to improve deliverability, customer experiences, and affect the bottom-line.

Launched in 2019, SparkPost's IntelliSeeds wasn't developed as a replacement for traditional data seeds. Instead, it works in concert with them, providing a more comprehensive and sophisticated view of email data performance metrics by combining IntelliSeeds with traditional seeds and permissioned panel data in a single view. While traditional seedlistsare a well-established solution, they have trouble capturing accurate data from providers like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft Outlook, who have moved to a more engagement-based AI-driven filtering. IntelliSeeds provides the reach that's expected with traditional seeds, but unlike traditional seedlists, is able to capture data that mimics human behavior through the use of AI.

SparkPost was and is committed to working with large email providers to deliver solutions that empower digital marketers with data flexibility and ways to capture and activate data insights at lower or even fixed costs. Currently, through IntelliSeeds, 75 percent of SparkPost customers have 87 percent of their lists data captured far more than what any other email deliverability technology provider offers.

"Email performance and intelligence is critical to an organization's ability to know how well they're meeting the needs of their audiences. Having only partial access to email performance data undercuts an organization's ability to truly understand their impact or identify the areas that need to be prioritized," said George Schlossnagle, Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist at SparkPost. "Today's expanded IntelliSeeds network is a big step in solving this problem, and now includes insight into key international markets that traditionally have tighter data privacy rules. It will give email marketers the information they need, without compromising consumer privacy. It will change the way they look at outbound communications and the recipient experience they can deliver."

About SparkPostSparkPost, the world's largest email deliverability engine, enables the delivery of more than 37 percent of the world's B2C email -- more than six trillion messages annually -- helping organizations drive top-line digital marketing results. SparkPost's analytics cover 90 percent of the world's email footprint, giving companies deep insight into email deliverability and engagement analytics. Companies including Zillow, The New York Times, Booking.com, Adobe, Rakuten, and Zynga use SparkPost's engine for their email communications, significantly increasing email marketing performance. Learn more atwww.sparkpost.comor connect viaTwitter,LinkedInor the SparkPostblog.

Media Contact:Carol Tong, PR for SparkPost246657@email4pr.com510-304-6139

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SparkPost Expands Its IntelliSeeds(TM) Data Network to Deliver the Most Reliable, Expansive Real-Time Email Deliverability Insights in the World -...

Human Behavior

New Paper: Changing Conservation Behavior by Changing the Behavior of Conservation Programs | The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the…

The interdependencies of environmental and social systems, as recognized by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), create opportunities for pursuing simultaneous improvements in several areas, such as climate, food, water, nutrition, and health. But significant challenges remain in the conservation sphere, where integrating social and environmental goals will require large-scale changes in individual behavior.

In thisIssues in Brief, Kira Sullivan-Wiley explores how conservation organizations are at the forefront of efforts to improve environmental and human well-being, but are still not adequately integrating social sciences, and especially behavioral sciences, into these efforts. Incorporating behavior change science into these organizations operational practices, she argues, could be among the most effective, lowest-cost means of achieving conservation and development goals without infringing on the rights of local populations.

Kira Sullivan-Wiley is an environmental social scientist who studies how environmental behavior is shaped by environmental cognition, social and biophysical context and dynamics, and interventions. Sullivan-Wileys work aims to improve the human condition through a healthier human-environment system, focusing specifically on people with resource-based livelihoods who are often at the intersection of environmental and economic interventions. She is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.

Click here to download the PDF.

Posted 2 days ago on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020 in 2020, News

Tagged: Conservation, Post-doctoral Associates

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New Paper: Changing Conservation Behavior by Changing the Behavior of Conservation Programs | The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the...

Human Behavior

Simulation platform teaches students the fundamentals of responses to pandemics – News-Medical.Net

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Sep 3 2020

In 2015, a team of specialists in modeling disease outbreaks got together with educators to create Operation Outbreak, an educational platform and simulation intended to teach high school and college students the fundamentals of responses to pandemics.

The program, which is open source and freely available, was designed to simulate outbreaks with different variables (such as R0 and mode of transmission) and to generate data in the context of real human behavior. It includes a Bluetooth-based app that carries out contact tracing by recording transmission events between phones. The details are highlighted in a Commentary published August 31 in the journal Cell.

Operation Outbreak came about after Todd Brown, then a middle school teacher in Florida, contacted Pardis Sabeti (@PardisSabeti), a computational biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, after reading a profile of her in a magazine. He and his students were studying the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and he was developing a simulation of how the virus spread using stickers.

As they continued to work together, Sabeti and her team, including Andrs Colubri (@codeanticode), at the time a computational scientist in her lab, began studying mumps outbreaks across Boston college campuses. The idea to create an educational app that "spread" viruses through Bluetooth was soon born. And as recently as December 2019, they were running simulations modeling the outbreak of a virus with a very similar modus operandi to SARS-CoV-2.

We decided to use a SARS-like virus since it had been high on many pandemic researchers' lists as a concern. To make the simulation more challenging, we included an element of asymptomatic spread. This was a natural concern that would elevate a pandemic's potential even further."

Andrs Colubri, University of Massachusetts Medical School

This summer, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread, Operation Outbreak was rolled out to 2,000 students in Chicago who were participating as "social distancing ambassadors" as part of the One Summer Chicago program. Participants used the app to track and trace behaviors and learn how "infections" spread in different parts of the city.

"The platform and curriculum are very flexible from an academic and also an experiential learning standpoint," Brown says. "We tried to gamify the education, so that players' behaviors and decisions affect not only them, but the entire group they're playing with."

The simulation includes elements that have become a familiar part of our daily lives, like limitations in testing abilities and shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE). The program also offers the ability to simulate additional elements that could arise in the current pandemic or in future ones, such as other circulating viruses that can complicate diagnosis.

"We are in one of the most unique situations in the history of the world, by virtue of being able to engage students," says Brown, who is now community outreach director at Sarasota Military Academy. "Kids are more primed to learn when something directly affects them and their families. This is a chance for future generations to become aware of how infections spread and to recognize warning signs."

"I hope we can convey that we don't have to wait for the next pandemic to learn how to respond to them," Sabeti says. "Ultimately, we can exquisitely model every aspect of viruses and how they spread, even in the ways that we react through vaccines, protective gear, and diagnostics."

The team has put together a scalable curriculum, including a textbook and series of educational videos, that can be integrated at schools around the country. The materials, which have been funded by philanthropy, are open source and are available for free.

Source:

Journal reference:

Colubri, A., et al. (2020) Preventing outbreaks through interactive, experiential real-life simulations. Cell. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.042.

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Simulation platform teaches students the fundamentals of responses to pandemics - News-Medical.Net

Human Behavior

Digital and green competitive advantages – Chinadaily.com.cn – Chinadaily USA

MA XUEJING/CHINA DAILY

Reforms needed to promote the structural adjustment to drive China's economic growth over the next decade

China's economic performance in the first half of the year was generally in line with expectationssome economic indicators even exceeded expectations. The export industry recovered quickly after the novel coronavirus pandemic was essentially controlled and it realized positive growth in June. The competitiveness of China's export sector has been highlighted by its resilience during the pandemic, and China has strengthened its position as a major exporter. But whether exports will come under pressure after the third quarter remains to be seen. At the same time, the recovery in demand has been slower than supply.

There are more institutions on the supply side and more individuals on the demand side. Compared with individuals, institutions are generally more susceptible to policy drivers.

In response to the pandemic, China's fiscal and monetary policies have been appropriate, ensuring sufficient but not excessive liquidity. But in June, both the growth rates of social finance and the M2 money supply reached the highest levels in recent years, significantly widening the gap between them and GDP growth. The recent stock market rally has clearly not been supported by earnings, and there are signs of rising housing prices in some cities.

From a monetary standpoint, it is difficult to withdraw the liquidity that has been released. We have to consider both the issue of debt repayment in the medium and long term, and how to deal with bubbles and the flow of capital in the near future. There are some areas where we do not want capital inflows, and must even take measures to prevent them, such as the housing market and the stock market, while there are other areas where we want money to flow in, such as the real economy, but policy expectations and human behavior are sometimes inconsistent, and that is the problem we have need to solve right now.

After the third quarter, although the pandemic may not have been eliminated, the economy will gradually return to the track of normal growth, and macro policies should be adjusted accordingly. For now, policy should not be tightened significantly, but we should consider how to prevent bubbles and unwanted capital flows.

If we divide the key features driving the Chinese economy under the impact of the pandemic into two halves, the first half can be characterized by macro-assistance and recovery of growth, and the second half by macro-policies and structural adjustment, which refers to the development potential of China, as a late-developing economy, in terms of technological progress, the upgrading of its industrial and consumption structures and its urbanization process.

The future development of urban circles and city clusters will serve as the driver, from which 70 to 80 percent of China's economic growth potential over the next decade will come, as urban circles and city clusters can generate higher agglomeration effects, which is reflected in the dynamic of current population mobility.

Also, the digital economy and green development will have an impact on all sectors of society. Recently, the European Union, notably Germany and France, proposed "two pillars" of economic recoverydigital technology and green development. China, with its advanced concepts in this regard and considerable market scale, has every chance to form a new competitive advantage built on these two pillars, which will not only help it to catch up but also lead the transformation of development patterns around the world.

Unleashing the potential of structural adjustment requires further reform. Apart from formulating macro policies, we also need to focus on key areas, boost market confidence and expectations, and introduce some major reform and opening-up measures.

First, we need to promote reform of spatial planning and public resource allocation, uphold the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, and be flexible on population mobility. The cities with the largest population inflows in recent years, such as Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and Shenzhen in Guangdong province, are good examples of market forces. Urbanization should be people-centered. Land allocation and financial subsidies should be in line with population flows. And urban planning should be regularly adjusted according to changes in the distribution of the population.

Second, in the pillar industries, such as oil and gas, electricity, railroads, communications and finance, there should be some actions in liberalizing access and promoting competition. For example, reform of the oil and gas industry could not only drive effective investment but also reduce the basic costs of production and living in the real economy and society as a whole.

Third, we should make doubling the size of the middle-income group another important strategy. China has a huge market, but the transformation of consumption capacity into production and innovation capacity is yet to be done. The development of the digital economy in recent years is the result of a business models based on China's huge consumer market, using income growth to promote the improvement of production and innovation capacity.

China should not be content with being the world's largest consumer market, but strive to become a major innovator with the most efficient industrial chain and the most adaptable and productive manufacturing base, among other things.

The author is an academic consultant of China Finance 40 Forum and deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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Human Behavior

Updated: Over 800 UI students quarantining on and off campus – Daily Illini

Ryan Ash

The entrance to the North East section of Weston Hall remains locked on Aug. 26. Some of the students in quarantine are currently residing in the first floor of this section of Weston Hall.

Updated Sept. 3, 5:30 p.m.

About 800 students are quarantining after potential exposure to COVID-19, University officials confirmed Wednesday.

This is a marked increase since Monday, when 529 students were quarantining or isolating after exposure or infection to COVID-19.

The University reported over 500 new cases of COVID-19 from its saliva tests in just span three days. There were 104 new cases Sunday, 230 on Monday and another 199 new cases from tests conducted on Tuesday.

Awais Vaid of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District said around 95% of on-campus cases, maybe more, are from students.

On Monday, there were 259 UI students isolating on and off campus after testing positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, another 270 students were quarantining after potential exposure to a COVID-positive person.

Of the students whove tested positive for COVID-19, 80 were isolating in University Housing beds and 179 were isolating in off-campus properties like apartments, houses or private certified housing.

Of the students who are quarantining, 47 were staying in residence hall beds and 223 on off-campus properties.

University officials mentioned these figures at the Senate Executive Committee meeting on Monday.

So far, two students staying in the dorms have completed their isolation, and 26 have completed their quarantine. Students who test positive for COVID-19 must isolate for at least 10 days before getting tested again, said Awais Vaid, deputy administrator for the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District.

The University has 448 total beds 179 for isolation and 275 for quarantine reserved for students with Housing contracts who test positive for COVID-19 or come into close contact with a COVID-positive person.

Scott, Snyder, Hopkins, Weston and Bousfield in Champaign, and Babcock, Blaisdell, Carr, Saunders, Oglesby and Trelease halls in Urbana are the primary locations for these rooms.

Barton, Lundgren, Leonard and Shelden halls are secondary locations for quarantine and isolation, University Housing spokesperson Chelsea Hamilton said.

All rooms dedicated to quarantine and isolation are on self-contained floors, wings and suites within the dorms, she said, and isolating students are held in separate zones from the quarantining students.

At Mondays meeting, Provost Andreas Cangellaris emphasized that human behavior was the most important element of success.He said the majority of students are obeying COVID-19 precautions with twice-a-week testing, mask-wearing and social distancing.

I will say, there is a minority that is not, Cangellaris added.

Some students whove been isolated for a positive test are going multiple times and getting tested in the hope that they will test negative, Vaid said.

Professor Nigel Goldenfeld, one of the lead modelers for the Universitys SHIELD COVID response team, told the News-Gazette that 318 additional cases after move-in week is higher than we would like.

It is like the expression youre building the plane while you are flying it, Cangellaris said during Mondays meeting. I will tell you, its not only like building the plane while you are flying it, you are building the plane while the plane is accelerating.

@esimmsnews

[emailprotected]

Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect current numbers provided by the University.

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Updated: Over 800 UI students quarantining on and off campus - Daily Illini

Human Behavior

How To Tell If You Have A Six-Figure Business Idea – Forbes

No one wants to waste time on an online course that doesnt sell or build a product that just collects dust in a warehouse. So how can you figure out which ideas are worthy of being put out to market and which ones you should forget you ever thought up?

Kirsty Fanton, a six-figure launch copywriter who specializes in working with creatives, incorporates her nearly ten years of experience as a psychotherapist into the art of her copywriting in order to create copy that converts.

Fanton gave me the three step process she used to come up with her idea for Brain Camp, an online course that has made me more than six figures in just 15 months.

How To Tell If You Have A Six-Figure Business Idea | Stephanie Burns

Step 1: Analysis

The ideas with the best chance of success are those that are a direct response to what people ask you for, time and time again. Think about those emails from your subscribers that say, Any chance youll be offering X anytime soon..? the additional service your clients keep requesting, or that thing your mastermind buddies keep asking for your help with, says Fanton.If youre in the game long enough, there will be patterns to these requests, and somewhere in there is your six-figure idea.

Keep in mind that this request may well be something you dismiss as too easy or too niche. In my case, it was a repeated request to share how my understanding of human behavior shaped my copy - something I hadnt realized was so valuable, given Id spent the first part of my career in the world of psychotherapy and academia, where everyone knew what I did,notes Fanton.

So keep your eyes and ears open for these repeated requests - they might just spark your six-figure idea.

Step 2: Inquiry

Once youve nailed down the big-picture nature of the idea, share it with your prospects to get specific feedback and requests. The more deliberate you can be with what you ask, the better, which means structured surveys are an excellent tool to use.

If youve followed step 1, youll be presenting your prospects with something theyve been asking for, so the chance to help shape it should be icing on the cake, suggests Fanton. However, we humans are inherently lazy creatures, so it pays to remove as much friction as possible from the process.

To that end, use whatever format makes it easiest for your prospects to respond. For example, if youve got an active following on Instagram, post questions in your Instagram stories. If youve got an engaged email list, send out a link to a survey. Make sure you frame the survey in a way that makes it clear what your prospects have to gain from responding.

For example, try The insights you share will help me create something thats chock-full of value for YOU or the more detailed your intel, the more tailored this thing can be. A frame like this is much more motivating than a simple request for help, notes Fanton.

When it comes to what to ask in a survey, its almost always a good idea to get more information on:

Step 3: Assessment

Once your prospects have provided feedback on your big-picture idea, look for patterns in those responses. Youll never be able to please everyone, but there WILL be trends in the data that you can leverage.

As you comb through the responses, keep an open mind, suggests Fanton. Its far less important for you to create something thats 100% aligned with your initial vision than it is for you to create something people will actually buy, use, and get results from.

For example, when I created Brain Camp my small group program on the psychology behind high-performing copy, I went into the process thinking people would want to get their head around the science that goes into the copy itself.After one quick look at the responses to my survey, it was clear that was only part of the puzzle. They also wanted help with the research phase of a project.

As a result, I built the first module around survey design, interview skills, and making sense of the data, and its one of the parts of the program that helps people the most. If I hadnt taken the time to get feedback on my idea, this module wouldnt have existed, which would have made the program less appealing for my prospects, less transformational for the people inside, and less successful for my business, explains Fanton.

This 3-step process doesnt have to take long, by the way. My first six-figure idea was Brain Camp. I went from idea to launch in three weeks, and within 15 months that idea had brought $111,634 into my business, even though I launched the (far from perfect) beta round to a teeny tiny list of 250 people.

In other words, if you think youre not ready, youre ready enough.Build what people want, solve a problem for them and you are well on your way to a six-figure business.

See more here:
How To Tell If You Have A Six-Figure Business Idea - Forbes

Human Behavior

California Crop Production to Be Impacted by Warming Temperatures – AgNet West

Research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory demonstrates how warming temperatures are going to affect California crop production. The study looked at five annual crops that are primarily produced in California. The lead author of the research paper, Alison Marklein explained to AgNet West that four different scenarios were used to predict what temperatures would be like by mid-century.

We compared those temperature ranges with the temperatures that crops can grow at and determined when the temperatures would be appropriate for the crops for enough months in a row for the duration of that crops growing season, said Marklein.

California crop production for vegetables such as broccoli and lettuce may actually benefit from warmer temperatures according to the study. Weather conditions on the central coast, where the majority of production takes place, may accommodate a longer window of production. Warming temperatures could provide winter conditions suitable for growing the crops.

Their growing season can actually extend as the fall and spring season are bridged together by the winter, Marklein noted. So, it can be grown from the fall through the spring which actually provides more time and more flexibility in when the cool-season crops can be grown.

According to the study, not all California crop production will fare as well as the cool-season crops. Carrot and cantaloupe production will be negatively impacted by higher temperatures to varying degrees. Of the crops that were looked at, the biggest risk created by warming temperatures is for tomato production.

We found between 34 and 87 percent of the land historically used for tomatoes will have temperatures appropriate for them in the future. So, that means we could lose 13 percent of that land or 66 percent of that land, said Marklein. There is that really big range because there is some uncertainty in the future regarding climate change and especially human behavior and how were going to mitigate it.

One of the mitigation techniques Marklein is referring to is irrigation. The research was centered on air temperatures and not crop temperature, so there is an opportunity to offset some of the negative impacts of higher temperatures with appropriate irrigation. Now a project scientist at UC Riverside, Marklein noted that the hope is to continue the research to include a broader range of crops.

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California Crop Production to Be Impacted by Warming Temperatures - AgNet West